Atlas Shrugs

July 4, 2009: CAIR/ISNA THUGGERY VS. LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

There are two Americas indeed. One for beleaguered, put-upon patriots under siege for their love of country, the Constitution, freedom of speech, and individual rights. The other is the "special class" that oppresses and subjugates us on a daily basis. Individualism vs collectivism. Islamic supremacism vs democracy.

Today was the kick-off of  the Islamic Society of North America conference in Washington DC. The timing could not be more deliberate. Sort of like the North Koreans firing missiles on the Fourth of July. ISNA is as compatible with American values and freedoms as sharia is compatible with democracy.

As you read the following account, bear in mind that Obama's Department of Justice and the FBI had teamed with these groups.

Dave Gaubatz attended the ISNA conference (or at least attempted to); what follows is his  experience. Dave Gaubatz was the first U.S. civilian (1811) Federal Agent deployed to Iraq in 2003. He is the owner of DG Counter-terrorism Publishing. He is currently conducting a 50 State Counter-terrorism Research Tour (CTRT). He can be contacted at davegaubatz@gmail.com.

Here is what Dave wrote:

Quick synopsis, of course more coming out later tonight/tomorrow:

1. Went to ISNA/DC to check in. I had prepaid $100.00 fee and had my registration.

2. It was apparent I was 'flagged'.

3. 8 or 9 ISNA and other men surround me.

4. They refused to tell me who they are or why they want me to leave.

5. One then said, "CAIR wants you out."

6. They began crowding me. I was professional and told them to step away from me, tell me who they are, and why was I being illegally detained.

7. I told them this could have been avoided if ISNA would have emailed me a cancellation. I told them I want my $100.00 back. Meanwhile I was asking them some tough questions they could not answer.

8. Then the group led me out of the convention; still no names of who they were.

9. I was on the street and noticed at least 3 DC patrol cars. I took pictures. Then I started walking toward my parked car. One patrol car was following me slowly. I stopped took a few pictures of him. Then walked to my car.

10. I got in my car. Three Patrol cars surrounded me and surrounded my vehicle. I was told to get out.

11. I asked what was the problem. Finally one officer showed me a picture CAIR had given them and told them I was a threat. It had four pictures. 3 were with me in Iraq with my M-16 and 9mm, and two I was holding AK-47s in Iraq. CAIR had photocopied the picture of me helping a sick iraqi child from the picture. Then CAIR had cropped my head shot onto a Nazi uniform (which was obvious).

12. The lead cop said this is all CAIR had given them. I told them about the pictures, my background in Iraq, and who I was. They knew nothing of this.

13. CAIR and ISNA had essentially tried to get me killed. The officer said they just had the holocaust shooting. CAIR intentionally misled the officers to make them believe I was just someone who carries guns. CAIR failed to tell them these were pictures from Iraq when I was serving my country.

Bit frustrated right now and hope we can get American people to respond legally or more and more of this will happen to innocent Americans.

What happened to Mr. Gaubatz is an outrage.  Bear in mind this is America, and these very same Islamists invoke our freedoms to kill our freedom. They invoke freedom of speech to kill freedom of speech. They use lawfare and litigation jihad to silence truth tellers. Dave will be writing a full recounting of today's events, but look at his report thus far.

It's pretty clear CAIR/ISNA tried to have this man killed or arrested. Expose Islam and risk your life. CAIR/ISNA distributing photos of "threats" to the police is like the Nazis distributing photos of Jews. They are this century's Nazis. Shouldn't law enforcement know who the good guys are?

This is America? They set up Gaubatz. They know who he is. Clearly, CAIR and ISNA were hoping for a larger incident.

Gaubatz was surrounded by nine people who had no identification (they were just wearing suits) when he attempted to register. He asked who they were. Only one of the nine spoke to him; the others just glared.  The one who did speak to him asked if he could come with them. He repeatedly asked who they were, because he was not going to go with a group of nine men unless he knew who they were. The individual who was speaking to him refused to identify himself. He asked for a manager, again, because he was not going to walk away with a group of people that he did not know. The only answer he received was, "our parent organization said you were a threat". He was surrounded for just under a half hour. Finally, one individual, who identified himself as being with the convention center, spoke to Gaubatz. When Gaubatz asked why he was being asked to leave, he stated repeatedly, "I don't know why"..."They just said you didn't register"..."I really don't know". 

They did not say why he was on their list, but if you read the Frontpage magazine article about the Cease and Desist letter, this is exactly why he was on the list. His main point for legal recourse is that all of this could have been avoided if ISNA had called or sent an email asking him not to be there. Clearly this was done intentionally, with the hopes that DC police would respond to their false claim of threats and the picture of Gaubatz's war photos and picture of him photoshopped in a Nazi uniform.

Here is an excerpt from the Frontpage article:

CAIR has actually just sent me a letter from the law firm of Martin F. McMahon & Associates pertaining to my upcoming attendance at the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) conference to be held in Washington , during the 4^th of July holiday.

FP: What did the letter say?

Gaubatz: First let me emphasize what I have said for several years:

[1] It is my professional opinion that CAIR and its executives are terrorist supporters and their ‘non profit’ and IRS endorsed organization should have never been allowed to open almost 15 years ago.

[2] It is also my professional opinion that anyone or organization supporting CAIR or its ideology supports terrorism and are a national security threat to our country.

[3] A different acronym used does not change the ideology. CAIR is ISNA, ISNA is MSA, and MSA is MANA (Imam Siraj Wahhaj). These are different people representing the same ideology of an Islamic Ummah (Nation) under Sharia law.

[4] Many of our law enforcement executives of various agencies have lost sight of who they work for. They do not work for Saudi financed CAIR or ISNA, they work for America and its citizens

Gaubatz: The letter is a notice for me to cease and desist from contacting CAIR and its reps both at the ISNA convention and anytime afterwards.

Read the whole thing here. Very informative on the intimidation tactics of CAIR/ISNA.

Gaubatz is making his statement and filing charges tomorrow. He did feel threatened because of being surrounded, and felt like he could not safely leave the area. DC police will decide, based on his statement, which charge is appropriate. 

When Gaubatz was leaving the convention, there were two police cars out front. Two officers behind him (he did not see them at any time) subsequently got in one of the cars and tailed him to his car (which was parked across the street). He got into his vehicle, and then an officer approached and asked him to step out of the vehicle. The officer said, "You know why we're asking you to get out of the vehicle", to which Gaubatz replied, "No I don't".  To which the officer said, "Well, we've got this picture. Can you tell me about all these guns" (referencing a picture of Gaubatz serving in Iraq with M-16, and 9mm military issue).  Gaubatz then told him that they were pictures of him in the war for this country. Gaubatz then told him that the picture of him in a Nazi uniform was obviously a photoshop. The officer then stated, "You understand with the holocaust shooting...". They asked if they could search his trunk. He stated, No, I have been harassed enough, if you want to get a warrant, I'll wait all day. The officer exchanged cards with him. The officers were just doing their jobs, because they had been duped into following up this lead based on faulty intel.

 

The main point of concern here is that CAIR/ISNA gave misleading information to law enforcement that put Gaubatz's life in jeopardy. At any time when he was leaving, if had reached into his bag, the police, acting on faulty information from CAIR/ISNA, would have assumed he was a threat and drawn on him, or worse (like the officer said, considering the Holocaust shooting). CAIR/ISNA purposely used the Nazi uniform photo to get this effect from law enforcement. CAIR/ISNA did not inform law enforcement that these pictures were of him serving in the war (with the guns), and the police must have believed he was a threat based on this information. They wanted the incident to escalate; otherwise they would have just sent him an email and a refund online requesting that he not attend.

Here is a copy of Dave's confirmation and registration for ISNA.

Obama's administration is partnering with these enemies of freedom: Patrick Poole has a scathing indictment of Eric Holder's Department of Justice and ISNA.

Here is an  account of a pro-freedom rally across the street from the conference:

July 4, 2009 - Independence Day: Defending Equality And Liberty at DC ISNA Conference

On July 4, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) members stood outside of the DC Convention Center in the Mt. Vernon Square across the street to challenge the Washington DC ISNA convention on the issue of Islamic supremacism.  Per our previous article announcing this protest, we explained why we felt it was necessary to challenge ISNA on this Independence Day - where R.E.A.L. is calling for independence not just for America, but for the rest of humanity from supremacist and totalitarian ideologies.  On this Independence Day, we are also calling for independence from those oppressed by Islamic supremacists as well.

At today’s protest, we stated that as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized the ideological challenge of “white supremacism,” so we too today recognize the ideological challenge of “Islamic supremacism.”   While we realize that such a challenge is not popular with some, we feel that if we are true to courage of convictions on human equality, that on July 4, as on every other day, we must defy such supremacist ideologies.

One of R.E.A.L.'s signs at the July 4 DC Rally for Equality And Liberty

We challenged ISNA to address the universal human right of EQUALITY, including equality of women, homosexuals, non-Muslims, and different Muslim sects.  We challenged ISNA that without equality, we have no life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.  We challenged Americans to remember, especially on July 4, that in our Declaration of Independence we view human equality as “a truth that we hold self-evident.”  Equality is the foundation to all of our other universal human rights.

We asked ISNA this question:  “when will you condemn Islamic supremacism?”

Responsible for Equality And Liberty at ISNA Conference - July 4, 2009

We asked ISNA - “when will you start addressing the stonings and honor killings of women and homosexuals by Islamic supremacists around the world?”   We asked ISNA - “when will you acknowledge the use of Sharia in the deaths, mutilations, and amputations of women, non-Muslims, and Muslims around the world?”   We spent two hours going over specific examples of the repression, torture, mutilations, stoning, honor killings, and murders of women, other Muslims, non-Muslims, homosexuals and others who Islamic surpremacists have viewed as a threat.   We stated that on this Independence Day, we must speak for those suffering from oppression from Islamic supremacism around the world.

We explained that our universal human rights are not dependent on any religion, and we explained our universal human rights must be consistent for all people around the world.  Some ISNA convention goers stated to us that universal human rights don’t matter to them; they stated that the only rights that matter to them where those based on their religion.  We challenge that supremacist view on “human rights,” both as Americans and as fellow human beings.  We declare that our universal human rights apply - no matter your religion, your gender, your race, or your identity - our universal human rights apply to every human being.

We also announced our ORANGE RIBBON campaign for equality and liberty, and provided handouts to those going to the ISNA convention to educate them on their universal human rights and our campaign to defend such rights.   We have chosen ORANGE as our symbol for universal human rights that apply to all our fellow human beings on Earth.

Orange Ribbon for Universal Human Rights - Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)

Several individuals going to the ISNA conference did not like what we had to say.  Those individuals sought to shout us down.  However, the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department stepped in to defend our right to freedom of speech.

Several individuals going to the ISNA conference did not like what we had to say.  Those individuals sought to shout us down.  However, the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department stepped in to defend our right to freedom of speech.

July 4 - DC - Some ISNA Conference Members Don't Like R.E.A.L.'s Challenge to Islamic Supremacism and Defense of Universal Human Rights

R.E.A.L.'s Jeffrey Imm pauses while DC Police explain to ISNA conference go-ers about our right to free speech and organized protest

July 4 - R.E.A.L. Continues Its Message Challenging Islamic Supremacism and Defending Universal Human Rights

We also asked ISNA how it could have a theme of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” when it not only ignored the foundation of EQUALITY that is the basis for all of our universal human rights, but also had speakers who have defended or been unwilling to challenge Islamic supremacism.

– Siraj Wahhaj was a character witness for convicted 1993 World Trade Center terrorist “blind sheik” Omar Rahman, has called for replacing the American government with a caliphate.  According to Siraj Wahhaj, “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional govt. with a caliphate. If we were united and strong, he said, we would elect our own emir and give allegiance to him. Take my word if 8 million Muslims unite in America, the country will come to us.”

– Hamza Yusef (also spelled Hamza Yousuf or Hamza Yousef) has described Judaism as a “most racist religion,” and who promotes Jihad stating that Jihad is the duty and responsibility of all Muslims, further stating that “Jihad is actually considered a Rahma (mercy) in Islam.”  Yusef’s idea of “compromise” is that “There are times when you have to live like a sheep in order to live in the future like a lion.”

– Zaid Shakir has stated “Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country”

– ISNA’s Ingrid Mattson has defended the idea of an Islamic supremacist caliphate, and has portrayed Christians as a threat to Jews.  On the idea of the Islamic supremacist caliphate, she has stated that “the overthrowing of the caliphate… was a plan of European powers for many years. This deprived the Muslim world of a stable and centralized authority, and much of the chaos that we’re living in today is the result of that.”  Ingrid Mattson also claims that “Muslim women have the same legal rights as Muslim men,” when we see daily how women are treated as second-class human beings by Islamic supremacists who seek the same “caliphate” that Ingrid Mattson defends.

On July 3, the ISNA conference also had Ihsan Bagby speak on “compelling history of Islam in the Americas and highlight the extraordinary contributions of Muslims to the American experience.”   But what has ISNA speaker Ihsan Bagby said about America?  According to Ihsan Bagby, “we [Muslims] can never be full citizens of this country… because there is no way we can be fully committed to the institutions and ideologies of this country.”

Read the rest here.

Previously at Atlas, and related:

FBI LEADERSHIP GUILTY OF CONSPIRING WITH ISLAMIC JIHAD: PARTNERS WITH ISNA

Department of State’s Criterion in Partnering with Jihadists in America

Ever since Obama took office, we have been scratching our heads trying to understand how and why he is reaching out to hardcore jihad-supporting Muslims. I documented the dangerous partnership of ISNA with the FBI. Patrick Poole has a scathing indictment of Eric Holder's Department of Justice and ISNA.  It's no accident, it's systemic. And it is sanctioned at the highest levels of government.

ISNA, CAIR, FBI AND Department of Justice Axis of  Jihad...

FREE SPEECH ATTACK: Maine Fines Group for ‘Inflammatory Anti-Muslim Message’

A flagrant, blatant  violation of the first amendment. Freedom of speech in the age of jihad.

Maine Fines Group for ‘Inflammatory Anti-Muslim Message’ Patrick Poole

An organization in the national spotlight recently for producing a documentary identifying several dozen potential terrorist training compounds in the U.S. has offended the sensibilities of Maine bureaucrats, who have fined the organization $4,000, alleging among other things that the group sent out mailings containing an “inflammatory anti-Muslim message.”

The group in question, the Christian Action Network (CAN), received notice of the fines and the fundraising ban in a May 6 letter from Elaine Thibodeau of the State of Maine’s Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. Enclosed in the letter was a prepared consent agreement for CAN to sign agreeing to all of the state’s allegations, waiving all rights to appeal, and agreeing to pay the $4,000 fine. As part of the consent agreement, CAN is required to agree to all of the state’s allegations, including their assertion that their mailing amounted to hate speech.

“These bogus charges and fines the State of Maine has imposed are nothing but an attempt to stifle our free speech and silence our organization from speaking out about the steady creep of radical Islam in America,” CAN president Martin Mawyer told Pajamas Media. “We fully intend to appeal the state’s penalties because if they successfully silence us here, we will quickly find that we won’t be able to speak out anywhere.”

CAN was in the news earlier this year following the release of their documentary, Homegrown Jihad, which details dozens of compounds across the U.S. operated by Pakistani Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, who has previously been identified in State Department reports as a terrorist leader, and his group, Jamaat al-Fuqra. The documentary looks into the past terrorist acts of the group in the U.S., including the assassination of two moderate Muslim leaders, the firebombing of non-Muslim religious facilities, and an investigation by Colorado authorities that led to convictions and lengthy prison sentences. These activities have been covered in several FBI domestic terrorism reports and a more recent assessment by the Center for Policing Terrorism. Other prominent convicted terrorists, including “shoe-bomber” Richard Reid, D.C. Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad, and NYC landmarks bomb plotter Clement Rodney Hampton-El, have been identified as former members.

But what has Maine bureaucrats roiling is a fundraising mailing sent by CAN (a copy of which was provided to Pajamas Media) regarding a public school curriculum used in California requiring students to pray to Allah, dress up as Muslims, adopt Muslim names, and learn the five pillars of Islam. Since Christians and Jews are not given similar accommodations, CAN encouraged their supporters to send a petition to Maine Gov. John Baldacci asking him to prevent such instruction in Maine public schools.

Read it all.

NASHVILLE LOEW'S HOTEL CAVES TO MUSLIMS AND CANCELS WILDERS EVENT

Last month, Muslim groups threatened and intimidated the Marriott in Del Ray into canceling our Freedom of Speech Summit featuring Geert Wilders. Organizers scrambled and we held an enormously successful summit despite Muslim oppression. Further, CAIR called for Representative Adam Hasner's resignation just because he attended a dinner with Wilders.

Once again, Muslim groups have taken a club to our first amendment, freedom of speech, and succeeded in threatening and bullying the Loew's in Nashville.

Nashville is a gateway city where the State department drops whole communities of Somali Muslims. This is the same city that refused to investigate the horrific allegations made by a Muslim child of abuse suffered in shariah classes at the Al Farooq mosque.

Once again the Muslims use freedom of speech to kill freedom of speech. They invoke democracy to impose Islamic supremacism on our basic freedoms - speech and freedom of assembly.

Shame on Loew's for not standing up for America and our basic inalienable human rights. This is dhimmitude. Period.

MUSLIM GROUP SHUTS DOWN CONSERVATIVE CONFERENCE Newsmax

The manager of a prominent Nashville hotel cancelled a contract with a conservative foundation to hold a conference this weekend on radical Islam, apparently after learning that the group would feature a keynote address by controversial Dutch parliamentarian and filmmaker, Geert Wilders.

Muslim groups succeeded in preventing Wilders from screening “Fitna,” his 15-minute movie on radical Islam, in the House of Lords this February, on claims it was insulting to Muslims, and dogged him during a recent U.S. tour as well.

Thomas A. Negri, managing director of Loew’s Vanderbilt Hotel and Office complex in Nashville, told Newsmax on Wednesday that he had taken the extraordinary step of cancelling the conference at the last minute “for the health, safety and well-being of our guests and employees.”

Negri refused to say why he felt the conference would adversely affect the “health, safety and well-being” of the hotel’s guests and employees, except to refer to the website of the New English Review, the group organizing the conference.

The website features articles that warn about radical Islam written by activists, journalists and scholars, including former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, and former Muslim scholar, Ibn Warraq.

One article, written by a retired U.S. army intelligence officer, Jerome Gordon, warns of the growing problems caused by the recent influence of several thousand Somali Muslim refugees who have come to work for a nearby Tysons Food plant to replace illegal Hispanic meat packers.

Negri appeared at a 2003 pro-immigration event on the same dias with a well-known Somali warlord, Gordon told Newsmax.

In a written statement to the conference organizers, Negri said that the hotel had “not received any information related to a specific security threat concerning this event,” and declined to provide any justification for cancelling it at the last minute.

One of the conference organizers told Newsmax on Wednesday that the group was considering a lawsuit against Negri and the Loew’s hotel chain for “unlawful breach of contract.”

UPDATE: Kafir Harby!

FRENCH TURKISH AUTHOR FACES JAIL TIME FOR INSULTING ISLAM

Islamic supremacism on the march. How Orwellian. Someone complained and he faces a year in jail. Our system is broken if this is even possible. This is the work of the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference).

(hat tip Amaros)

The trial of Franco-Turkish writer Nedim Gürsel (pictured) on charges of inciting racial and religious hatred has been adjourned until June. Gürsel has been accused of insulting Islam in "The Daughters of Allah", a novel about the prophet.

Nedim Gürsel left his home in Paris to come to Turkey in order to attend his trial, which is currently taking place in Istanbul.

The Franco-Turkish writer is being tried in the Turkish justice system on charges of inciting racial and religious hatred in his latest book, "The Daughters of Allah", a novel about the life of the Prophet Mohammad.

For this, he faces at least six months to a year in prison.

"I'm stressed and worried because it's not a pleasant thing to be facing a tribunal, especially for having written a novel," said Gürsel. "We tend to forget this in Turkey, but it's just a novel."

The writer is facing the same tribunal that acquitted another famous Turkish novelist, Orhan Pamuk, in 2006 for the charge of insulting Turkishness.

After less than an hour, the hearing was adjourned until June. Gürsel said he was disappointed, having hoped for an acquittal.

"The book does not contain a single sentence that insults Islam," he said. "They have been taken out of context and manipulated [it]."

GEERT WILDERS Setback: “My trial is a political one”

Another huge blow for free speech, free men, and the free world. Wilders defines courage.

Prosecution of Wilders to go ahead  Dutch News

Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-Islam party PVV, will definitely be prosecuted for inciting hatred against Muslims and Islam, news agency ANP writes on Wednesday.

A request by Wilders’ lawyer Bram Moscowicz to have the decision to prosecute quashed has been rejected by the Dutch supreme court.

Amsterdam appeal court said in January Wilders should stand trial for hate speech and discrimination. The public prosecution department had said earlier there were not sufficient grounds to prosecute the MP.

The anti-immigration MP said he expected ‘a political trial’. ‘I am being prosecuted for something millions of Dutch people are thinking... Freedom of speech is being sacrificed on the altar of islam. But I am ready to fight back with my head held high’, he added.

If they go ahead, they will ensure Wilders' victory in the race to become the next Dutch Prime Minister. He might well be the first Prime Minister to serve from jail. Of this I am sure. He best start preparing his  closing remarks in the trial. It will be John Galt's speech (or Hank Reardon's when he addressed the jury).

We await Wilders' speech to the world.

OIC FREE SPEECH ALERT: Islamic Supremacism on the Net?

Jihad finds Andy Hardy.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference will doubtless demand the suppression of websites that "insult Islam" or "encourage hatred," and a number of European countries may well go along.

Atlas readers are well aware and sagaciously wary of the goals of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). I have, many times, outlined their nefarious goals and sinister objectives.

It was only a matter of time before Islam went after the internet and sought to impose its domination on the web. The OIC  (the global voice of the ummah - the universal Muslim community) have set their sights on suppression of free speech on the net. The OIC has already gotten passed a proposal in the UN, backed by Muslims nations, urging the passage of laws around the world protecting religion from criticism. Islam is the only religion specifically named as deserving protection.

Websites like mine are the ones that dare speak of the truth of Islam and report on the terrible human rights abuses, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu etc persecution, suppression of women and children, the murder of non-believers, brutal imposition of shariah law, Islamic supremacism, academic jihad, social  jihad, cultural jihad, shariah finance, stealth jihad and the galloping global jihad. The corrupt media are already subdued and auto-censor themselves. The net is all there is.

Expect a fierce fight. And don't expect the left to fight - despite the fact that it is a fundamental "liberal" value". The fascists on the left would like to silence the rational, the reasoned, the logical. They won't be targeted ............ not at first (but certainly at last).

Here's the latest attack on the West by the global jihad. File this move under "stealth jihad" or quiet jihad or soft jihad, though its anything but.

WHO CONTROLS THE NET Ariel Rabkin, Weekly Standard

In order to please our European allies and our Third World critics, the Obama administration may be tempted to surrender one particular manifestation of American "dominance": central management of key aspects of the Internet by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Other countries are pushing for more control. Early this year, British cabinet member Andy Burnham told the Daily Telegraph that he was "planning to negotiate with Barack Obama's incoming American administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites." It would be a mistake for the administration to go along. America's special role in managing the Internet is good for America and good for the world.

Internet domain names (such as www.google.com) are managed hierarchically. At the top of the hierarchy is an entity called IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, operated on behalf of the Commerce Department. The U.S. government therefore has the ultimate authority to review or revoke any decision, or even to transfer control of IANA to a different operator.

Until now, the management of the Domain Name System has been largely apolitical, and most of the disputes that have arisen have been of interest only to insiders and the technology industry. IANA has concerned itself with fairly narrow questions like "Should we allow names ending in .info?" Commercial questions about ownership of names, like other property disputes, are settled in national courts. Political questions like "Who is the rightful government of Pakistan, and therefore the rightful owner of the .pk domain?" are settled by the U.S. Department of State

The State Department? Great.

There are persistent proposals to break the connection between IANA and the U.S. government. In these schemes, IANA would be directed by some international body, such as the United Nations or the International Telecommunication Union, which coordinates international phone networks. It is unclear what problem such proposals attempt to solve. There have been no serious complaints about American stewardship of the Internet, no actual abuses perpetrated by American overseers. But were we to abdicate this stewardship, a number of difficulties could arise.

Domain names sometimes present political questions. Which side in a civil war should control Pakistan's Internet domain? Should Israel's .il be suspended as punishment for its being an "Apartheid state"? What about Taiwan's .tw if China announces an attempt to "reabsorb its wayward province"?

Perhaps most serious, control of Internet names could become a lever to impose restrictions on Internet content. Many governments already attempt to control speech on the Internet. Some years ago, Yahoo! was subject to criminal proceedings in France for allowing Nazi memorabilia to be auctioned on its website. Britain, Canada, and Australia all have mandatory nationwide blacklists of banned sites, managed by nongovernmental regulators with minimal political oversight. Such blacklists can have unpredictable consequences: Wikipedia was badly degraded to British users for some hours because of a poorly designed censorship system targeting child pornography.

If we give control of the Internet naming infrastructure to an international organization, we must expect attempts to censor the Internet. The Organization of the Islamic Conference will doubtless demand the suppression of websites that "insult Islam" or "encourage hatred," and a number of European countries may well go along. 

Most countries lack our First Amendment tradition, and if we wish to protect the free speech rights of Americans online, we should not allow Internet domain names to be hostage to foreign standards. Many other First World countries already have government-imposed restrictions on Internet speech that we would not contemplate here. Even if Internet governance were shared only with First World democracies, they might urge and ultimately demand that domain operators impose restrictions on content.

There's much more. Go.

This must be vigorously fought. It is every American's patriotic duty to stand for our basic inalienable human rights. I know which side Obama is on -- and it's not ours.

Bat Ye'or wrote here of the OIC:

The OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental organizations in the world
. It encompasses 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. Spread over four continents, it claims to speak in the name of the ummah (the universal Muslim community), which numbers about 1.3 billion. The OIC’s mission is to unite all Muslims worldwide by rooting them in the Koran and the Sunnah — the core of traditional Islamic civilization and values. It aims at strengthening solidarity and cooperation among all its members, in order to protect the interests of Muslims everywhere and to galvanize the ummah into a unified body.

The OIC is a unique organization — one that has no equivalent in the world. It unites the religious, economic, military, and political strength of 56 states. By contrast, the European Union represents half as many states and is a secular body only, and the Vatican — which speaks for the world’s 1.1 billion Catholics — is devoid of any political power. Many Muslims in the West resist the OIC’s tutelage and oppose its efforts to supplant Western law with sharia. But the OIC’s resources are formidable.

The organization has numerous subsidiary institutions collaborating at the highest levels with international organizations in order to implement its political objectives worldwide. Its main working bodies are the Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), which seeks to impose on the West the Islamic perception of history and civilization; the Observatory of Islamophobia, which puts pressure on Western governments and international bodies to adopt laws punishing “Islamophobia” and blasphemy; and the newly created Islamic International Court of Justice. As stated in its 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, the OIC is strictly tied to the principles of the Koran, the Sunnah, and the sharia. In a word, the OIC seeks to become the reincarnation of the Caliphate.

The OIC regularly reiterates its commitments to protecting the political, historical, religious, and human rights of Muslims in non-OIC states, especially Muslims who form the majority in specific regions of non-Muslim countries — such as the southern Philippines, southern Thailand, and western Thrace in Greece — as well as Muslims in places like the Balkans, the Caucasus, Myanmar, India, and China. The OIC supports Hamas and the Palestinians in their struggle to destroy Israel, as well as the Muslim fight for “legitimate self-determination” in “Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.” It has condemned the “continual Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan,” and it expresses its full solidarity with “the just cause of the Muslim Turkish people of Cyprus” and with Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, whom many hold responsible for encouraging the massacres in Darfur. The seat of the OIC is in Jeddah, but the organization regards that location as temporary: Its headquarters will be transferred to al-Kods (Islamized Jerusalem) when that city has been “liberated” from Israeli control.

In its efforts to defend the “true image” of Islam and combat its defamation, the organization has requested the UN and the Western countries to punish “Islamophobia” and blasphemy. Among the manifestations of Islamophobia, in the OIC’s view, are European opposition to illegal immigration, anti-terrorist measures, criticism of multiculturalism, and indeed any efforts to defend Western cultural and national identities. The OIC has massive funding from oil sources, which it lavishly spends on the Western media and academia and in countless “dialogues.” It influences Western policy, laws, and even textbooks through pressures brought by Muslim immigrants and by the Western nations’ own leftist parties. Hence, we have seen Kristallnacht-like incitements of hate and murder against European Jews and Israel conducted with impunity in the cities of Europe — where respect for human rights is supposed to be one of the highest values.

Denmark Caves to Islam: 'Postpones' Geert Wilders and 'Freedom of Speech' Conference

Another win for Islamic supremacists and their agents both here and abroad. The relentless advance of Islam is made possible by the corrupt, the weak, the destroyers. We must stand with Wilders. We must speak for Wilders. Because he stands for all of us. If not us, who? If not now, when?

How ironic that the country that published the Danish cartoons and saved its Jews during the holocaust buckled to Islamic supremacism.

The unusual alliance of leftists, communists, feminists, and militant gays have aligned to malign, destroy and to smear the small band of defenders of freedom. We are all they have - they will not be eaten first, but they will be devoured.

Freedom of speech conference delayed again Copenhagen Post

Worries about inviting Dutch politician Geert Wilders to Denmark leads to further delays for troubled freedom of speech conference

The government will not be inviting controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders to Denmark anytime soon.

Conservative MP Naser Khader, previously of Liberal Alliance, secured funding last year for an international freedom of speech conference, which was due to be held in February.

Late last year it was decided to push the conference back until this June and according to information received by Berlingske Tidende newspaper, the conference has been delayed again because of government’s concern over Geert Wilders.

The integration minister, Birthe Rønn Hornbech, has sent out a memo saying that the free speech and anti-radicalisation conference will not be held before the autumn, ‘in spite of intense work and exploration’ that has gone into preparations.

The Danish People’s Party (DF) had wanted Wilders to attend. The politician has been subjected to death threats and banned from entry into Britain due to his outspoken views on Islam.

DF party leader, Pia Kjærsgaard, said she wants a clear answer to the repeatedly delayed meeting and that it is obvious that the conference is an irritation for the government.

According to the newspaper, the Foreign Ministry has expressed concern that if Wilders turns up to the delayed conference in the autumn it could have a negative affect on the climate summit in December. The ministry is apparently worried that Wilders presence could lead to Muslim countries boycotting the climate conference.

Go Army!

We are a frickin army!

Join the fight!

So the bullies at CAIR got all pissy because JohnWayne Wilders was coming to town. These two bit thugs had the audacity to call for the resignation of the esteemed Representative Adam Hasner because he attended a dinner where Wilders spoke. HOW DARE THEY?

CAIR criticized Rep. Hasner for appearing with me:

Hasner is on the “host committee” for the conference and is pictured on an anti-Islam Internet hate site attending the event. He is shown with Pamela Geller, another conference sponsor, whose blog features categories such as “Advancing Islamic Lies,” “Islam 2008: Religion of Barbarism” and “Slavery: An Arab custom.” Geller has even been criticized by other Islamophobes for her extremism and for supporting far-right groups in Europe. She is currently involved in an Internet “flame war” over her support for an upcoming “Eurofascist” conference in Europe.

How dare they? These enemies of the state only question patriotic Americans.

The Marriott caved to threats and canceled the venue. They will be sued. The Free Speech organizers had to scramble to find another location, which had to be kept secret until the last minute. Each attendee had to be called individually and told of the new location - the Renaissance Hotel (give them your business when your in town ....).

By the way, the Marriott has an egregious record. I called for a boycott a couple of years ago when they canceled on Brigitte Gabriel, but thought nothing of holding CAIR banquets.

What happened to Freedom of Assembly?

What happened to Freedom of Speech?

What happened to the inalienable rights bestowed upon all Americans in the Constitution?

The Constitution and the Quran are not compatible, so WTF are we talking about and why is the stealth jihad winning in this country?

Wilders is calling upon us TO RESIST! TO FIGHT! AGGRESSIVELY! UNAPOLOGETICALLY!

Each one of you is a soldier. Get involved. Report for duty.

UNINIDICTED CO-CONSPIRATOR AND MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD CAIR CALLS FOR GREAT AMERICAN HASNER TO STEP DOWN

Just how in jeopardy are your inalienable rights here in the good ol' USA? Completely.

Imagine this. An un-indicted co-conspirator in a Texas terror trial and front for the Muslim Brotherhood in America is calling for the resignation of  a great American, Representative Adam Hasner, for appearing at a dinner with the honorable MP Geert Wilders.

So the bullies of Islamic supremacism dare to try to quash America's inalienable right to assembly and speech. Why hasn't this thug group been outlawed as treasonous and seditious?

CAIR's intimidation would be comic if it weren't so tragic. In their statement CAIR whines: "the faith of millions of Americans is denigrated and their rights denied". Now I ask you. Whose rights are being denied? Whose freedom is being destroyed? Infidels and kaffirs have allowed our fundamental rights to be revoked, rescinded, removed in submission to Islam. This statement by CAIR is an outrage. We are mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.

Hasner is an excellent man, a natural leader. We need a Congress full of Hasners and we could live in the country our forefathers designed, not the warlord Muhammad.

It is time for Americans to fight back and take back our basic freedoms. Geert Wilders states the obvious and tells the truth. That is not and never will be a crime.

Bottom line: Start contacting Florida's elected officials and let them know you stand with Hasner. Go here.

This cowardly news site ran CAIR's press release line by line. Who is on the Saudi payroll at the Tampa Bay news?

CAIR: Hasner must step down Tampa bay.com

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on GOP leaders to demand that Rep. Adam Hasner step down from his leadership post for co-hosting a Florida "Free Speech Summit" criticized as an anti-Islam event. Featured speaker Dutch politician Geert Wilders reportedly said: “ Islam is not a religion. Islam is a totalitarian political ideologue. Islam heart lies at the Qur'an, and the Qur'an is a book that calls for hatred, that calls for violence, for murder, for terrorism, for war, and submission…We should stop pretending that Islam is a religion... the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam .”

Hasner responded: "I am not going to allow the right to free speech be stifled by a group like CAIR that has legally documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood - a radical organization that is on record as stating they want to destroy America from within thru the imposition of Sharia law."

“It is unconscionable that a top leader of an American state legislature would host a gathering at which the faith of millions of Americans is denigrated and their rights denied,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper . “Republican Party leaders in Florida and nationwide must demand that Representative Hasner step down from his leadership post because of his support for Geert Wilders and his Nazi-like message.” 

Anyone else wondering if Hasner might in fact appreciate CAIR's aggressive attacks elevating his profile? More on that event here.

This foreign invasion by Islamic supremacists does not fool Americans. Once they get really clued into what Islam is doing and imposing, they will revolt. Just look at the comments:

Soft Jihad alert!

Posted by: CAIR = Terrorist Shill | April 26, 2009 at 11:29 PM

CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy-Land Foundation terroristm funding case, which resulted in convictions on all 108 counts!

Posted by: Proud Infidel | April 26, 2009 at 11:28 PM

So much for democracy. Now we have this non-American third world garbage dictating how we are going to run our country. I can't believe we are being over ran by all the mud.

So what is the entertainment monkey going to do? Is he going to shut down the Mexican border and keep the disease out?

He will most likely blame Americans like Fidel and Hugo and apologize.

Cheers -

Posted by: get-smart | April 26, 2009 at 10:43 PM

BORING!

WHO CARES???

Posted by: Christian | April 26, 2009 at 10:30 PM

Is it a slow news day Adam?

It doesn't work that way in America. Rep. Adam Hasner is a committed, intelligent, hard working State Rep. working on behalf of and duly elected by the people of Florida.

Posted by: 10:15 | April 26, 2009 at 10:16 PM

Here is the CAIR press release: They are out of control.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Fla. House GOP Leader Hosts Event Denying Religious Freedom CAIR calls on Republicans to demand that Rep. Adam Hasner step down from leadership post

(WASHINGTON, D.C., 4/26/09) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on GOP leaders to demand that Rep. Adam Hasner, the head of that state’s House Republicans, step down from his leadership post for co-hosting an event at which the speaker said Islam should not be recognized as a legitimate faith and Muslims should not have religious freedom.

In his address to the so-called “Free Speech Summit” in Delray Beach, Fla., Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders said: “Islam is not a religion. Islam is a totalitarian political ideologue. Islam [sic] heart lies at the Quran, and the Quran is a book that calls for hatred, that calls for violence, for murder, for terrorism, for war, and submission…We should stop pretending that Islam is a religion...the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam.”

SEE: Florida Free Speech Summit: Geert Wilders Wows

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/04/free-speech-summit-wilders-.html

Wilders also called for an end to Muslim immigration to the West, for removing Muslims from Western countries, for citizen loyalty oaths, for stopping the building of mosques, for closing down Islamic schools because they are “fascist” institutions, and for getting rid of “weak leaders.” He added that “we need strong leaders like here are [sic] today Allen West and Adam Hasner.”

Hasner is on the “host committee” for the conference and is pictured on an anti-Islam Internet hate site attending the event. He is shown with Pamela Geller, another conference sponsor, whose blog features categories such as “Advancing Islamic Lies,” “Islam 2008: Religion of Barbarism” and “Slavery: An Arab custom.” Geller has even been criticized by other Islamophobes for her extremism and for supporting far-right groups in Europe. She is currently involved in an Internet “flame war” over her support for an upcoming “Eurofascist” conference in Europe.

CAIR is taking its talking points from Charles Johnson. I called it back in 2007.

[...]American Muslims have repeatedly called on the Republican Party to repudiate anti-Muslim bigotry within its ranks.

Our rights are undeniable. Wilders had a huge crowd today. They are getting bigger and bigger. People are waking up.

UPDATE: Yid with Lid has a great post on it. He's jealous. heh

My Friend Pamela who runs Atlas Shrugs gets all the breaks. She agrees to help run the free speech Summit in Del Rey Beach Florida and she gets the wonderful Honor of being attacked by the terrorist supporting organization CAIR.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on GOP leaders to demand that Rep. Adam Hasner step down from his leadership post for co-hosting a Florida "Free Speech Summit" criticized as an anti-Islam event. Featured speaker Dutch politician Geert Wilders reportedly said: “ Islam is not a religion. Islam is a totalitarian political ideologue. Islam heart lies at the Qur'an, and the Qur'an is a book that calls for hatred, that calls for violence, for murder, for terrorism, for war, and submission…We should stop pretending that Islam is a religion... the right to religious freedom should not apply to Islam .”

Hasner responded: "I am not going to allow the right to free speech be stifled by a group like CAIR that has legally documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood - a radical organization that is on record as stating they want to destroy America from within thru the imposition of Sharia law."

FREE SPEECH SUMMIT: LORD PEARSON VIDEO SPEECH, ECHOES OF CHURCHILL

One can understand how Britain was once the world's most powerful nation when listening to a great statesman like Lord Pearson.

It was at the invitation of Lord Pearson that Wilders was to speak and screen Fitna in the House of Lords. But the British government, the horrid Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, that Wilders was banned from entering Britain. Lord Pearson would not tolerate the “mother of all parliaments” giving in to threats to Lord Nazir Ahmed (who threatened riots by tens of thousands of Muslims). Hence he decided to reinvite Mr. Wilders. Black Rod, the head of security at the House of Lords, has ordered extra security for the event.

That ban united in opposition Lord Pearson, the Dutch Government—unusual allies.

WILDERS: "Threat to society? I'm an elected member of Parliament; I have done nothing wrong," "I'm a normal, law-abiding democrat. You might agree or disagree with my political point of view, but I'm no threat to anyone."

Despite being banned from once Great Britain, “Fitna” was shown to a private gathering at the House of Lords sponsored by Lord Pearson and Baroness Cox.

Pearson is fearless in his remarks. Much thanks to Pamela Hall for cleaning up the video - lightening it up.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

**NEW VIDEO** DEBATE FOR THE SAKE, THE SURVIVAL OF A NATION: THE HOUSE OF LORDS

GEERT WILDERS DETAINED! REFUSED ENTRY

BREAKING: WILDERS DENIED ENTRANCE TO UK!

WILDERS: "LET THEM ARREST ME AT HEATHROW"

Letter to Wilders from the UK Home Secretary

Low Life LORD NAZI AHMED: Arrest British Jews fighting for IDF 2/4/09
WILDERS: THE HOUSE OF LORDS STANDS UP FOR FREEDOM AND FITNA 2/3/09
BRITS CAVE TO ISLAMIC SUPREMACISTS: CANCEL FITNA SCREENING 1/25/09

FLORIDA FREE SPEECH SUMMIT: GEERT WILDERS WOWS

Pamela and Wilders. His speech stopped us cold. Watch the vids as soon as they upload.

Nidra Poller and Allen West. Poller was wonderful when she spoke. "The unacceptable has become the inevitable". And West? He's my candidate for President.

Tom Trento

Pamela and Lord  Pearson - he made a powerful speech. Lord Pearson was the warrior who invited Wilders to speak and show Fitna at the House of Lords. Wilders was unable to appear, as he was banned by the dhimmi Jaqui Smith after Muslim Lord Nazir Ahmed threatened 10,000 rioting Muslims in the streets.

 

Wilders, Fleur Agema - an MP as well and vice-floor leader (she is  the number two in the party) - and Allen West.

 

Lady Pearson

A wondrous night in South Florida. Free thinkers and free speechers converged on the magnificent beach and listened to leading lights in the fight for our lives. Trento, Poller...

 

The free world rests in the hands of these brave warriors - Frank Gaffney, foreground, Solomon, Wilders.

 

Rep. Adam Hasner, who came under enormous intimidation from un-indicted co-conspirator CAIR for participating in this conference. Brave politicians - we need an army of Hasners.

The hotel internet is not working. The video won't load on my PC card -- argh. I will have all up as soon as technology behaves.

Check back! I will continue to upload.

UPDATE: The videos are dark (bad lighting obviously), but so what. They must be watched. These speeches (and do listen to Lord Pearson's) are for the ages.

Video: Geert Wilders Part I

Part II

Click below for Part III

UN-INDICTED CO-CONSPIRATOR CAIR ATTACKS FREE SPEECH SUMMIT, SEEKS TO CRUSH, ILLEGALIZE FIRST AMENDMENT

Freedom of speech in the age of jihad? Co-conspirator CAIR will have none of it.

Not 24 hours after I announced the historic FREE SPEECH SUMMIT with Geert Wilders, un-indicted co-conspirator CAIR continued, in typical KKK fashion, to shut down free speech. The Muslim Brotherhood front, in its relentless pursuit to islamize the USA and impose shariah .... thugs, intimidates and assaults free speech, the cornerstone of our constitutional republic and the cement that holds the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the souls of free men together.

Well, CAIR can kiss my ass.

CAIR issued a press release and went off on yours truly and every other defender of freedom and Western values.

Does CAIR speak out against the 13,ooo Islamic attacks since 9/11? Honor killings? Jew hatred? Islamic clitorectomies? Islamic child marriage? Islamic human slavery? Have they tried to save the seven year old child bride in Nashville? No instead they threaten and sue to keep law enforcement out of the mosques. They have one purpose. To undermine America and further Islamic supremacism and domination.

Robert Spencer has dissected the whole ugly lot of jihad sympathizers here: CAIR attacks Spencer even though he is not speaking at the conference.

What can you do? STAND UP FOR FREE MEN AND COME TO THE FREE SPEECH SUMMIT. I'm speaking :)

US Hamas-Funding Group Protests Geert Wilders Free Speech Award

Last year when the world guilty was read a total of 108 times in a Dallas court room as a jury convicted the Holy Land foundation and each of the defendants of raising money to fund Hamas terrorism, they were implicating CAIR also.The supposed Human rights organization was an unindicted co-conspirator in the case. Indeed one key piece of evidence was the Wiretap evidence that put CAIR's former executive director, Nihad Awad, at a Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders. Participants hatched a plot to deceive Americans and disguise payments to Hamas as it launched a campaign of terror attacks. CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad also joined Hamas big shots at the summit.

Next Monday there is scheduled to be a Free Speech Summit in Del Rey Florida, where Geert Wilders is supposed to speak and receive an award, the summit is put together by a group that includes ACT! for America, Liberty Legal Project,Frank Gaffney, Atlas Shrugs, Rep Adam Hasner,International Free Press Society, Joe Kaufman Americans Against Hate among many others.

As you would expect the terrorist funding, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is not happy.

CAIR: Fla. House GOP Leader Linked to Anti-Islam Hate Fest

Rep. Hasner asked to disassociate himself from 'Islamophobes and Muslim-bashers'

WASHINGTON, April 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the leader of that state's House Republicans to disassociate himself from an upcoming anti-Islam conference backed by a "motley collection of Islamophobes and Muslim-bashers."

CAIR said Rep. Adam Hasner is on the "host committee" for the April 27 conference in Delray Beach, Fla., featuring Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders. Wilders was recently denied entry to Britain because of his extreme anti-Muslim views, including urging that the Quran, Islam's revealed text, be banned.

Cair is not happy with Fitna, 15-minute film created by Wilders' that shows how verses from the Qur'an are being used today to incite modern Muslims to behave violently and anti-democratically based. Strangely the video is called anti-Muslim even though it all comes from the Qur'an.

[....}

The Terrorist Group is also protesting the appearance of Joe Kaufman, whom they call a Florida anti-Muslim extremist with a long history of seeking to marginalize and disenfranchise the American Muslim community and its institutions (CAIR Speak for exposing the truth).

CAIR blasts Frank Gaffney for his efforts to expose Sharia Finance, claimed that the use of Islamic finance in America is a form of treason. "[I]t is advancing a criminal conspiracy whose purpose is the violent overthrow of the United States Constitution and government in favor of Islamic rule," wrote Gaffney. (Washington Times, 9/16/08)

Another event sponsor, Pamela Geller, operates one of the Internet's most vicious anti-Islam sites. Her blog features categories such as "Advancing Islamic Lies," "Islam 2008: Religion of Barbarism" and "Slavery: An Arab custom." Geller has even been criticized by other Islamophobes for her extremism and for supporting far-right groups in Europe....

Taqiyya is deception to advance Islam.

Slavery is an Arab custom.

And the 13,000 Islamic attacks since 911 in the name of religion are barbaric.

I stand behind every news report I have run. TRUTH IS THE NEW HATE SPEECH.

Read it all. Join us at The Free Speech Summit and say no, you can't have America.

ANOTHER POLITICIAN CHARGED FOR INSULTING ISLAM: TRUTH IS THE NEW HATE SPEECH

In the age of jihad, no one is safe. This is just the beginning of the new fascism. Looks like Wilders won't be alone -- he'll have an army walking with him shoulder to shoulder.
BTW, Muhammad was a pedophile, so why kill the messenger?

Free Speech Slammed in Finland as Politician is Brought up on Blasphemy Charges....... Tundra Tabloids

Believe it or not, Finland still has blasphemy laws on the books, but there have been repeated attempts to rescind Section 10 of chapter 17 of the Finnish penal code. All attempts however, at removing the anti-modern statute from the law books have proved unsuccessful, with the latest attempt failing in 1998.

Helsinki city councilman, Jussi Halla-aho was charged with blasphemy and incitement of an ethnic-group in the Helsinki district court today, and ordered to stand trial for publishing on his blog that Islam's prophet was a pedophile. According to the Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Jorme Kalske:

"Halla-aho had uploaded to the Internet and submitted writings to the general public, in which Islam and its sacred institutions were combined with pedophilia, and in which was also presented the robbery of pedestrians and the ooting of tax revenue was a certain national group or a specific genetic characteristic.

The charges were presented in the Helsinki District Court. Halla-aho denies the charges"

Courtesy of the blogger Vasarahammer, here is Helsinki City Councilman, Jussi Halla-aho's post that the Finnish state wants him prosecuted for. It is addressed to Mika Illman, the Finnish state prosecuting attorney, in response of the Finnish state's prosecution of Seppo Lehto last year.

A couple of baits for Mika Illman

State prosecutor Mika Illman’s winning streak continued a few days ago, when a specialist of rude humor Seppo Lehto was sentenced for two years and four months imprisonment and to pay tens of thousands of euros in damages for several accounts of gross defamation, incitement against an ethnic group and for religious worship (TT: blasphemy). The issue has been discussed around the internet so much that I probably don’t have to repeat the self-evident facts:

a) Filth blogs created by Lehto fulfill all possible criteria for “gross defamation” but

b) Nobody has ever been sentenced for two years and four months for these kind of crimes. I don’t blame Mika Illman, he is obviously a man worthy of his last name, who does what he thinks he is supposed to do, but those district courts that have lamely given Mika everything he dares to ask have a reason to be ashamed of themselves.

c) Illman’s selection of plaintiffs and recipients of damages consisted only of his fellow prosecutors and members of parliament, and not, for example, Teemu Lahtinen, to whom Lehto’s filth blogs possibly caused real damage during the last parliamentary election. The thinking in which public figures deserve more protection than regular citizens has so far been alien to the democratic state and rule of law.

Let’s stop talking about defamations. Lehto was also convicted of disturbing religious worship. According to the district court Lehto violated muslims’ religious worship by defaming the prophet Muhammad. Professor Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila has confirmed the interpretation according to which Muhammad is a revered figure in Islamic faith.

According to state prosecutor Mika Illman and Tampere district court insulting the prophet Muhammad is illegal, because Muhammad is revered by muslims.

(On the other hand professor Hämeen-Anttila could certainly confirm that in Christianity Jesus and God are holy figures. Of course, this doesn’t prevent anybody to defame Jesus or God freely in the way he or she chooses.)

Next I intend to throw Mika a bait:

Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile and islam revers pedophilia as a religion. Islam is a religion of pedophilia. Pedophilia is Allah’s will.

Are these statements illegal? They certainly insult muslim’s religious feelings. Let’s approach the issue logically:

As a 50 year-old man Muhammad was engaged to six or seven year old Aisha. Their marriage was “consummated” when Aisha was nine years old. It is possible to think that they were living in another age and Muhammad’s deeds must not be judged according to today’s standards, but as we have learned during the last few years, schoolbooks from the 50’s were racist when they spoke about ”negroes” (even if ”negro” was not a racist term at the time by anybody’s standards), it’s equally justified to call a child rapist who lived 1400 years ago a child rapist .´

What has to be done so that the bolded statements were not true? You must insist that

a) ... Quran is not literally true (i.e Muhammad did not have sexual relations with a nine year old girl). This will not do, since according to Islamic doctrine and muslims’ opinion Quran is a literal word of Allah. Consummation and Aisha’s age cannot be denied without insulting muslims.

b) ...Muhammad’s actions were not always acceptable. This will not do either, since according to muslims (and Tampere district court) criticizing Muhammad is the same as criticizing Allah and therefore blasphemy. The penalty is death. Muslim’s believe that Muhammad’s actions were the will of Allah. Because Muhammad had sexual relations with a child, that was Allah’s will as well.

As we see, all the argumentative ways to disprove the bolded statements have been theologically exhausted. The fact that Muhammad was a pedophile and Allah supported pedophilia can only be denied either by denying the literal truthfulness of Quran or Muhammad’s status as a messenger of Allah whose actions are according to the will of Allah.

Therefore I repeat my claim:

Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile and islam revers pedophilia as a religion. Islam is a religion of pedophilia. Pedophilia is Allah’s will.

The next bait reads:

Robbing bypassers and living at taxpayers’ expense as a parasite is a national, possibly genetic characteristic of Somalis.

Is this claim inappropriate? My fellow blogger Kekke filed a complaint to the Media Council for the editorial that appeared in newspaper Kaleva, in which killing people while intoxicated was described as a national, possibly genetic characteristic of Finns. Media Council dismissed the complaint. According to Council secretary Nina Porra:

”The writer probably refers to studies, in which heavy drinking has been observed to be a specific feature in Finnish drinking culture. It has also been observed that there is a correlation between intoxication and violence. The genetic backround of the problem is not handled as a fact, but the writer gives his own opinion.”

Naturally, the decisions made by Media Council are not legally binding so inquisitor Illman doesn’t have to take notice. But on the other hand, “incitement against ethnic group” is a felony and because Illman (whom the matter belongs to) has not reacted to the Kaleva article, it can be concluded that negative ethnic and genetic stereotypes can be published as long as they are not handled as facts.

We can’t think that there are different rules for different people in Finland, can we?
Naturally, not all Somalis commit robberies or live at taxpayers’ expense, but not all Finns kill while intoxicated either.

Somalis who constitute 0.2 per cent of Finland’s total population commit 12 per cent of robberies reported to the Police. One in ten Somalis living in Finland has a job. Committing robberies and living at taxpayers’ expense are a lot more common among Somalis related to their share of the population than killing while intoxicated among the ethnic Finns. Therefore, I present my assumption (that I do not regard as fact):

Robbing bypassers and living at taxpayers’ expense as a parasite is a national, possibly genetic characteristic of Somalis.

With this, I wish Mika a nice day.

FRANCE HUMAN RIGHTS ORG TO PROSECUTE WILDERS: EURABIAN DHIMMI COWARDS PILE ON

BREAKING: In today's Dutch press: a French Human Rights organisation is taking Geert Wilders to court in France. One year IN jail according to French law. What insanity and pathos. Why cave to Islamic supremacism? Why do Islam's bidding? Hasn't Europe the will to fight for its western values, freedom, art, music?...........

UPDATE:

France: Human rights organization sues Wilders

Islam in Europe 24 March 2009

A French human rights organization is summoning Geert Wilders to court.  The head of the PVV party is accused of inciting to hatred of Muslims.

"Wilders made statements about French Muslims, about Muslims in Paris and Marseilles, which incite to racial hatred," says lawyer Yassine Bouzrou.  He lodged the complaint on behalf of the organization, which is being studied by the public prosecution.  If Wilders is found guilty, he can be sentenced for one year in prison.

Wilders was not aware of the complaint yesterday evening.  "I hear this for the the first time," he said.  "The wold is becoming small with trials and procedures everywhere: from the Netherlands, Jordan and England to France. Dreadful.  But I'll naturally fight back judicially.  They won't prevail over me."
 
Last week the PVV head signed an official appeal against the UK's refusal to let him into the country.

The French complaint is based on Wilders' speech in New York last September.  "Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods," he said then.  "Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves."

He called the riots in the suburbs in 2005 a "Muslim intifada".  Bouzrou came to the conclusion that the expressions are criminal.  "Wilders says in that speech also that one in three French Muslims supports suicide attacks.  With that he suggests that one in three French Muslims is a potential terrorist.  Where he does he get all of this?  How did he get ot it?  Wilders makes serious accusations which are based on nothing."

Bouzrou made the complaint for the French human rights organization ADDH.  They work together with the Collective against Islamophobia in the fight against Muslim hatred.

"A politician may express his idea.  But Wilders makes dangerous statements about something of which he has no understanding.  These are not political ideas, but insults and prejudices," says the lawyer.  "We already had in France attacks on mosques and against Muslim cemeteries.  The statements by Wilders instigate further extremism against Muslims."

WILDERS'S HUNDREDS OF DEATH THREATS IN THE NAME OF THE RELIGION OF PEACE

And the leftards whine about the cost of protecting a man to speak -- no one is talking about the violent dogma that has put all free men who dare speak truth in mortal danger. Nobody rails against that.

Nothing is being done to halt the largest invasion of the enemy onto our shores. Instead the political elites aid and abet our destruction.

Anti-jihadist Dutch MP received 285 death threats in 2008

Dutch politicians are facing an unprecedented number of death threats. The police corps in The Hague region received 428 serious death threats against politicians last year. And 285 directly targetted anti-jihadist Party for Freedom leader Geert Wilders'.

This is a dramatic increase from the year before, when 264 punishable death-threats were recorded against all Dutch politicians. These statistics do not include any death threats against any of the thousands of foreign diplomats and international judicial staffers of the International Criminal Court in the Dutch capitol city of The Hague - where the police have a special protection unit, the Royal and Diplomatic Security Service.

For the kind of security Wilders needs whenever he is in public anywhere, see the video above of his arrival at Heathrow airport in the United Kingdom, from where he was expelled recently.

Left wing Dutch politicians are constantly complaining in parliament about the rising cost of protecting Wilders from these very real jihadist death threats: the budget for the 2006 protection of Wilders handled 145 protection orders in 2006 - in 2005 there were 110. The service's entire budget for 2007 - which includes the assignment to protect Wilders 24/7 -- was 34 million Euros. That's about 40-million Canadian Dollars.

Police said that 304 of last year's 428 death-threat reports against all of the country's politicians moreover were of such a serious nature that they were processed into official crime reports, on the basis of which the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) took action in the law courts against such individuals.

Of these, a full 170 were transferred to another police corps first for further investigation, and The Hague's police processed the other 134. How many of this suspects were arrested and prosecuted is not known exactly, however only last month, three men, all of Moroccan extraction, were tried for threatening to kill Wilders. See

Police in The Hague, being the seat of parliament as well as the seat of the UN's International Criminal Court of Justice, receive the bulk of threat-reports from threatened politicians.

And Who is the Real Target?

Hmmmmmmmmm. I wonder what internet sites they will go after? Truth is the new hate speech. It may sound like a good idea but hate speech laws are bad news. Incitement to violence is one thing, 'hate speech' is another.

'End climate of impunity' for online extremists,  report urges

 International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence calls on authorities to go beyond simply shutting down Web sites used to promote violent political extremism  (National Post Hat tip Jane)

From white supremacist propaganda to radical Islamist recruiting videos, the Internet is awash with extremist content but a report released on Tuesday says it is time to "end the current climate of impunity" enjoyed by those responsible.

The report by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence calls on authorities to go beyond simply shutting down Web sites used to promote violent political extremism and to prosecute those behind them.

"We propose the selective use of takedowns in conjunction with prosecutions as a means of signaling that cyberspace is not beyond the law," writes the Centre, a partnership of think tanks in Britain, the United States, Israel and Jordan.

While the report's focus is Britain, the Canadian government was consulted by the study's authors and Canada is experiencing similar problems with extremist groups using the Internet to recruit and radicalize followers.

Racist groups such as the Aryan Guard in Calgary use the Internet to spread their message, while in Quebec, a Moroccan man, Said Namouh, went on trial last month for his alleged role in an al-Qaeda on-line propaganda organization.

In Ontario, a University of Toronto at Mississauga student, Salman Hossain, was widely denounced last year for posting messages online that supported terrorist attacks in Canada. Ontario Provincial Police are now investigating him for comments he allegedly made about Jews.

Prof. Sanjeev Anand of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law said Canadian human rights tribunals have been successfully used to target extremist Internet sites but criminal charges are rare, partly because police lack resources to investigate.

"They don't tend to happen very often for whatever reason," Prof. Anand said. "I don't think it's really a question of ‘do we have the appropriate laws?' We do but they're not being utilized, prosecutions aren't coming."

But attempts to limit expression are also controversial in Canada. The three failed attempts to bring Maclean's magazine before human rights tribunals over a column on Islam stirred debate about free speech. A judge acquitted David Ahenakew of hate crimes charges last month, saying his comments about Jews were "revolting" and "untrue" but not a crime since he did willfully promote hatred.

UPDATE: Check this out. See what I mean?

The Ontario Human Rights Commission is calling for Parliament to force all Canadian magazines, newspapers and "media services" Web sites to join a national press council with the power to adjudicate breaches of professional standards and complaints of discrimination.

The council would have the power to order the publication of its decisions and "would help bring about more consistency across all jurisdictions in Canada," reads an OHRC report to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The media's freedom of expression comes with a duty to "address issues of hate expression, and [media] should do so either voluntarily through provincial press councils, or through statutory creation of a national press council with compulsory membership," the report reads.

The same folks who went after Mark Steyn, Ezra Levant, Kathy Shaidle etc.

DUTCH RULING: YOU MAY INSULT ISLAM!

Important ruing from the Dutch Supreme court (especially with the coming trial against Geert Wilders). Thanks to Remi.

The original  item is here: Hoge Raad: Islam beledigen mag

English: Supreme Court: Islam may be insulted

The acquittal in appeal of a man who was convicted of insulting Muslims can determine the prosecution of PVV leader Geert Wilders.

The highest court ruled today that it is not sufficient for a conviction if someone is insulting a religious group, even if the followers therefore feel insulted.

Got translation?

Here is an excerpt from De Telegraaf (most read newspaper from the Netherlands):

-- Supreme Court gives direction for Case-Wilders --- ISLAM-OFFENDER ACQUITTED

DEN HAAG - The Supreme Court, acquitted the man who in November 2004 hung a poster on his window with the text "Stop the tumor that is Islam." Previously this man was sentenced by the court in Den Bosch.

KGS provides this:

The court in Den Bosch in 2005,  convicted the man for pronouncing in public of insulting a group of people because of their religion.

The Supreme Court said the ruling was wrongly done, because someone cannot offend indeed believers, but their religion.

The acquittal in appeal of a man who was convicted of insulting Muslims can determine the prosecution of PVV leader Geert Wilders. The man is today by the Supreme Court acquitted.

The highest court ruled today that it is not sufficient for a conviction if someone is insulting a religious outlet, even if the followers therefore feel insulted.

"The statement should clearly relate to a certain group of people by their religion from others," concluded the Supreme Court today.

POSTER
The man from Valkenswaard, today acquitted, hung a poster on his window with the text: 'Stop the tumor that is Islam.' This was in 2004 after the murder of Theo van Gogh.

The court in Den Bosch, in 2005, convicted the man of insulting a group of people because of their religion.

WILDERS

The Public Prosecutor (OM) prosecutes Wilders because of the incitement to hatred and discrimination against Muslims.

Wilders will be prosecuted for his statements about Islam, Mohammed, 'the Islamization of the Netherlands' and his comparison between the Koran and Mein Kampf.

UPDATE: Remi found this English coverage: Dutchman acquitted of insulting Islam

"Stop the tumour that is Islam" is not an insult to a group on the basis of its religion, the Dutch high court ruled on Tuesday. An activist from the southern town of Valkenswaard, who had hung a poster using this slogan in his window, has been acquitted of the charge, which is similar to one of the charges faced by controversial Dutch anti-Islam member of parliament Geert Wilders. ....

The judge in that case will also have to determine whether Wilders' remarks are "unmistakeably aimed at a certain group of people that are distinguished from the others in society by their religion". Wilders, when asked to respond, called Tuesday's ruling good news: "This could have consequences for my case".

BAT YE'OR LIVE IN NYC: CANDOR OR RESPECT, TALKING ABOUT ISLAM

 

On February 26th, Bat Ye’or, the Egyptian-born British historian who specializes in the history of Christian and Jewish dhimmis and is the author of Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis; Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide; and The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, took part in a panel discussion at Columbia Law School entitled “Candor or Respect? Talking About the Religion of Others.”

Because everything Bat Ye'or says is of such import, I have covered her remarks to the best of my and KGS's ability. Much thanks to KGS who  helped me enormously.

Bat Ye'or is the world's foremost leading scholar on Islam. Period. Bernard Lewis is notorious for stealing from her.

Here are her remarks:

I would like first to thank Prof. Philip Hamburger, for having invited me to participate in this panel and for having chosen a subject that suddenly emerges in the 21th irreligious century. There are reasons for the sudden international gravity of this topic and maybe we could touch a bit on that too in the discussion. I want to remind the participants that this is not just a theoretical problem, because there are people who have been assassinated, killed, and who live in fear and terror, their whole lives destroyed by what is called blasphemy.

There are reasons why this problem of blasphemy has taken on such importance. I want to say that it will take on more and more of importance, and if we don’t try to solve the problems, the questions, the issues which are related to the problems of blasphemy, of religious respect and so on, the whole of western civilization might be changed and even destroyed.

So why are religious issues such a touchy subject? Well, religions are very important for several reasons.  Religions eliminate man’s metaphysical anxiety; it structures one’s life around a creed shared by others and practices through collective rituals; it provides consolation in time of grief and the comforting feeling to be a link in a chain that transcend time, and more than anything else, it gives the illusion to men that he can escape, he can be saved from death.

Criticizing religions therefore weaken the affective equilibrium of the person, and his own identity. Every believer gets angry when his religion is attacked, but they do not react all in the same way. Religion is not a touchy subject for everyone. In fact in Europe, a minority take religions seriously. It considers that it is a component, certainly a major one, of a general culture, with its good and bad aspects, that are in the public domain, under continual scrutiny and discussion in a civilized and polite manner where everyone can discuss and expose his arguments. Since religions are composed of several components: faith, ethic, legend, history, laws, art, rituals – it is clear that suppressing from discussion this major field of human history is tantamount to promoting illiteracy. Of course, different opinions, even insulting and choking ones can be heard by the faithful, but this is the democratic game which allows a pluralism of opinion and everyone accept it.

That said, we can ask, why for some, religions is so touchy? I do not know if it is so touchy for the Buddhists, the Hindus, but it is certainly so for Muslims. Are their specific reasons particular to this religion that provokes reaction to the extent of killing for a criticism? Well I think there are and I will explain why.

In my view this situation results from the character of the Koran. Contrary to the Bible, the Koran is considered uncreated and therefore consubstantial to Allah. Hence criticizing the Koran or holding opinions contrary to its principles is a blasphemy and a direct attack against Allah.

The other point is the particular character attached to prophethood and therefore Muhammad. The figure of Muhammad is like his revelation, he is considered the perfect model and therefore the Sunna, the compilation of his words and deed, are infallible. Any criticism is considered a blasphemy.

The third point relates to history, law and sociology. Muslims lived as an Umma, a religious community convinced, because of its military conquests worldwide and its power, of its superiority which is affirmed anyway in its sacred texts. The Umma developed around its religion not only its whole jurisdiction, historical myths, the feeling of grandeur, superiority and mission – but also its world cohesion. You can argue that Jews and Christians also feel that they belong to a religious group. But they have other pole of interest and of social cohesion, like nationalism, which in a way, competes with religion and is a secular concept. But nationalism came very late to the Muslim world, and it was a European initiative whereas the Muslim sense of unity was the Caliphate, a religious construction.

Any attack or doubt on the validity of its religion might destroy the whole structure. Islam developed through continuous wars and conquests. It has elaborated a code of war, jihad, which is integrated in its religion through the Koran, the Sunna and the biography of the Prophet. This war is justified by its doctrine of religious superiority and perfection. The feeling that Islam has the duty to govern the world is very pregnant today. This implies contempt for non-Muslims and their vilification. Dhimmis, non-Muslims were always obliged to exhibit signs of respect to Muslims. This behavioral obligations imposed upon death sanctions, form an important body of laws and social customs from the beginning of Islam till today, this is what I call dhimmitude. So what we are seeing now is the OIC policy to prohibit the West to criticize Islam in an effort to establish the rules of dhimmitude in the international arena. This objective motivates the fight against Islamophobia that has been declared a central element in the OIC policy.

My conclusion is that the OIC, the Organization of the Islamic Conference,which is  a group that brings  together 57 Muslim countries, has decided to bring into the international forefront and into the Western world, this rule of Dhimmitude that imposed the respect of Islam by non-Muslims. This is what we see now, and they have decided too, that the Muslims who are integrated in non-Muslim countries are a part of the universal Ummah, and that their rights to be respected must be applied.

There is another aspect also - which I do not have the time to expose – this is Islam theological relationship to Judaism and Christianity.

The Q&A

Question: Concerning your personal accounting of Islam, and I’d like to ask two relating questions. Do you think that Islam can undergo the kind of changes or reformation that has been the case in Christianity and Judaism over the past three centuries, and if so, how long it might take. And connected with that, in view of your own views, would you agree with the idea, of Sam Huntington’s idea the Clash of civilizations?

Bat Yeor: Yes actually Islam can change. It has to find in itself the instruments to help the modernist Muslims to change. Unfortunately what I see now, organized in the  OIC, is exactly the contrary. The OIC brings all the Muslim countries, the 57 Muslim countries, together, and I wouldn’t say the same rule of course, the same organization, the same politics,  its aim at creating a block, a Muslim block, which is, it plans to unify it by rooting it in the Koran and Sharia and the Sunna. So we are going to see a stronger, even a stronger Islamic block, more fundamentalist. But I hope that Muslims, others inside the OIC or in Europe will challenge that, this return to the caliphate, in order to oppose the West, and that will find a way to collaborate on equal terms with other populations, and accept the other populations as equals. This is my hope. And because I always hope  in human nature, I am positive and an optimist.

The other question was?

Question: The idea which was made probably by Samuel Huntington, of the Clash of Civilizations .....

Bat Ye’or: Yes, and also how long it will take, and how long the change, the evolution in the Muslim world will be. Well, it depends upon us, on the non-Muslims. How can we help the Muslims? Because there are many modernist Muslims, as I have said before  that are living under a terrible threat, and because they want to challenge that order, and they want to bring another Islam. So how can we help them to achieve this change? We are together, we are in solidarity with them, to bring this renewal, this change.

How long will it take? Well we  have to also take our responsibility and I think that our host did very well  in bringing this subject up into the open. Now we are certainly in a clash of civilizations, and I don’t understand why we have to hide it. It is the OIC  position to deny that we are in a clash of civilizations. Because the OIC position is even to deny that there are different civilizations, because the Muslim position is to say we are only one civilization. So I think that we have to recognize the truth that we are in a clash of civilizations and of values, and we have to solve that, because if we deny it, we shall never solve it. So it is better to discuss the problems that separate us in order to find solutions.

Questioner: How can we stop this progression of intolerance in the international legal community. I mean how can we stop the influence of the OIC at the UN?

Bat Yeor: About the reform... there are Muslims who are contesting the fact that the Koran is an uncreated  book. They are trying to contextualize some verses by saying that is of this period, but now this version is different..... in fact what was done with the bible.  And also others who say but the hadiths were written two centuries afterward  so they doubt the veracity of the hadith.There are Muslims who are working within the possibility of Islam to change the rigidity that has inhabited for centuries .... so we have to help them and hope that this will change.

Now about the OIC, what can we do? This debate is related to this. How can we speak to Islam? How can we speak about religion? How can we avoid offending people? Do we have to be civilized and polite? Then we are missing candor and so on. I think we need candor in some situations where for instance where religions prescribe the death of people. Where religions are very aggressive and  manifests an aggressivity towards other people and want to destroy their system. So we have to be candid about it and fight back.

The problem is that, in the West, the situation is not very well understood and also there is a great challenge of terrorism, indigenous terrorism in Europe. You don't have it here in America. But we are very much afraid of European terrorism and also foreign terrorism and also economical boycott, which is very imortant. So for all these reasons we are not bringing a different or necessary answer to the challenges of our time

There is more of the Q&A - but I wanted to get this to you.

Wilders, Islam and the Immoderate Moderates

There is an excellent Geert Wilders interview with Jeff Jacoby on Boston.com today here. Unlike the dhimmi media tools who do Islam's bidding on a daily basis, Jacoby gives Wilders the opportunity to explain and/or refute the popular memes the media and the Islamic propagandists throw at Wilders in the traitorous attempt to marginalize and smear him.

Please read it all.

There is one issue in this interview I would like very much to address because there has been little refutation or coverage of the viability and intellectual integrity of "moderate" Muslim.

Q: What do you say to Muslims like Zuhdi Jasser? He is an American, a former Navy officer, a doctor. After 9/11, he was so horrified by what was done in the name of Islam that he founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy: pro-American, pro-democracy, anti-violence, anti-Islamist. How do you answer Muslims like him, who say: "I love my religion. I also love freedom, democracy, Western values. I believe in separation of mosque and state. But how can I be an ally with someone who says my religion itself is evil?"

A: Well, I would tell him I wish there were more people like you. It didn't happen. I would not agree with [Dr. Jasser] about Islam, but I wish there were more like him.

Everyone loves the idea of Jasser and his "moderate Islam," without doing even so much as the most preliminary analysis or review of his position and many of the things he has said.

In May 2007, I conducted an  interview with Zuhdi Jasser. Jasser NEVER met Dr. Andrew Bostom or read his work -- let alone read an advance copy of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, the manuscript of which had just recently been completed and had only been viewed by a few close contacts, including myself.

"Empowering Moderate Muslims" Pamela Geller interviews Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, Chairman American Islamic Democracy Forum

05-22-07

64:41

14.8MB

Alternative MP3 audio link here.

Jasser, in the interview linked above, had the temerity to claim that Muslim Antisemitism is a "Wahhabi" problem, which Bostom is “promoting.” I guess that makes it a combined Bostom-Wahhabi problem. Never mind that Muslim Antisemitism was fully functional without the Wahhabis for over 1000 years before the movement arose in the 18th century, or some 1300 years before Bostom was born in 1956.

Listen to ~ minutes 20-25. Also, Jasser makes a point of repeatedly referring to Judea/Samaria as "occupied" — (and he does not mean the historically accurate characterization Arab-occupied Judea-Samaria.). I strongly recommend you listen to the whole interview if you are buying into the moderate narrative.

It is also important to mention that Jasser was recently kicked out of his own "progressive" mosque because of his take on Islam, so who exactly is he representing? He's living in his own private Islam. Islam considers Jasser a hyporcrite, an apostate. There is no interpretation of Islam. Reform or reinterpret the Qu'ran and you are a "hypocrite" -- punishable by death.

Muhammad is to strike hard against the unbelievers (fight them with weapons and armaments—ibn Kathir. Fight them with swords—Jalalyn), hypocrites (punish them according to Sharia laws—ibn Kathir) and to be firm (harsh) against them; the abode for the unbelievers and the hypocrites is hell...66:9

Another force behind the fallacious "moderate" Muslim meme is noted scholar Daniel Pipes -- perhaps the most damaging propagandist of this impossible argument, because of his credibility.

Jacoby asks Wilders about Pipes as well here:

Q: What do you say to scholars of Islam like Daniel Pipes, who argues that radical Islam is the problem and moderate Islam is the solution? Why should one accept what Geert Wilders says about Islam, rather than someone like Pipes?

A: I respect Daniel Pipes, but I fully disagree. There is no moderate Islam. It's like the [prime minister] of Turkey, Mr. Erdogan, said himself recently: There is only one taste of Islam, and that is the taste of the Koran.

Q: But he's an Islamist. You would expect him to say that. What about anti-Islamist Muslims, Muslims who reject the radicals?

A: Listen, the Koran is seen by Muslims, unlike all the other religions, as the word of God that can never be criticized. If you criticize the Koran, you are a renegade, an apostate. There are people who are moderate and call themselves Muslim. But moderate Islam is totally nonexistent. It will never have an Enlightenment as happened with Christianity.

Q: Why not?

A: Because unlike the interpretations of other holy books, Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of God and can never be changed.

Q: Hold on - the New Testament today is the same New Testament as a thousand years ago. What's different is the way that book is read and understood. A thousand years ago, one could have said Christianity was a violent, militant religion; today one wouldn't.

A: Yes, there was a change in Christianity. It was possible because Christians don't believe that the Bible is literally the word of God - not like the Koran. If you really believe [the Koran] is the word of God, it will never have room to change

Pipes's mantra is tired. We have all been listening to it for the past ten years without so much as a scintilla of supportive data. But now, thanks to repeated polling, reality paints a vastly different picture -- here. for example is data from 2006/2007, reported by Dr. Bostom: The Muslim Mainstream and the New Caliphate.

The openly expressed desire for the restoration of a Caliphate from two-thirds of an important Muslim sample of Arab and non-Arab Islamic nations, representative of Muslims worldwide, should serve as a chilling wake-up call to those still in denial about the existential threat posed by the living, uniquely Islamic institution of jihad.

And with the most recent follow-up, reported at the end of February from World Opinion polls here, we can quantify how factually-challenged his formulation is -- unless one accepts the absurd notion that desiring "strict application" of Sharia, and global Caliphate, are "moderate". Overwhelming majorities i.e., better than 2/3 of the best conducted sampling of the world's most populous Muslim countries, want these hideous outcomes.

As Bostom has previously written,

A World Public Opinion.org/ University of Maryland poll released February 25, 2009 indicated the following about our erstwhile Muslim ally nations of Egypt and Pakistan—81% of the Muslims of “moderate” Egypt, the largest Arab Muslim nation, desire a “strict” application of Shari’a, Islamic Law; 76% of the Pakistan’s Muslims—one of the most important, and sizable non-Arab Muslim populations—want this outcome. Moreover, 70% of Egyptian Muslims and 69% of Pakistani Muslims desire the re-creation of a “..single Islamic state or Caliphate.”

Earlier, I detailed the totalitarian impact of these fulfilled Islamic desires —based upon their doctrinal and historical application, across space and time.

When I first came to study Islam post 9/11, I watched and waited and wanted very much to believe in the Moderate meme. But I am not a fool. You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.

Wilders cites this Reagan quote frequently, "If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly."

BINGO.

ORGANIZATION OF ISLAMIC CONFERENCE IMPOSES ISLAMIC DOMINATION ON THE FREE WORLD

This is Islamic supremacism. The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is bent on imposing Islam on the free world. They are singular in their purpose, barbaric in their goal. Before they can go for the jugular, freedom of speech must silenced. The UN is an Islamic organization -- we should not be there. We should belong to a union of democratic nations. President Hussein intends to move closer to the rat-house. President Hussein intends to turn over huge chunks of American sovereignty to the Muslims.

U.N. to make ban on criticizing Islam mandatory?    WND
Expected proposal would criminalize such comments in U.S.

Muslim-dominated nations at the United Nations are once again pushing a religious "anti-defamation" plan that would bar worldwide all criticism of their founder Muhammad and his teaching.

According to a report by CNN's Lou Dobbs posted on YouTube, the proposal that has been repeatedly brought in recent years by the Organization of Islamic Conference states is expected to resurface as early as this spring.

This time, however, the resolution wouldn't allow nations to opt out.

"The United Nations has adopted what it calls a Resolution to Combat Defamation of Religion," Dobbs said in the report. "The U.N. now wants to make that anti-blasphemy resolution binding on member nations, including, of course, our own. That would make it a crime in the United States ... to criticize religion, in particular, Islam."

Constitutional lawyer Floyd Abrams said in the report, "What they would do would be to make it illegal to put out a movie or write a book or a poem that somebody could say was defamatory of Islam."

Robert Tracinski: The Free Man's Rebellion

Robert Tracinski of The Intellectual Activist is one of our nation's clearest and brightest thinkers. His website is one the world cannot live without. We were fortunate to have Mr. Tracinski attend our evening with Geert Wilders last Friday night. I had not met him before, but I have long admired his sagacious, brilliant work.
He has penned an op-ed on what he saw that day in DC and that night at the OMNI Shoreham. Read it all and check out The TIA Daily site - worth the price of admission (subscribe here).
Tracinski nails the problem dead on right: "America used to have politicians like this. We call them the Founding Fathers. And one of the things I love about politics is that occasionally we see a leader who rises to that level again." —RWT

The Free Man's Rebellion Robert Tracinski

I went up to Washington, DC, Friday to see the local "tea party" protest against big government. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a fizzle. It was not so much the small size of the turnout—the best estimate I could get was that it drew at most 100 people—but the fact that those who attended were "the usual suspects." They were the kind of right-leaning, small-government firebrands who would come out for an event like this on the slightest provocation. They were not members of the general public driven to outrage by the Obama administration's push toward socialism.

So I guess I learned what I was hoping to learn by going to the event: whether or not there is a broad, popular surge of anger against rising statism. The answer: not yet. It confirms my expectation that the general public is still giving Obama the benefit of the doubt. They will not turn against him until his policies clearly have failed.

I should acknowledge, though, that Washington may not have been typical. After all, it is a town where the local growth industry is government. My friend Shrikant has been reporting to me that the general mood on the streets of Manhattan is raw fear. From what I can tell, the general mood on the streets of Washington is smug complacency. And why not? The financial center of the United States has just been forcibly removed from the one city to the other.

Other "tea party" events in other cities seem to have gone a good deal better; Michelle Malkin has a very extensive round-up on the protests in various cities. Note particularly the prevalence of signs with references to "Atlas" or to John Galt, which indicates the "Ayn Rand factor" at work here (my piece on which went up at RealClearMarkets on Friday).

But it is early days yet. The "tea party" idea was first broached less than two weeks ago by Rick Santelli. We will have a lot of time to plan and prepare and to help move the general public to the point where it is ready to say "enough."

But assessing the tepid local tea was not by any means the most interesting thing I did in Washington. What really made the trip worthwhile was seeing Geert Wilders speak there in the evening. If I was looking for a free man's rebellion against tyranny, this was it.

Wilders is the Dutch member of parliament who was recently denied entry to Britain after being invited by the House of Lords to screen his short film Fitna which demonstrates that the Koran preaches violent repression of non-believers. In response to Britain's betrayal of freedom of speech, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl invited Wilders to give a short talk and screen his film at the US Capitol on Friday.

Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs blog—there's the Ayn Rand factor at work again—decided on her own initiative to organize a second showing of the film and a talk by Wilders at the same Washington hotel that was hosting the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a giant yearly gathering of conservative political activists.

Interestingly, while the event was held alongside CPAC, it was not really part of CPAC. Geller describes how this year's CPAC has virtually ignored Islam and terrorism as an issue and generally refused to cooperate with the planning of the Wilders event. Geller had to organize the whole thing herself and find the funding for it.

The response of the CPAC attendees—the rank and file of the right, as opposed to its leadership establishment—was quite different. There was a large and enthusiastic audience, who lined up in a queue that stretched from the meeting room out through the lobby of the hotel. Geller describes the event in her blog, and one detail in particular jibes with my memory and give you a feel for it: hearing the wave of cheers and applause as Wilders came down the hallway to the meeting room, stopping to shake hands with the people waiting in line to see him. The event had a standing room only crowd estimated at more than 500, and people had to be turned away because the room was at capacity.

Geller accurately describes the enthusiasm of the audience. I am not sure I can adequately describe the enthusiasm of Geller herself, a brash New Yorker and an irrepressible firebrand. You'll have to see the video of the event (which also briefly shows yours truly chatting with Pamela—who I have known for a while as a fan of TIA Daily—before the event begins). She was followed by Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer—both of them uncompromising experts on Islam who have warned against its threats. Geller's report on the event has transcripts of their brief remarks, which are well worth reading.

But of course what we all came to see was Wilders himself and his film. Fitna is a 15-minute documentary that primarily consists of a series of quotes from the Koran calling for the killing of unbelievers, combined with quotes from speeches by various Muslim religious leaders advocating violence and religious dictatorship—all juxtaposed against images of terrorist attacks and assassinations committed by Muslims against us Western infidels. The most interesting thing about Wilders's film is that it includes so little commentary or interpretation of his own. It consists of quotes from the Koran, statements by Muslims, and actions taken by Muslims. He lets the enemy speak for himself, and the film has aptly been described as holding a mirror up to radical Islam.

For holding a mirror up to reality, Wilders has been vilified and attacked; he is currently being prosecuted in the Netherlands under that nation's "hate speech" laws. Yet if these same laws were applied to Islam, he points out, they would require Dutch authorities to ban the Koran.

And of course he has been threatened with death. This is the usual self-refuting Muslim response: don't say we're violent or we'll cut your head off. And this threat is very real for a European intellectual or politician, especially after the murder of Theo van Gogh, who was killed for making another short film critical of Islam. If you watch the video of Friday's event, you may notice that Wilders was flanked throughout the speech by two tall, well-muscled gentlemen. The fact that he needs this kind of protection says everything you need to know about the current threat to freedom of speech and where it comes from.

When I met Wilders before the event, I told him that a writer in the US can say the most controversial things with no real fear. (I've called Islam "The Killers' Creed" and put Kurt Westergaard's cartoon of Mohammed on the cover of TIA, and I've never had reason to think I was in serious danger.) So we appreciate all the more those who speak up when they are taking a real risk.

Wilders's speech—which I understand is essentially the same speech he gave at the Capitol—named in bold, straightforward terms all of the essential issues. Here are the best excerpts:

Today, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack all throughout Europe. Free speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural element of our existence, our birth right, is now something we once again have to battle for….

The real question is: will free speech be put behind bars? And the larger question for the West is: will we leave Europe's children the values of Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem, or the values of Mecca, Teheran, and Gaza?...

Cultural relativism is the worst disease in Europe today. Most of our politicians believe that all cultures are equal. Well let me tell you they are not.

Our Western culture based on Christianity, Judaism, and humanism is in every aspect better than the Islamic culture. Like the brave apostate Wafa Sultan said: it's a comparison between a culture of reason and a culture of barbarism….

I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe. I propose a European First Amendment. In Europe, we should defend freedom of speech like you Americans do….

Ladies and gentlemen, our enemies should know: we will never apologize for being free men, we will never give in. We will never surrender. There is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty. Because freedom is the birthright of all man. Freedom must prevail, and freedom will prevail.

Beyond that, I can give you my sense of Wilders as a person. He is usually portrayed sneeringly in the press as an angry reactionary rabble-rouser or as some kind of opportunistic publicity hound. What struck me most about him was precisely the opposite: there was no element in him of pretense or posturing, no trace of the self-conscious display of courage that you usually see in the leftist activist who shouts out bromides for which he knows he will never be punished. Rather, Wilders projected the most profound sense of dignity I have ever experienced from a speaker. In person, meeting members of the audience before the event, he was quiet, mild-mannered, and unfailingly polite. At the podium, he was calm and focused, maintaining his composure even in the face of the energetic and at times raucous response he got from his audience. I got the sense that he would have been equally composed if the audience had been just as energetic, but hostile. He was not really concerned with the audience and its reaction. He gave the sense that his only mission was to convey clearly the important message he had to deliver.

When Wilders first came walking to the event and shook hands with the people in line, I thought that he looked just like a politician at a campaign event shaking the hands of his constituents. And of course, he is a politician, holding a seat in the Dutch Parliament as a member of what is now his country's largest political party. But he is also much more: a man of courage and principle taking a stand on an issue that is crucial to the survival of our civilization.

America used to have politicians like this. We call them the Founding Fathers. And one of the things I love about politics is that occasionally we see a leader who rises to that level again.—RWT

A great American's take.

Iranian dissident Amil Imani writes a glorious tribute to Wilders: A Salute to Champions of Liberty

MR. WILDERS IN WASHINGTON

Here he is with Dr. Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer. Spencer, more than anyone, helped me raise the money for my event for Wilders last Friday evening, and penned this delicious oped piece on the Wilders event. If you missed Spencer's remarks at the event -- watch them here. It was his finest hour.

Geert Wilders Welcomed in Washington, Shows 'Fitna' at the Capitol

by  Robert Spencer

Geert Wilders, Dutch parliamentarian -- producer of the film expose Fitna -- and international champion of free speech, electrified a standing-room-only crowd in Washington Friday, declaring: “We will never apologize for being free men. We will never give in. We will never surrender. There is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty.”

Wilders spoke these words at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, site of the Conservative Political Action Conference, at an independent event organized by Pamela Geller, publisher of the popular website AtlasShrugs.com, and co-sponsored by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Dr. Andrew Bostom (editor of The Legacy of Jihad and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism), and my own Jihad Watch.

Geller’s determined efforts to get Wilders a platform in Washington show what one tireless citizen can do to make a difference -- a lesson that conservatives should increasingly heed in the Age of Obama, when so many organizations on the Right seem to have lost their focus and will.

In a jab at British authorities who barred him from entering the country in February, Wilders thanked immigration authorities for “letting me into this great country,” quipping: “It is always a pleasure to cross a border without being sent back on the first plane.” The Brits seemed afraid that if Wilders went ahead with plans to screen in the House of Lords his short film Fitna, which shows how jihadists use the Qur’an to incite Muslims to commit acts of violence, Muslims might…commit acts of violence. Instead of admonishing Muslims that public order would be preserved and free speech upheld, British authorities sent Wilders back to the Netherlands. But in America, not only was Wilders allowed in, but he even screened Fitna in the Capitol at the invitation of Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz).

And at the Omni Shoreham event, he eloquently explained the need to defend free speech. “The real question,” he stated, “is, will free speech be put behind bars? And the larger question for the West is: will we leave Europe’s children the values of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, or the values of Mecca, Teheran and Gaza?” The 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations, has undertaken a concerted initiative to compel Western governments to adopt Islamic restrictions on free speech. If successful, this would prevent us from understanding our enemy by outlawing even law enforcement and government explorations of how jihadists use Islam to justify violence and make recruits. Such investigations would be outlawed as offensive to Islam under the guise of “hate speech.”

And my other partner in crime, Dr. Andrew Bostom, reflects on Wilders's trip here:

Geert Wilders and Moral Equivalence

2]This past week I had the great pleasure of meeting and hearing Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders several times . At each event, Mr. Wilders spoke either before or after a presentation of his harrowing, but realistic [8] film, “Fitna [9].”

Just this week, consistent with the understandings, and plaintive appeals by both Mr. Wilders and the Pakistani scholar Ibn Warraq (earlier here [10], and most recently here [11]), these reports emerged:

A World Public Opinion.org/ University of Maryland poll [12] released February 25, 2009 indicated the following about our erstwhile Muslim ally nations of Egypt and Pakistan—81% of the Muslims of “moderate” Egypt, the largest Arab Muslim nation, desire a “strict” application of Shari’a, Islamic Law; 79% of the Pakistan’s Muslims—one of the most important, and sizable non-Arab Muslim populations—want this outcome. Moreover, 70% of Egyptian Muslims and 69% of Pakistani Muslims desire the re-creation of a “..single Islamic state or Caliphate.”

Earlier, I detailed the totalitarian impact of these fulfilled Islamic desires [13]—based upon their doctrinal and historical application, across space and time.

Grozny, Russia: Ramzan Kadyrov president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers (Friday February 27, 2009) at the mosque and explained with, according to this AP report [14], “chilling composure” why seven young women who had been murdered—shot in the head—deserved to die. Kadyrov proclaimed that the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had “loose morals” and their shooting by male relatives in honor killings. He told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic, “If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed.” Kadyrov.” The report further observed that,

Kadyrov describes women as the property of their husbands and says their main role is to bear children. He encourages men to take more than one wife, even though polygamy is illegal in Russia. Women and girls are now required to wear headscarves in all schools, universities and government offices…

Read it all.

WILDERS: #1 WITH BULLET

Wilders took America by storm. I will have the video, pictures and speeches up by tonight of our event Friday. You must watch the event and send it to everyone. Wilders brought down da hous.

Also, the latest polls show that Wilders' party is the biggest party in the Netherlands.
Check out the notoriously hostile Dutch press. I guess the writer was moved a bit by the love.

WILDERS IN WASHINGTON: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

 

Geert Wilders en Pamela Geller op het CPAC symposium

Geert Wilders sprak in Washington, D.C. op een symposium voor 400 enthousiaste Amerikanen. Het bezoek leverde veel aandacht maar waarschijnlijk weinig geld op. Zijn 'welkom thuis' geschenk zal die pijn verzachten.

Zodra Pamela Geller hoorde dat Wilders naar Amerika kwam nodigde ze hem voor de bijeenkomst van de Conservative Political Action Committee. Op dit jaarlijkse symposium komen conservatieve Amerikanen samen om te luisteren naar speeches over de bedreiging van het vrije wapenbezit, de verloedering van familiewaarden en het gevaar van socialisme. Wilders' verhaal over de inperking van de vrijheid van meningsuiting mocht niet ontbreken, aldus Geller die via haar blog Atlas Shrugs tegen het oprukkend Islamitische gevaar waarschuwt. "Het gaat de verkeerde kant op en als niemand iets doet worden we op een dag allemaal wakker in een strafkamp." En Wilders - "de dappere verdediger van Westerse waarden" - geeft volgens haar het goede voorbeeld. 

Translation thanks to KGS of the terrific Tundra Tabloids for this google translation:

Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller at the CPAC conference

 Geert Wilders spoke in Washington, DC at a symposium for 400 enthusiastic Americans. The visit provided a lot of attention but little money. His' welcome home 'gift will alleviate pain.

Huh?

Once Pamela Geller heard Wilders came to America they called him for the meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee. At this annual symposium are conservative Americans together to listen to speeches about the threat to the free possession of weapons, the degradation of family values and the danger of socialism. Wilders' story about the curtailment of freedom of expression should not be missed, says Geller through her blog Atlas Shrug against advancing Islamic threat warns. "This is the wrong way and if anyone does something we all wake up one day in gulag.  And Wilders - "the brave defender of Western values" - indicates, in its good example.

I didn't say that but what the hell -- I will translate my remarks.

The meeting, which Geller organized together with the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Web site Jihad Watch, was Wilders' third gig in Washington, DC Previously he spoke in the National Press Club and on Capitol Hill, where he was invited by the Republican senator Jon Kyl film showed. Coincidence or not, that action came on the same day as Senator John Kerry's meeting on improving the relationship between America and the Muslim World.

Wilders moved by the loud cheering and cries "Wilders for President" and "we love freedom" on the stage.  He began his story by thanking the U.S. immigration service - a reference to the English refusing him entry to.The room responded with cries books.  When he talks about a speech by President Reagan in 1982 gave the English House is a wave of enhousiame by the public. For most visitors to the conservative CPAC conference, the 40th president is still the best.  Wilders also as the Wall Street Journal quoted people recognizing the sound - that is a newspaper that at least they seem confident to say. "The freedom of expression in the Netherlands, according to the Journal as large as Saudi Arabia," Wilders says, "and my lawsuit called the newspaper" no small victory for Islamic regimes that wish to export their censorship. "

After the final standing ovation organizer Geller called on those present to donate money for Wilders' lawsuit. "Alle bedragen zijn welkom want het is 'bloody expensive. "All amounts are welcome because it is bloody expensive." "How much money they had obtained it did not say, but it was probably not much. "But it was not for me. I have the rent for the room and all facilities paid. And all we get beautiful." On its Web site, which attracts thousands of visitors daily, is now a link to Wilders' fund.

This translation is funny. I will post the real reportage tonight.

 Personally, the PVV leader is not on the cost or proceeds of the evening.  But even without major check is the visit to America, which Wilders says is home to feel successful. It earned him the necessary attention in the media as expected, opinions were split. In the FOX talk of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly, it was largely with him. The Washington Post compared Fitna in Congress with the screening of the pro-Ku Klux Klan film "Birth of a Nation 'in the White House in 1915. The New York Times described Wilders as a fierce critic of Islam with clean container rover positions as the plan to pay Muslims to leave the country.

Big media serving their Islamic overlords.

Despite the heartwarming reception "and" the American love of freedom of expression "said Wilders in the country never want to live. The day he came home from a survey revealed by Maurice de Hond PVV that the largest party in the Netherlands. "Mission accomplished." "Mission accomplished.

UPDATE: Atlas reader LN does a better job than google:

Geert Wilders and Pamela Geller at the CPAC conference

At a symposium in Washington, DC, Geert Wilders spoke to 400 enthusiastic Americans. The visit provided a lot of attention but probably little money. His 'welcome home' gift may compensate for that (referring to his party now being the largest acc. to one pollster, ed.)

As soon as Pamela Geller heard Wilders would came to America she invited him for the meeting of the Conservative Political Action Committee. At this annual symposium conservative Americans meet to listen to speeches about the threat to the free possession of weapons, the degradation of family values and the danger of socialism. Wilders' story about the curtailment of freedom of expression could not be absent there, says Geller who - through her blog Atlas Shrugs - warns against the advancing Islamic threat. "Things are heading the wrong way and if nobody does anything we'll all wake up one day in a gulag." And according to her, Wilders - "the brave defender of Western values" - sets a good example.

The meeting, which Geller organized together with the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the website Jihad Watch, was Wilders' third appearance in Washington, DC. Previously he spoke for the National Press Club and at Capitol Hill, where he was invited by Republican senator Jon Kyl to show film. Coincidence or not, that happened to be on the very day of senator John Kerry's meeting on improving the relationship between America and the muslim world.

Wilders entered the stage accompanied by loud cheers and cries "Wilders for President" and "we love freedom". He first thanked the U.S. immigration services - a reference to his being refused entry to their country by the British. The audience responded with booing/hooting. When he recalled a 1982 speech by President Reagan in the British House of Commons, the audience reacts with a wave of enthusiasm. For most people attending the conservative CPAC conference, the 40th president is still the best. Also when Wilders quotes the Wall Street Journal people react in approval - apparently considering it to be a newspaper that at least they can rely on. "According to the Wall Street Journal, in the Netherlands, freedom of expression is as large as in Saudi Arabia", Wilders says, "and this newspaper regards my lawsuit 'no small victory for Islamic regimes that wish to export their censorship'."

After the last standing ovation organizer Geller called on those present to donate money for Wilders' lawsuit. "Any amount is welcome because it is bloody expensive." How much money had been collected she could not say, but it was probably not that much. "But that wasn't the main goal. I paid the rent for the hall and all facilities myself. Whatever we collect helps." Her website, which attracts thousands of visitors daily, has a link to Wilders' fund.

Nor did the PVV leader himself comment about the cost or proceeds of the evening. However, also without major cheque, the visit to America, where Wilders says he feels at home, is successful. It earned him the necessary attention in the media where, as was to be expected, opinions were diverse. In the FOX talkshows of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly most agreed with him. The Washington Post compared Fitna in Congress with the screening of the pro-Ku Klux Klan film "Birth of a Nation" in the White House in 1915. The New York Times described Wilders as a fierce critic of Islam with controversial viewpoints like the plan to pay Muslims for leaving the country.

Despite the 'heartwarming reception' and "the American love of freedom of expression" Wilders said he'd never want to live in the country. And why would he? Upon his return, a poll by Maurice de Hond revealed the PVV has become the largest party in the Netherlands. "Mission accomplished."

THE MAN IN THE ARENA: GEERT WILDERS NEW YORK SPEECH

This is our Churchill, I tell ya.

SPEECH GEERT WILDERS NEW YORK, FOUR SEASONS February 23, 2009:

Thank you.

Thank you very much for inviting me. And – to the immigration authorities – thank you for letting me into this country. It is always a pleasure to cross a border without being sent back on the first plane.

Today, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack all throughout Europe. Free speech is no longer a  given. What we once considered a natural element of our existence, our birth right, is now something we once again have to battle for. 

As you might know, I will be prosecuted, because of my film Fitna, my remarks regarding Islam, and my view concerning what some call a ‘religion of peace’. A few years from now, I might be a criminal.

Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue; I gave up my freedom four years ago. I am under full-time police protection ever since. The real question is: will free speech be put behind bars? And the larger question for the West is: will we leave Europe’s children the values of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, or the values of Mecca, Teheran and Gaza?

This is what video blogger Pat Condell said in one of his latest you tube appearances. He says: “If I talked about Muslims the way their holy book talks about me, I’d be arrested for hate speech.” Now, Mr Condell is a stand-up comedian, but in the video he is dead serious and the joke is on us. Hate speech will always be used against the people defending the West – in order to please and appease Muslims. They can say whatever they want: throw gays from apartment buildings, kill the Jews, slaughter the infidel, destroy Israel, jihad against the West. Whatever their book tells them.

Today, I come before you to warn of a great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, slavery of women, the end of democracy. It is NOT a religion, it is  an political ideology. It demands your respect, but has no respect for you.

There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is built on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never alter. First, there is the Quran, Allah’s personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect. Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about it’s goal. That’s a given. It’s fact.

This is Europe 2009. Muslim settlers calling for our destruction, and free speech on trial. All this is the outcome of a sick and evil ideology, the ideology that is weakening us, the surrender ideology of cultural relativism. It believes that all cultures are equal, and therefore Islam deserves an equal place in the West. It is their duty, the left thinks, to facilitate Islam. This way the cultural relativists paradise comes within reach and we will all be happy, and sing kumbaya.

The forces of Islam couldn’t agree more. Islam being facilitated by government is their agenda too. But they see it as jizya, the money dhimmis pay in order not to be killed or raped by their Muslim masters. Therefore, they happily accept the welfare cheque or the subsidies for their mosque or the money governments donate to their organizations.

This is just one example of cultural relativists and Muslim settlers having the same agenda. There is another. Islam considers itself a religion and therefore we are not permitted to criticize it. The left agrees. Although it hated Christianity for decades, now that Islam appears on the scene, they suddenly change course and demand ‘respect’ for something they call a religion.

Again we see the left and Islam having the same agenda: it is a religion, so shut up.

This all culminates in a third coming-together: nor the left nor Islam is in favor of criticism. In fact, given the opportunity, they would simply outlaw it. Multiculturalism is the left’s pet project. It is actually their religion. Their love of it is so great, if you oppose it, it must be hate. And if you say it, it is labeled hate speech. Now here is something the Islam can agree on.

This is the essence of my short introduction today: where the left and Islam come together, freedom will suffer.

My friends, make no mistake, my prosecution is a full-fledged attack by  the left on freedom of speech in order to please Muslims. It was started by a member of the Dutch Labour party, and the entire legal proceeding is done by well-to-do liberals, the radical chic of Dutch society, the snobbish left. Too much money, too much time, too little love of liberty. If you read what the court of Amsterdam has written about me, you read the same texts that cultural relativists produce.


How low can we go in the Netherlands? About my prosecution, The Wall Street Journal noted: “this is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside”. The Journal concluded that by The Netherlands accepting the free speech standards of, “Saudi-Arabia”, I stand correct in my observation that - I quote - “Muslim immigration is eroding traditional Dutch liberties”.

Now, if the Wall Street Journal has the moral clarity to see that my prosecution is the logical outcome of our disastrous, self-hating, multiculturalists immigration policies, then why can’t the European liberal establishment see the same thing? Why aren’t they getting at least a little bit scared by the latest news out of, for example, the UK. News that tells that the Muslim population in Britain is growing ten times as fast as the rest of society. Why don’t they care?

The answer is: they don’t care because they are blinded by their cultural relativism. Their disdain of the West is so much greater than the appreciation of our many liberties. And therefore, they are willing to sacrifice everything. The left once stood for women rights, gay rights, equality, democracy. Now, they favour immigration policies that will end all this. Many even lost their decency. Elite politicians have no problem to participate in or finance demonstrations where settlers shout “Death to the Jews”. Seventy years after Auschwitz they know of no shame.

Two weeks ago, I tried to get into Britain, a fellow EU country. I was invited to give a speech in Parliament. However, upon arrival at London airport, I was refused entry into the UK, and sent back on the first plane to Holland.  I would have loved to have reminded the audience of a great man who once spoke in the House of Commons. In 1982 President Reagan gave a speech there very few people liked. Reagan called upon the West to reject communism and defend freedom. He introduced a phrase: ‘evil empire’. Reagan’s speech stands out as a clarion call to preserve our liberties. I quote: If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. What Reagan meant is that you cannot run away from history, you cannot escape the dangers of ideologies that are out to destroy you. Denial is no option.

So, what should we do? Is this a good moment for freedom-loving people to give in or to change course? To all-of-a-sudden start singing praise of Islam, or proclaiming there is such a thing as a moderate Islam? Will we now accept the continuation of Muslim mass immigration to the West? Will we appease sharia and jihad? Should we sacrifice gay rights and women rights? Or democracy? Should we sell out Israel, our dearest ally, and a frontline state of Islam?

Well, my humble opinion is: No way, Jose!


I suggest to defend freedom in general and freedom of speech in particular. I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe. I propose a European First Amendment. In Europe we should defend freedom of speech like you Americans do. In Europe freedom of speech should be extended, instead of restricted. Of course, calling for violence or unjustly yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre have to be punished, but the right to criticize ideologies or religions are necessary conditions for a vital democracry. As George Orwell once said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.


Let us defend freedom of speech and let us gain strength and work hard to become even stronger. Millions think just like you and me. Millions think liberty is precious. That democracy is better than sharia. And after all, why should we be afraid? Our many freedoms and our prosperity are the result of centuries of endeavour. Centuries of hard work and sacrifice. We do not stand alone, and we stand on the shoulders of giants.


Late December 1944 the American army was suddenly faced with a last-ditch effort by the Germans. In the Ardennes, in the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler and his national-socialists fought for their last chance. And they were very successful. Americans faced defeat, and death.

In the darkest of winter, in the freezing cold, in a lonely forest with snow and ice as even fiercer enemies than the Nazi war machine itself, the American army was told to surrender. That might be their only chance to survive. But General McAuliffe thought otherwise. He gave the Germans a short message. This message contained just four letters. Four letters only, but never in the history of freedom was a desire for liberty and perseverance in the face of evil expressed more eloquently than in that message. It spelled N – U – T – S. “Nuts”.

My friends, the national-socialists got the message. Because it left no room for interpretation!

I suggest we walk in the tradition of giants like General McAuliffe and the American soldiers who fought and died for the freedom of my country and for a secular and democratic Europe, and we tell the enemies of freedom just that. NUTS! Because that’s all there is to it. No explanations. No beating around  the bush. No caveats.

Our enemies should know: we will never apologize for being free men, we will never bow for the combined forces of Mecca and the left. And we will never surrender. We stand on the shoulders of giants. There is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty. Because freedom is the birthright of all man.

ACTION ALERT: SENATOR KYL UNDER PRESSURE FOR HOSTING FITNA

Wilders to screen Fitna at the Capitol

In their continuing quest for Islamic world domination and the destruction of a Judeo-Christian America, Islamic groups are trying to stop this screening. Senator Kyl is merely upholding a basic tenet of American society - freedom of speech. Can we allow the suppression of free speech? Can we submit to a religious ideology of domination and submission? I beg you to take a stand.

There is a low grade civil war taking place in America. Just because the media is too afraid to report on it doesn't mean it's not happening.

Kyl under pressure for hosting Fitna Jihad Watch

Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) is coming under pressure from stealth jihad groups and their allies and dupes for his plan to host a showing of the film Fitna in The Capitol.

Please contact Senator Kyl and declare your support for his courageous decision to show this honest and accurate but politically incorrect film. He needs expressions of support more than ever today!

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
730 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4521
Fax: (202) 224-2207

kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm

If you are in DC on Friday, come show your support for an American ideal - Geert Wilders.

If you missed Wilders on Beck or O'Reilly last night, go here.

AN EVENING WITH GEERT WILDERS

Wilders, the foremost defender of free speech in the modern age, will deliver an address at a reception at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, site of the Conservative Political Action Conference, on Friday, February 27, at 6:00PM.

The reception will feature a screening of Wilders’s courageous and hard-hitting film Fitna, which demonstrates how Islamic jihadists use the Qur’an and Islamic teachings to justify acts of violence and terrorism, and which has become the focus of efforts by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to restrict and criminalize free speech about the global jihad threat. A question-and-answer period will follow.

The reception is sponsored by the

David Horowitz Freedom Center,  Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, and Dr. Andrew Bostom

It is open to the public. In light of the multiple threats on Geert Wilders’s life, security will be very tight: no bags or coats will be allowed, all materials brought in to the room will be searched, and the event organizers reserve the right to deny entry to or eject anyone at any time.

For more information, contact Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com, wildersevening@aol.com

ROME: WILDERS RECEIVES THE ORIANA FALLACI AWARD: 'ISLAM AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH"

Geert Wilders was in Rome this past week to receive the Oriana Fallaci award. How perfect.
Atlas reader Sergio went to see Wilders and sent us this video  of Geert Wilders having a walk with Sam Solomon and Armando Manocchia(from "una via per Oriana") in Rome' Forum and in down town shopping center, plus the presentation of the "Oriana Fallaci Award" by Mr Armando Manocchia to Geert. Sweet.  He is coming to New York, Boston and DC -- Atlas will sooo be there.

Speech by Geert Wilders
Rome, February 19, 2009

Signore e signori, molte grazie. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.

I feel very honoured to have been invited to speak here in Rome, to speak here in this splendid city, the cradle of our Western civilization.

As you perhaps know, Oriana Fallaci is one of my heroes. She definitely was one of the greatest examples of bravery and honesty. Her brilliant books ‘The Rage and the Pride’ and ‘The Force of Reason’ are my guidelines that inspire me day after day. Mr. Manocchia, Una via per Oriana, thank you very much for remembering the great Oriana Fallaci. The world should remember her forever.

Ladies and gentlemen, following in the footsteps of Oriana Fallaci, I want to warn you for a great threat. This great threat is called Islam.

Islam is build on two rocks. First there is the Koran, Allah’s personal word, with orders that need to be fulfilled by Muslims regardless of place and time. As you know, the Koran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, terrorism, war, Jihad. The Koran calls upon Muslims to kill non-Muslims and he Koran considers Jews to be monkeys and pigs. That is why the great German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called the Koran inferior. That is why former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Oriana Fallaci compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

Second, there is the so called perfect man: Muhammad. His deeds have to be imitated by all Muslims, and since Muhammad was a warlord and executed prisoners of war we know exactly what to expect. The brave American apostate dr. Wafa Sultan said: “The problem is that the Koran clearly says that Muhammad should be a role model for every Muslim. You are not allowed to criticise him, but you should follow in his footsteps. As a Muslim it is your mission to spread Islam by the sword”.

Please, ladies and gentlemen, let no one fool you: Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about its goal. There are moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam.
A total of 54 million Muslims live across Europe. In less than half a century the number of Muslims has increased rapidly. The Islamization of Europe affects the European achievements of the last century. The question is: Are we prepared to defend our achievements? Are we prepared to defend the equality of men and women? Are we prepared to defend the equality of homo- and heterosexuals? Are we prepared to defend the separation of Church and State? Are we prepared to defend freedom of speech?

Ladies and gentlemen, I would not qualify myself as a free man. Four and a half years ago I lost my freedom. Since then I am under 24-hour police protection. As if that is not enough, the most radical Dutch Imam claimed 55.000 euros in compensation for his hurt feelings because of ‘Fitna’. The State of Jordan is possibly going to issue a request for my extradition to stand trial in Amman. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal ordered my criminal prosecution for making ‘Fitna’ and for my political views on Islam. And last week the British government refused my entrance into the United Kingdom because me showing ‘Fitna’ in the British House of Lords at the invitation of a British parliamentarian would be a threat to British public security. This is the alarming state of freedom of speech in today’s Europe: Criticizing Islam has become a dangerous activity, criticizing Islam has apparently become a criminal act.

You just saw ‘Fitna’. My name is on the credit roll, but like you have seen, ‘Fitna’ is actually not made by me, but is made by radical Muslims, the Koran and Islam itself. If ‘Fitna’ is considered to be hate speech, then what is the Koran? If I am considered to be a threat to public security, then what is Islam?

The Court’s decision and my ban by the British government are two major victories for Islam. Both institutions have sided with Islam. The first Soviet leader, Lenin, once labelled ignorant people that unknowingly aided his cause as ‘useful idiots’. Well, the Court and the British government are the ‘useful idiots’ of today, and I think they are even proud of it.

The Court’s decision and my ban by the British government are also two major victories for all those who hate freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech — the dearest of our liberties — is under attack in today’s Europe. Oriana Fallaci herself had to live in fear of extradition to Switzerland because of her book ‘The Rage and the Pride’. Recently, Susanne Winter, an Austrian politician, was sentenced to a suspended prison sentence for telling the truth about Muhammad. The Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot was arrested by ten police men because of his drawings, and on top of all that, we now have the decisions of the Inquisition-like Court in Amsterdam and the Dhimmi British government.

Freedom of speech is no longer a given in Europe. What we once considered to be a natural component of our existence is now something we have to fight for. That is what is at stake. Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most important issue. The question is: Will free speech be put behind bars?

I repeat the words inscribed on the headstone of the murdered Dutch anti-Islam politician dr. Pim Fortuyn, who lies buried here in Italy and would have celebrated his birthday today: ‘loquendi libertatum custodiamus’, let us guard freedom of speech.

That is why I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe. I propose a European First Amendment. Freedom of speech is the keystone of our Western civilization, it is the keystone of our democracies and the keystone of our freedom. That is why freedom of speech should be extended instead of restricted. Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s and Theo van Gogh’s film ‘Submission’, Kurt Westergaard’s cartoons and my documentary ‘Fitna’ should never be banned, but should be protected. As George Orwell once said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is five to twelve. In Europe, our freedom is at stake. Islam is Europe’s Trojan Horse. The differences between Saudi-Arabia and the Netherlands, between Iran and Italy are blurring. The first Islamic invasion of Europe was stopped at Poitiers in 732. The second Islamic invasion was halted at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Now we have to stop the current — stealth — Islamic invasion. Ladies and gentlemen, once Islam conquered Constantinople, now it wants to conquer Rome. We have to stop the Islamization of Europe, because if we don’t, Europe will become Eurabia.

Fortunately there is some hope. This hope does not come from governments, but from the people. In the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population considers mass immigration to be the number one policy mistake since the Second World War. Another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat to our national identity. I am convinced that the public opinion in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and here in Italy isn’t much different.

We have to maintain our values. We have to maintain our liberties. We have to maintain our civilization. We have to maintain the heritage of Rome, because we owe it to our children.

As Oriana Fallaci once said: “The moment you give up your principles, and your values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead”.

Thank you very much.

Steyn Testifies: "Free societies should not be in the business of criminalizing opinion"

Committee Transcripts: Standing Committee on Government Agencies - February 09, 2009 - Agency review: Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. This is amazing. One for the history books, I tell ya.

The Chair (Mrs. Julia Munro): I'd first like to ask Mr. Mark Steyn to come forward and join us. Please sit down and make yourself comfortable. Good afternoon, Mr. Steyn. I would just explain to you that we have 30 minutes set aside that you may use as you wish in making comments. Time that is left over then will be divided amongst the caucuses. So please begin if you're ready.

Mr. Mark Steyn: I'd just like to make a brief statement, and then I'm happy to answer any questions.

The present Ontario human rights regime is incompatible with a free society. It is useless on real human rights issues that we face today, and in the course of such pseudo human rights as the human right to smoke marijuana on someone else's property or the human right to a transsexual labioplasty, it tramples on real human rights, including property rights, free speech, the right to due process and the presumption of innocence.

Far from reducing racism or sexism, the Ontario human rights regime explicitly institutionalizes racism and sexism through its inability to view any dispute except through the narrow prism of identity politics. It's at odds not just with eight centuries of this province's legal inheritance, but with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Canada likes that one so much, it sticks it on the back of the $50 bill, even though Ontario's human rights regime is in sustained systemic breach of article 6, article 7, articles 8 to 10, 11, 12, 18, 19, 21 and 27 of the UN declaration. The good news is that Ontario is not in violation of as many articles as Sudan or North Korea.

All are equal before the law and are entitled, without any discrimination, to equal protection of the law. That's article 7. It's not true in Ontario. Last year, the Ontario Human Rights Commission effectively gave Maclean's and myself a drive-by verdict. They couldn't be bothered taking us to trial, but they decided to pronounce us guilty anyway. That neglects the most basic principle of justice: Audi alteram partem; hear the other side. Chief commissar Barbara Hall didn't bother hearing the other side; she simply declared us guilty. That is the very defining act of a police state: an apparatchik announcing that a citizen is guilty of dissent from state orthodoxy.

But here's the point: Maclean's and I have no fear of Barbara Hall, the commission or the tribunal. You're welcome to try and do your worst to us. We have deep pockets. We pushed back and we filled the newspapers with stories about all these wacky cases that Barbara Hall and others are so obsessed about. Like all tinpot bullies, the commission couldn't take the heat and backed down. But if you're just a fellow who happens to own a restaurant in Burlington, the Ontario human rights regime will destroy your savings, your business and your life for no good reason. The verdict is irrelevant; the process is the punishment.

I would like to say one further thing: When Mohamed Elmasry announced his suits against Maclean's, he was supported by Terry Downey of the Ontario Federation of Labour, and Ms. Downey, explaining her support for Dr. Elmasry, said, "There is proper conduct that everyone has to follow." Sorry; I pass on that one. For one thing, there is no "proper conduct" in the wacky world of pseudo human rights in this province. The rules are made up as they go along, so even if you wanted to follow them, you can't. In John Locke's words, they "dispose of the Estates of the Subject arbitrarily."

Secondly, it's all too easy to imagine the Terry Downeys of the day primly telling a homosexual 50 years ago that there's proper conduct that everyone has to follow, or a Jew 70 years ago that there's proper conduct that everyone has to follow. That's why free societies do not license ideologues to regulate proper conduct. When you subordinate legal principles to ideological fashion, you place genuine liberties in peril, and that' s the state in Ontario today.

Thank you.

The Chair (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you very much. We will begin with the official opposition, Ms. MacLeod.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Welcome to our committee, Mr. Steyn. During the summer, this committee convened to interview and review the 22 vice-chairs and the 22 members of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. Throughout that process, your case, Maclean's versus the Ontario Human Rights Commission, as well as what happened in British Columbia to you as well as what happened federally to you, was front and centre on our minds. Consistently throughout that process I asked questions of the deputants, those seeking to be appointed to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, if they believed the free press trumped discrimination or vice versa. One of the deputants actually responded. Today, earlier, I asked the same question to the chair of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. He responded and said that neither trumps either. I would like your view on that, because it follows a logical set of questions that I have which are next with respect to freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

Mr. Mark Steyn: With respect to the witness this morning, that has become a standard equivocation at the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. Whenever tribunal judges take away individual human rights, they do so under the guise of what they call balancing competing rights. So for example, going back to the Scott Brockie case, they claim to be balancing his right to freedom of religion with the right of the gay people seeking printed materials to be free from discrimination. In practice they almost never balance those rights. They always defer to collective rights, group rights, in favour of individual rights. I'm an absolutist on this. I agree with the view that the ultimate minority is the individual and classically, historically, common law has been entirely antipathetic to group rights, because who can speak for a group? The notion of group rights should be an abomination to a settled democracy as old as this province.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Has the experience that you and Maclean's faced, do you believe-in your opinion, has that chilled coverage of other controversial events in this province?

Mr. Mark Steyn: Yes, I would say that's undoubtedly the case. Essentially, Maclean's and I-Maclean's in the corporate sense decided the amount of money it was willing to spend to see off these assaults on freedom, and I made a personal calculation of the amount of money that I was willing to spend on that. I'm fortunate, unlike most people caught in the human rights trap, to have that amount of money that I can spend.

But the reality is that most editors and most publishers don't want to get caught in this business. What you see progressively is the shrivelling of the bounds of public discourse. People say to me, "Don't worry; you'll be acquitted eventually." That happened to that guy in Saskatchewan, in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, the fellow who took out the ad, not even quoting the Biblical passages but just citing the chapter and verse. It appeared as an ad in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. Four years later, that was overturned at the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal. But in reality, nobody can place that ad today. You couldn't take that ad to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix and expect them to run it. So, in that sense, the public space, the space for public discourse, shrivels remorselessly under this regime.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: You spoke earlier about the drive-by verdict of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Could you inform us of other aspects of natural justice that were lacking in your experience before the Ontario Human Rights Commission?

Mr. Mark Steyn: Yes. There's a reason why-but let's start with the basic thing. For example, truth is no defence. No one was disputing the truth of what I wrote, nobody was arguing that it was libellous or seditious or false, for all of which there would be appropriate legal remedy. In essence, the plaintiffs were arguing that they'd been offended. Well, offensiveness is in the eye of the offended. I have no way of commenting on that one way or another. It's not possible in a legal sense to mount a defence to the accusation that you've offended somebody, which is why the human right not to be offended should not exist in free societies. That's the first and most basic thing that this system fails in.

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Ms. Lisa MacLeod: It's interesting that you bring that up. Murray Campbell, who's one of your colleagues here at Queen's Park-he works for the Globe and Mail-wrote a column on August 28 about this committee and the probe that we put forward with the appointees. He writes that: "Ms. MacLeod is right to explore the grey area between free speech and responsibility and to wonder how the tribunal will operate when it is handed allegations of discrimination from people who don't believe press councils or hate laws protect them." He specifically cites you. He says that it' s time "for Attorney General Chris Bentley to get it going"-and that's more public debate-"before Mr. Steyn writes another book."< /p>

I say this because the defence of you and your freedom to express yourself and the freedom of your opinions-the support ranged from many different groups across Canada, from Egale to PEN to the Canadian Association of Journalists, as well as other journalists that work in the field, in addition to media ranging from the Toronto Star to Eye Weekly to, now, the Globe and Mail. Have you called for the censorship provisions of the Human Rights Commission to be appealed, and did it surprise you that you had so much support?

Mr. Mark Steyn: No, because I think it should be obvious. If anything, I was rather alarmed by the number of Canadian journalists who are quite happy to serve, in effect, as eunuchs of the politically correct state. I can't understand why anybody would want to do that.

It took a while. The organizations you mentioned were late getting on the bandwagon. In a sense, if you want to make this a right-wing, left-wing thing, the international left in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia-people who loathe me personally-got the essence of this far quicker than the Canadian left did: that if you don't believe in free speech for people you loathe, you don't believe in free speech at all.

Every time you have someone like Haroon Siddiqui at the Toronto Star saying, "Oh, it's all about striking a balance," and all the rest of it-every time someone tiptoes down that primrose path, it leads only to tyranny. If you don't believe in free speech for people you loathe, you hate, you revile, you don't believe in free speech at all.

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: Thank you very much. I know my colleague Christine Elliott has a few questions for you-or my colleague Randy Hillier has a few questions for you.

The Chair (Mrs. Julia Munro): Okay. I just will warn you that we have about two minutes left for your caucus.

Mr. Randy Hillier: Thank you very much for being here. It is an absolute pleasure to hear people speaking forthrightly, such as yourself today.

The process, you've talked about. The process is the trap. The objective is not important in this whole process. Do you have any comments on if this human rights tribunal ought to be here at all, or how you might offer suggestions or recommendations to improve it?

Mr. Mark Steyn: I believe in the abolition of the commission, because I believe the commission is nothing but ideological activists. I have no objection to that; I've been accused of that myself, but I do it on my own dime and I don't see why commissar Hall and her colleagues shouldn't also do it on their own dime.

The tribunal, I think, needs to be brought within the codes and conventions of this country's legal system. At the moment, it upends them. The burden of proof ought to be on the accuser. The accuser should not be allowed unlimited funds to frivolously torment people for no reason, beggaring them for something that serves no public purpose.

Whatever you think of the marijuana thing, it seems initially to arise from a defectively written law. But that great issue, the issue of where you can smoke medicinal marijuana-the burden of that should not be on Gator Ted. The transsexual labioplasty is perfect nonsense. Any sane person understands exactly what was going on when that doctor said that he was not willing to operate on these two transsexual women.

The idea that people should be essentially punished by a system that does not allow them equality with their accuser is a mark of great shame to this province. If there has to be a tribunal, it should be brought within the bounds of normal legal practice and this province's 800-year legal tradition.

The Chair (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you very much. I'll move on to Ms. DiNovo.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: Mr. Steyn, if somebody puts a sign up in their store that says, "No Jews Need Apply," would that be considered okay in your-

Mr. Mark Steyn: We're not talking about "No Jews Need Apply." It's very interesting to me. Even at the time, for example, the famous No Irish Need Apply song, which became a famous hit song in the 19th century that Irish-Americans took up enthusiastically and made one of the biggest hit songs of the mid-19th century-when they actually went looking for "No Irish Need Apply" ads, in the whole of the United States, they found exactly two. It's easy to do. You can go now and search the entire archives of the New York Times, the Boston Globe, all the rest of it: There were only two. So even in its day, the "No Irish Need Apply," "No Jews Need Apply," "No Muslims Need Apply" was a very rare activity. Today, it's almost entirely vanished. That's not what we're talking about. If you look at the tribunal-

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: But why not, if I might interrupt? If freedom of speech is absolute, your freedom of speech to put in your store window "No Jews Need Apply" or "No Muslims Will Be Served" or "Coloureds Sit at the End of the Counter" is surely covered by freedom of speech.

Mr. Mark Steyn: I think that's to do with basic equality before the law. I recognize laws of public accommodation. I recognize, for example, that if you have a restaurant, you can't say that the Jews sit at this table and the Muslims sit at that table.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: Why not? It's your freedom, as an individual freedom of speech, to be able to do so.

Mr. Mark Steyn: No, because I think that once you get into the business, as I said, of public accommodation, where you're offering a service to the public-and again, I think there are exceptions to this. There's the famous case in Mississauga, the latest to make this system a laughingstock, about the woman who claims she was dismissed as a stripper on age grounds. I've never been to this strip club in Mississauga, but it sounds like the top-of-the-line strip joint in town, and obviously they pay better than other strip clubs in that area. Why shouldn't I go along and say, "Hey, you know something? I'd like to work as a stripper here and you're discriminating against me on grounds of"-

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: To bring you back to point, though, the point of the Ontario Human Rights Code and of human rights codes generally is to prevent the "No Jews Need Apply" action. Without the Ontario Human Rights Code, without the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, freedom of speech, in its absolute and ultimate form, would rule the day. Clearly, hateful words lead to hateful actions.

Mr. Mark Steyn: No. I would say-this is the classic human rights dodge, by the way, to identify a non-problem that you claim to be solving. Nobody is putting up "No Jews Need Apply" signs. As I said, historically-

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: They are paying women 71 cents for every dollar that men earn, however.

Mr. Mark Steyn: Yes.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: That is going on. And in fact, they are still spreading a great many hateful words on the Internet-

Mr. Mark Steyn: Yes, exactly.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: -and they are still denying transsexuals and transgendered folk employment or housing, quite legally.

Mr. Mark Steyn: Yes. Let me just talk about this " hateful words" business. This is again the sham of this Human Rights Tribunal, in that it does not treat all hate equally.

You claim, for example, to be interested in women's rights. We have honour killings; we have arranged marriages against the wishes of the brides in this province. The Human Rights Tribunal is silent about that. The Human Rights Tribunal accepts implicitly the two-tier sisterhood whereby if you are a western woman and you're fired from the strip joint in Mississauga and you want to kick up a big fuss, they'll take up your case because you're tormenting some hapless white, male strip joint owner. But if you're 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez and you get killed in an honour killing, they accept implicitly that that's a two-tier sisterhood with multicultural sensitivities.

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Ms. Cheri DiNovo: No, that's simply not true.

Mr. Mark Steyn: No, no. You brought this up, madam. At the time my case came into the news, there was a fellow in Toronto who went on the Internet and explicitly urged the killing of a minister of the crown and Canadian troops, and nobody bothers to investigate him for hate speech.

Ms. Cheri DiNovo: No more questions.

The Chair (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you. Mr. Zimmer.

Mr. David Zimmer: Mr. Steyn, there was a well-known, indeed famous, American jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who made a statement in which he expressed his view of the limit on free speech in a case in the 1930s, and I'm wondering if you agree or disagree with this statement. He said that nobody is free to yell "Fire" in a crowded movie theatre.

Mr. Mark Steyn: It wasn't the 1930s; it was 1919 that Oliver Wendell Holmes made that statement. It's interesting, that case. He was an American-

Mr. David Zimmer: I know, but do you agree with that statement or not?

Mr. Mark Steyn: Let me say this for a start: He was upholding espionage charges against an anti-war protester. So by his measure, thousands of Canadian liberals would have been rounded up for protesting the war in Afghanistan.

Mr. David Zimmer: But don't duck the question.

Mr. Mark Steyn: I'm not ducking the question.

Mr. David Zimmer: Do you disagree with that statement or agree with it?

Mr. Mark Steyn: Let me come at it one other way, in which it's not relevant to our discussion-

Mr. David Zimmer: No, no, but then answer the statement.

Mr. Mark Steyn: Because Oliver-

The Chair (Mrs. Julia Munro): Excuse me. Could I just have one speaker at a time?

Mr. Mark Steyn: Oliver Wendell Holmes said that the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely-falsely-shouting "Fire" in a theatre. The problem with the Human Rights Tribunal is that falsely shouting "Fire" is not at issue. It doesn't matter whether the theatre actually is on fire, because under the Human Rights Tribunal, truth is not a defence.

In my own particular case, no one has ever pointed to a single fact in the Maclean's article, an excerpt from my book, that is inaccurate. So essentially-

Mr. David Zimmer: But back to Holmes's statement, is that a fair limitation on freedom of speech: You can't yell " Fire" in a movie theatre, just as a general proposition?

Mr. Mark Steyn: As I've tried to answer you, I think if the theatre is on fire, you're certainly entitled to point that out. By the way, that, as a metaphor, is simply a ludicrous metaphor. He was talking about gaslight, 19th century theatres. By 1919, the Winter Garden on Broadway-I don't assume you were there for Hitchy-Koo of 1917; I wasn't either-was an electrified theatre, and it wasn't in danger of burning down. The metaphor is lazy and irrelevant.

Mr. David Zimmer: What about this, just paraphrasing Holmes: Nobody is free to yell provocative racial epithets in a multiracial society like Toronto or New York. Would you agree with that?

Mr. Mark Steyn: I think society should have a bias that makes it unacceptable to use, for example, the N-word, as they say down south-

Mr. David Zimmer: How would you enforce that?

Mr. Mark Steyn: -in public, but I think-well, that' s the point.

Mr. David Zimmer: How would you enforce that?

Mr. Mark Steyn: A man, a member of the British Foreign-

Mr. David Zimmer: I agree with that. How would you enforce it?

Mr. Mark Steyn: A member of the British Foreign Office was arrested over the weekend for yelling, "Effing Jews. Kill the effing Jews."

Mr. David Zimmer: How would you enforce it?

Mr. Mark Steyn: I don't think he should have been arrested. I think he should be publicly shamed. This is not a hateful province. This is not a jurisdiction where people openly insult and use racist epithets. But what happens when you accord your tribunal the power to regulate speech is that you replace a social ill, people using racial epithets, with a worse ill. It's far worse to allow government the sole power to arbitrate what is acceptable speech or not. If a guy uses the N-word in a bar, I would rather somebody slugged him on the chin rather than him being dragged up before your tribunal.

Mr. David Zimmer: Let me ask just one last question. I understood your point. Your feeling is that an individual right should trump a group right, that you're an absolutist on that point, and I understand that. Now, supposing we have not a group right versus an individual right or individual freedom, but we have an individual right that's in conflict with an individual right of free speech. How would you settle that one? I understand you're saying that in a group right versus an individual right of free speech, the individual right should trump it. Let's take an individual right versus an individual right of free speech. How would you balance that?

Mr. Mark Steyn: I don't understand that question without something more specific. For example, my right to free speech: If I say that you like to dress in women's clothing and go out and pick up truckers on the QEW and that is not true, you have the right to sue me for libel. But if I say, in a more general sense, that I happen to disagree with your political views or whatever, then that's simply a matter of opinion.

Free societies should not be in the business of criminalizing opinion. When you go down that road, all you do is lead to the situation that you have in, say, Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, you can't start a newspaper and print what you think, so if you object to the House of Saud, the only thing you can do is blow stuff up.

I think, actually, we don't need sensitivity training in this jurisdiction; we need insensitivity training. We need to learn to rub along in a much more agreeable, rough-and-tumble fashion.

Mr. David Zimmer: Just my last thought, then, back to this paraphrasing of Holmes: Nobody is free to yell provocative racial epithets on a busy intersection in Toronto or New York.

Mr. Mark Steyn: I disagree-

Mr. David Zimmer: Would you let that person yell a racial epithet or not?

Mr. Mark Steyn: I think that if someone wants to yell things about Jews, obviously, in this town, they're free to do so. They were yelling explicitly eliminationist, genocidal rhetoric about Jews just a couple of weeks ago on the streets of Toronto, and neither the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal nor the Ontario Human Rights Commission seems in the least bit interested in it. So you are identifying essentially something that is not the business-the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal is not in the business of people shouting explicitly eliminationist, genocidal rhetoric on the streets of Toronto. That's not what this tribunal or its commission does. They couldn't care less about that.

Mr. David Zimmer: Thank you. I think that's it.

The Chair (Mrs. Julia Munro): One minute left.

Mrs. Liz Sandals: I just wondered if we could get a bit of clarification. Is it your understanding that one of the prohibited grounds that the tribunal is dealing with is freedom of speech? It was my understanding that that's strictly a federal issue.

Mr. Mark Steyn: No. I was caught-

Mrs. Liz Sandals: Not the commission; the tribunal.

Mr. Mark Steyn: Yes. I was caught, obviously, in the changeover. Essentially, Barbara Hall, I think, issued her press release about me-

Mrs. Liz Sandals: But you would agree with me that the tribunal has not entered into this area?

Mr. Mark Steyn: Ah. No, no, no. But this is the interesting thing about her press release: She thinks these are exactly the kinds of issues that the commission ought to be bringing before the tribunal, as it does-

Mrs. Liz Sandals: And is it in the Ontario Human Rights Code that this is a prohibited ground-freedom of speech?

Mr. Mark Steyn: I would not read it there as such, but given the expansion-

Mrs. Liz Sandals: So you would agree that this is not terribly relevant to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal?

Mr. Mark Steyn: No, no, no. Given the expansion of the definition that has occurred in the years since the Taylor decision, and given the commission's own words on the kinds of cases it hopes to bring to the tribunal, I think it's clear that the tribunal will be dealing with essentially freedom-of-expression cases, whatever the Ontario code says, in the years ahead.

The Chair (Mrs. Julia Munro): Thank you very much. That concludes the time that we have available. Thank you, Mr. Steyn, for being here.

Mr. Mark Steyn: Thank you.

NUTS! UN'S DEATH KNELL FOR FREE SPEECH

You have to ask yourself, what does the West stand for? What does the US stand for? If not free speech, than we are finished. We stand for nothing. "Defamation" or "insulting" a cult, a dogma whatever is entirely subjective and dangerous.

UN anti-blasphemy measures have sinister goals, observers say
Steven Edwards ,  Canwest News Service

UNITED NATIONS - Islamic countries Monday won United Nations backing for an anti-blasphemy measure Canada and other Western critics say risks being used to limit freedom of speech.

Combating Defamation of Religions passed 85-50 with 42 abstentions in a key UN General Assembly committee, and will enter into the international record after an expected rubber stamp by the plenary later in the year.

But while the draft's sponsors say it and earlier similar measures are aimed at preventing violence against worshippers regardless of religion, religious tolerance advocates warn the resolutions are being accumulated for a more sinister goal.

 

It provides international cover for domestic anti-blasphemy laws, and there are a number of people who are in prison today because they have been accused of committing blasphemy," said Bennett Graham, international program director with the Becket Fund, a think tank aimed at promoting religious liberty.

"Those arrests are made legitimate by the UN body's (effective) stamp of approval."

Passage of the resolution is part of a 10-year action plan the 57-state Organization of Islamic Conference launched in 2005 to ensure "renaissance" of the "Muslim Ummah" or community.

"Renaissance"

While the current resolution is non-binding, Pakistan's Ambassador Masood Khan reminded the UN's Human Rights Council this year that the OIC ultimately seeks a "new instrument or convention" on the issue. Such a measure would impose its terms on signatory states.

"Each time the resolution comes up, we get a measure of where the world is on this issue, and we see that the campaign has been ramped up," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.

While this year's draft is less Islam-centric that resolutions of earlier years, analysts note it is more emphatic in linking religion defamation and incitement to violence.

That "risks limiting a broad range of peaceful speech and expression," Neuer argues.

The 2008 draft "underscores the need to combat defamation of religions, and incitement to religious hatred in general, by strategizing and harmonizing actions at the local, national regional and international levels."

It also laments "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

But Western democracies argue that a religion can't enjoy protection from criticism because that would require a judicial ruling that its teachings are the "truth."

"Defamation carries a particular legal meaning and application in domestic systems that makes the term wholly unsuitable in the context of religions," says the U.S. government in a response on the issue to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"A defamatory statement . . . is more than just an offensive one. It is also a statement that is false."

STFU

..... and go back to your cave. Basta!

OIC to move UNGA against caricatures  hat tip Rut
ISLAMABAD: A resolution against the publication of blasphemous caricatures of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) in various countries will be presented in the upcoming session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), an Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) representative said on Tuesday.

“The resolution will demand legislation against the publication of blasphemous caricatures of revered personalities and derogatory remarks against religions. [except the Jews, Christians, infidels, Sikhs, Hindus of course.]

It will also demand [sacrilegious] actions be declared a crime,” OIC Secretary General’s Special Representative on Kashmir Ezzat Kamel Mufti told a news conference.

Mufti said a particular group in America and the European Union had been launching attacks against Islam. “However, we should not get emotional and resort to any kind of violence, including suicide bombings,” he said.

Isn't that human of him?

OBAMA TARGETS WGN: Hey Barack, it's called, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, this is America

I understand his mama lived in 13 countries and that Obama is a citizen of the world!, a global gallivanter!, a Christian!, a Muslim!, a socialist!, a Marxist! a boulevardier!  but you're in America now and freedom of speech is the frickin nucleus of this great nation.

Once again, soviet style Obama is attempting to shut down truth tellers.  Imagine if treasonous Obama got into office. He would make the fairness doctrine look positively tame.

He tried to shut this radio show up a couple of weeks ago, remember?

WGN-AM again target of Obama campaign hat tip Cherrie

Chicago radio station WGN-AM is again coming under attack from the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama for offering airtime to a controversial author.

It is the second time in recent weeks the station has been the target of an "Obama Action Wire" alert to supporters of the Illinois Democrat.

Monday night's target was David Freddoso, who the campaign said was scheduled to be on the station from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Chicago time.

"The author of the latest anti-Barack hit book is appearing on WGN Radio in the Chicagoland market tonight, and your help is urgently needed to make sure his baseless lies don't gain credibility," an e-mail sent Monday evening to Obama supporters reads.

UPDATE: "Bones" writes:

Having been raised in Illinois, where members of my family have lived for starting on seven generations, now? I can tell you that Obama trying to stifle WGN's freedom of the 'press' is not a smooth move. WGN's been the largest, most popular radio station there almost since the dawn of radio. Daily listeners number in the millions...across a region covering four states.

Going after WGN would be the same as a New York senator trying to shut down the Empire State Building.

If Obama keeps this up, Illinois, his home state, will be in play.

UPDATE: Another victory for free speech and loss for Obama: (hat tip Van)

Department of Justice declines Obama's request to silence independent voices in the election

Religious Defamation Resolutions Are Setting a Deadly Precedent

I can't be there but are any Atlas readers in the DC area available to cover this?

Backgrounder on Ezra's Washington Gig Blazing Fur blogspot (hat tip Sounder)

A Congressional Task Force for International Religious Freedom (TIRF) will hold an off-the-record briefing to discuss the "defamation of religions" resolutions at the United Nations' Human Rights Council and their impact on the freedoms of religion and expression. While Pakistan (on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Conference) has sponsored these resolutions at the UN to counter "Islamophobia" since 1999, the effect has been a dangerous increase in restrictions on the freedom of religion and expression throughout the world that go beyond traditionally accepted international standards. The briefing is open to the public and will discuss the implications of these resolutions and how concerns of "Islamophobia" can be addressed while maintaining fundamental international standards

The rest.

Prophet Moe, PBUH ™

If you think things were ridiculous before, you ain't seen nuthin yet. Hitting yet again at the soft underbelly of the West, the soft jihadists go for the kill.

Why must Levant, Steyn, Savage et all shoulder the burden of upholding the basic tenets of our very civilization?

Mohammed, PBUH, TM Ezra Levant

I think another lawsuit is coming my way.

Today, my lawyer received this letter from a radical Muslim activist in Toronto. It's a Certificate of Registration of Copyright. He claims to have copyrighted the image of Mohammed, PBUH (which stands for "peace be upon him"). In other words, it's now Mohammed, PBUH, TM.

I checked it out on Industry Canada's copyright database and, sure enough, there it is: two weeks ago, Akhtar "Hector" Agha has indeed registered a "Restriction on Depiction of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)". It's right there on the government website.

I'm not sure, but I think "Hector" might be looking for a royalties payment for whenever I do something like post this picture.

At least I think that's what he's on about. But he has also addressed his letter to Stockwell Day, the Minister for Public Security. Frankly, when folks like Hector voluntarily report their activities to the minister in charge of fighting domestic jihad, that's what we call a freebie.

Hector has also asked that his concerns be forwarded to the "RCMP unit looking after Human Rights issues". Again, good thinking Hector. But the RCMP unit in charge of human rights issues is very, very busy right now looking into human rights issues.

But there is more to this document besides pure comedy. Look at the top right corner of the second page: it says OIC/Summit.

That's a reference to the "Organisation of the Islamic Conference", basically an all-Muslim UN. The OIC Summit this March, in Dakar, Senegal, had as its theme the censorship of Western criticism of radical Islam. Here's a story about it, featuring a glamour shot of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The theme of the conference was how to use the laws of Western countries against themselves.

That's what Hector is doing. He was pretty excited about the OIC's call for a soft jihad against the West. The boys in Al Qaida and Hamas will take care of the hard jihad -- actually blowing up Westerners. The soft jihadists -- like Mohamed Elmasry of the Canadian Islamic Congress, like Syed Soharwardy the bigoted Calgary imam, like Hector -- are actually more dangerous, because they use our own laws against us to weaken our country and erode our free way of life.

STEYN, DON'T SURRENDER!

ATLAS ODE TO STEYN! (want more? go here)

Isabella the Crusader sent me the fabu news. The lawfare jihadi weenies are vewy scar-wed wight now. Malkin has dah money post here, "Well, well, well. Looks like the speech-squelchers in Canada want to back off their bullying of Mark Steyn and Maclean’s. Too little, too late:". Yeah baby.

The National Post’s Jonathan Kay reflects on unintended consequences:

[I]t’s fair to say that the Maclean’s imbroglio has been one of the biggest shots in the arm to Canadian conservatives in general. It’s turned red-meat right-winger Ezra Levant into a star blogger and a free-speech hero with brand-name recognition in the United States, turned Steyn’s name into a household word, created a debate within the Jewish community over its traditionally doctrinaire support for blanket hate-speech laws (Ezra for CJC president, anyone?), shone a light on the amateurish shenanigans of Canada’s human rights commissions, driven a powerful movement for reform of said commissions, and generally served to marginalize the pro-censorship lobby to the point that its main defender is now a disgruntled former journalist who fills his blog with unhinged conspiracy theories about how everyone who favours free speech is a racist.

All of which to say: Thank you, CIC. You’ve done a good deed — albeit unintentionally.

Stay vigilant.

Candid ....... Nightcap

Drinking with Spencer, Lappen, Warraq ....*CLINK*

Full coverage of the event:
FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

UPDATE: The Age of Hooper was there and has a great post up here.

IBN WARRAQ, STEVE EMERSON: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

Panel discussion ........ On death threats and fatwas: ...... more often than threats, Warraq has received letters from Muslim women thanking him for fighting for their rights.

Steve Emerson on Wafa Sultan: It's the first time an American has been forced to go into hiding in several years

• MARK STEYN REMARKS: PHOBIAPHOBIC - FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD
• ROBERT SPENCER: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

UPDATE: Read Ezra Levant's  take here.

MARK STEYN REMARKS: PHOBIAPHOBIC - FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

The remarkable Mark

Full coverage of the event here: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

• IBN WARRAQ, STEVE EMERSON: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD
• ROBERT SPENCER: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

UPDATE: Steyn's thoughts on the onference here:

An Albertan in Manhattan Mark Steyn

My fellow hatemonger Ezra Levant was a big hit at yesterday's conference on legal jihad in New York. In fact, judging from his reception, he and his inquisitrex Shirlene McGovern seem to be the two most famous Albertans on the planet. If I were Shirlene, I'd be pitching some sort of hate-speech show-trial show to Court TV. Ezra writes about the conference here, but he also makes some sharp points about the preposterousness of the Section 13 prosecutions: Why is it okay for Richard Warman, a private citizen, to join Stormfront and say that gays are a cancer, but it's a crime for Joe Schmoe, a private citizen, to join Stormfront and say gays are a cancer? Whatever happened to equality before the law?

Likewise, why is it okay for Canadian Human Rights Commission bigshot Ian Fine to quote in public a lot of offensive speech by hateful white supremacists to show the virulence that's out there, but, if I quote in public a lot of offensive speech by hateful Islamic supremacists to show the virulence that's out there, I get hauled up before his crappy commission?

The contradictions in this racket are what render it preposterous. In what Paul Wells calls her "barely lucid, rambling meditation", Ontario's head commissar gives the game away: Unfortunately she doesn't have the jurisdiction to jail Steyn for "Islamophobia", but she would if she could - so she's going to seek the power to do so when the Ontario "Human Rights" Commission is "reformed". I hope the Government of Ontario is dumb enough to give her the extra powers she seeks, and perhaps then she'll be man enough to haul me and Ken Whyte into her pseudo-courtroom and actually convict us of the crime rather than merely issuing the verdict in a press release.

The Toronto Star has figured out where all this is headed and they don't care for it. Nor do all the impeccably liberal progressive types quoted in Charlie Gillis' profile of Richard Warman, in the new print edition of Maclean's. The "human rights" racket has no friends and no defenders other than current commissioners, former commissioners and others living high off the "human rights" hog - and Barbara Hall is too tone deaf (or hanging out with too many sharia-hungry Islamists) even to notice.

ROBERT SPENCER: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

Sublime Spencer .... at  The Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center for Law and Counterterrorism and The New Criterion event: Libel Tourism, “Hate Speech,” and Political Freedom

"I've just committed hate speech"

Full coverage of the event here: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

• IBN WARRAQ, STEVE EMERSON: FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD
• MARK STEYN REMARKS: PHOBIAPHOBIC - FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

 

What Free Speech looks like

I am having trouble loading the video on the event -- give me some time (TAXES DUE!) Thought you'd enjoy .....

Bostom Rosett

Loverboy

Spencdr Warraq (champs of da free world)



Rachel!

Lunch!

The man!

Gaffney., Emerson, Warraq

Money quotes: Robert Spencer: Islamofascism is Islamorealism

Mark Steyn: I am phobiaphobic.

I will have more, more, more. Patience gentle friends

Reasons to be cheerful Part I FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

THE COUNTER JIHAD MAFIA from right to left Andrew Bostom, Cliff May FDD, Robert Spencer, Brian of London (Shire Network)

The first panel is speaking ..... Stanley Kurz is telling us things are better than they seem in Canada because perhaps the liberals are waking up to whats happening.....all it took for Canada to wake up was to have one liberal PM Keith Martin to stand up for Levant and the floodgates opened.

The restriction on free speech is no longer a slippery slope now we are  "careening down"

We all hang together or we we all hang separately.

The time is now to reform our nation's libel laws. Perhaps we ought to meet in London next year to see how far Rachel's law has fared in the UK.

Kimball, Kurz, Goldstein Levant

Rachel Ehrenfeld is speaking (RACHEL'S LAW!

Apparently, Bin Mafouz, the Saudi Billionaire that is suing Ehrenfeld and attempting to bankrupt Ehrenfeld has sued for libel 41 times prior to Ehrenfeld. Uh..... I see a pattern. But clearly the aim is clear .... to intimidate, destroy financially ruin anyone who speaks out against Islam.

Brooke Goldstein, Director of the Legal Project, MEQMEF - Pipes legal project to corral armies of lawyers (pro bono)  to fight the the litigation jihad. Very strong speaker. Warns the litigation jihad is gaining momentum with deleterious effect.

Ezra is da money. First he says it has been Americans that have come to his aid, in support, in increasing public aswareness, on the blogs - he called Americans the "grown ups of the world."

Levant is incredulous that a "fatwah" (the plaintiff cited Koranic verse in making his case) is prosecuted by the secular state.

He said the human rights commission are power without law. You can't win so they only way to fight back  is to take it to the court of public opinion.

The intention of all this  litigation jihad lawfare is not win, it is to demoralize, destroy .....but it is the process that's the punishment. One case is going on 25 years. Levant's legal expenses outside of the Western Standard are over $100,000.

He talks of meritocracy, rule of law, western values vs. "Saudi values". We have to vigorously pit our values against theirs

"a taboo is being broken".

I am vlogging the second panel on the supressing the discussion of Islam with Cliff May moderating, Robert Spencer (whose remarksd I am uploading), Claudia Rosett, Frank Gaffney, Steve Emerson and Ibn Warraq.

The theme of Spencer's remarks is islamophobia is really islamorealism.

The Godfather

Ezra and me

Spencer, Rosett, Gaffney, Emerson, Warraq

FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN THE AGE OF JIHAD

NYC: All day conference today.  The most courageous truth tellers and fighters for free speech descend on the Big Apple to attend an historical conference: FREE SPEECH IN AN AGE OF JIHAD hosted by the  Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and The New Criterion. Luminaries include Mark Steyn, Robert Spencer, Ibn Warraq, Ezra Levant, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Dr. Andrew Bostom, Steven Emerson, Frank Gaffney, Claudia Rosett, Cliff May as well as other leading lights in the fight for free speech and against libel tourism. And I will be there reporting live.

These are the real rock stars of my generation.

Free Speech in an Age of Jihad
Libel Tourism, “Hate Speech,” and Political Freedom

Over the last several years, proponents of Islamic jihad have increasingly turned to thecourts and government agencies in their effort to suppress criticism of radical Islam.The result has been a proliferation of libel suits and so-called “hate speech” actionsthat aim to curtail free speech and further the cause of radical Islam. Although generally initiated in countries less hospitable to free expression than the United States, these actions have had a profound “spill over” effect on American authors, journalists, and publishers. The aim of this conference is to provide an anatomy of these efforts to suppress free speech, to examine the way such actions aid and abet the spread of radical Islam, and to consider some possible responses, legal as well as journalistic, to the threats they pose.

Opening Remarks: Libel Tourism & Political Correctness: 
Roger Kimball, Editor, The New Criterion 
9:00 am – 9:20 am

Panel I: The Face of Libel Tourism
9:25 am – 10:55 am

Moderator: Roger Kimball, Editor, The New Criterion
Presenter: Stanley Kurtz, Senior Fellow, The Ethics and Public Policy Center

Discussants:
Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director, American Center for Democracy
Brooke Goldstein, Director of the Legal Project, The Middle East Forum
Ezra Levant, Founder, EzraLevant.com

 

Panel II: Suppressing Discussion of Islam 
11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Moderator: Clifford D. May, President, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Presenter: Robert Spencer, Director, Jihad Watch

Discussants: 
Steven Emerson, Director, The Investigative Project on Terrorism
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President, The Center for Security Policy
Claudia Rosett, Journalist in Residence, Foundation for Defense of
Democracies
Ibn Warraq, Author most recently of Defending the West: A Critique of Edward
Said’s Orientalism

Luncheon Keynote Speaker: Mark Steyn, author most recently of America Alone, on
“The Dimming of Liberty: Legal Jihad and the Criminalization of Resistance.”
12:30 pm – 1:45 pm

Panel III: What Is to Be Done? Legislative Opportunities and Pitfalls
2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Moderator: Jay Nordlinger, Senior Editor, National Review
Presenter: Andrew C. McCarthy, Director, Center for Law & Counterterrorism,
Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Discussants:
Hon. Robert H. Bork, The Hudson Institute
Daniel Kornstein, Kornstein Veisz Wexler & Pollard, LLP
John J. Walsh, Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP

Concluding Remarks: Roger Kimball, Editor, The New Criterion 
3:40 pm – 4:00 pm