Europe
23 August 2009 >>
Only a government could be this stupid while simultaneously being this reckless with other people’s money: A paedophile with a 30-year history of abusing children is being prescribed Viagra on the [National Health Service] — and there is nothing the authorities can do to stop him. Roger Martin, 71, merely has to visit his GP to obtain the libido-enhancing drug, even though experts warn it will enable him to continue preying on children despite his age. The probation officers who oversee Martin are powerless to interfere with the administration of prescription drugs. He does not have to tell his GP about his criminal past and even if he does, doctors cannot take convictions into account. [...] He has forced himself on a string of youngsters and his latest assault was on an 11-year-old girl last year.
Jolly old England.
3 August 2009 @ 4:52PM >>
The tentacles of Big Brother are reaching further into homes in the U.K.: Thousands of the worst families in England are to be put in “sin bins” in a bid to change their bad behaviour, Ed Balls announced yesterday. The Children’s Secretary set out £400 million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour [closed-circuit television] supervision in their own homes. They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.
It’s just the first step, and one that likely won’t be criticized, since these are problem families and someone must think of the children! But the way incrementalism works, once this step is taken, it makes it easier for the next step to be taken. That’s why further government involvement in healthcare is worrisome; it will lead to more extreme versions of proposals like these:
If the Nanny Staters have their way, the government will be controlling your diet in the future, maybe even installing closed-circuit cameras in your fridge to make sure you’re not midnight snacking. Think it can’t happen? Open your eyes.
15 July 2009 >>
Britain’s Daily Express reports: Police will be ordered not to charge Muslim extremists in many hate crime cases — to stop them becoming more militant. [...] Examples of crimes to which a blind eye may be turned include incitement to religious hatred or viewing extremist material on the internet. Last night critics warned that the move could mean Islamic radicals being give the freedom to encourage violence. Some saw the move as a politically correct attempt to appease extremists who hate Britain. It could even mean officers tolerating many activities of Muslim preachers of hate like the hook-handed cleric Abu Hamza. Tory MP David Davies said: “This sounds like abject surrender. Everyone should be equal in the eyes of the law. “It doesn’t matter whether someone is suspected of incitement to hatred or shoplifting — they should all face the same risk of prosecution. “There should be no special favours or treatment for any section of the community.”
“Inciting religious hatred” and “viewing extremist material” are crimes? Sounds like the British are policing thought. I think it’s dangerous for a society to punish thought and speech, no matter how despicable or unpopular. But it is interesting that, while the British are ignoring the “crime” of “inciting religious hatred” among Muslims, they are enforcing a ban against American talk radio show host Michael Savage, who is not allowed to enter the country. Why? Because of his views and comments about radical Islam, which the British government says incite religious hatred. So, if you live in Britain and follow a religious ideology whose adherents set off bombs around London, you can do all the hatred inciting you want. But if you caustically criticize the bombers and the people who inspired them, you might just find yourself banned for life. “Thought crimes” are a bad idea. They’re even worse when they’re selectively applied.
6 July 2009 @ 8:11AM >>
Perhaps, with the celebration of our national independence fresh in our memories, it would be appropriate to take a look at the continued decline of the kingdom we rejected in 1776: Civil servants have refused to name inmates who have fled prison even though individual police forces will often identify them if they pose a risk to the public. They say releasing their names would breach obligations under the Data Protection Act. It echoes a row in 2007 when Derbyshire Police refused to release pictures of two escaped murderers.
Yes, you read it right: in today’s Great Britain, authorities may not release pictures of escaped murderers, because doing so would violate those escaped murderers’ privacy rights.
18 February 2009 @ 9:02AM >>
Islamic law is gaining ground all over the globe. It’s not just happening in places like Pakistan, where Sharia is now the law of the land in some areas, or in India, where a newspaper editor was arrested for offending Muslims. CNN reports on a murder near Buffalo, New York: The founder of an upstate New York TV station aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes has been arrested on suspicion of killing his wife, who was beheaded, authorities said.
Because there’s no better way to counter Muslim stereotypes than to behead someone. CNN adds that the man, Muzzammil Hassan, has confessed to the murder of his wife, who had filed for divorce a few days earlier. Meanwhile, in Great Britain: On the anniversary of the interview in which [the Archbishop of Canterbury] Dr Rowan Williams said it “seems inevitable” that some parts of sharia would be enshrined in this country’s legal code, he claimed “a number of fairly senior people” now take the same view. He added that there is a “drift of understanding” towards what he was saying, and that the public sees the difference between letting Muslim courts decide divorces and wills, and allowing them to rule on criminal cases and impose harsh punishments. However critics insist that family disputes must be dealt with by civil law rather than according to religious principles, and claim the Archbishop’s comments have only helped the case of extremists while making Muslim women worse off, because they do not have equal rights under Islamic law. [...] [I]n July [the Archibishop] was supported by Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, who was then the Lord Chief Justice, while it later emerged that five sharia courts are already operating mediation systems under the Arbitration Act, and that the Government allows Islamic tribunals to settle the custody and financial affairs of divorcing couples and send their judgements to civil courts for approval. [...] But Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “He has started a process which is deeply dangerous, damaging to Britain and to Muslim women in Britain. “It was a wicked move because it undermines the progressives and gives succour to the extremists. “How does the Archbishop of Canterbury know, sitting in Lambeth Palace, that a woman in Bolton has volunteered to give up half her inheritance to her brother?”
Perhaps the creeping implementation of Sharia law explains why Geert Wilders, a Dutch Member of Parliament, is no longer allowed to even set foot in Great Britain. He was arrested on the tarmac and unceremoniously booted out of the country: Wilders is a hate figure to Muslims in Britain and worldwide because of his 15-minute film, “Fitna,” which blames Islam itself for terrorist crimes by Muslim fanatics from the London subway bombings to the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. [...] British governments have rarely used their arbitrary power to keep dangerous foreigners out of the country. Indeed, London has become known as Londonistan precisely because the Brits let Middle Eastern extremists establish and run their organizations there. [...] So why ban Wilders? His film may be misleading, alarmist or just plain wrong. But it merely runs images of Muslim-linked terrorism side-by-side with Koranic passages or speeches by Muslim clerics justifying such crimes. He isn’t inciting anyone to murder or riot. You may object that “Fitna” is one-sided or the Koranic quotations are wrenched from their context. If such criticisms have merit, surely the correct response is to debate with Wilders, not ban him. The government, however, surely considered instead the different likely responses of British Muslims and other Brits. When the average Londoner reads in The Sun about how Abu Hamza turned the Finsbury Park mosque into a terrorist recruiting office, he doesn’t join a mob outside the mosque threatening to burn it down. He mutters that the world is going to the dogs and turns the page. But mobs of extremist Muslims have marched through London in recent years inciting murder. And Labor peer Lord Ahmed’s alleged threat of disorder in this case - to lead 10,000 Muslims to prevent Wilders from showing his film in Parliament - was very plausible. So Wilders was kept out.
Don’t just blame the victim - punish him. In effect, the government has enforced a fatwa on “Fitma” - without, as the hapless foreign secretary admitted, even watching the 15-minute film. All this reflects an entrenched establishment attitude that the Muslim community is highly combustible and must be appeased. And, because Muslim extremists know this to be the official view, they’re likely to keep inventing pretexts for threats and riots. The Brits, asked to choose between multiculturalism and freedom, will choose by degrees to be unfree.
So while Wilders is not allowed in Great Britain for the crime of criticizing Islam, threatening to behead anyone who insults Islam is apparently not a crime in Britain at all.
12 December 2008 >>
The obnoxious Obama-worshipping continues unabated: President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are appearing in Italian nativity scenes this year, alongside the baby Jesus and wise men, according to Naples craftsmen selling figurines in the run-up to Christmas. The production of handmade figurines for nativity scenes is big business in this southern Italian city and has been for centuries. But beyond the thousands of angel, sheep, Mary and Joseph figures filling market stalls before Christmas, craftsmen say Obama has become a top seller. “The ones we are selling the most of are those of Barack Obama, America’s new president, along with his wife Michelle,” said craftsman Genny Di Virgilio.
9 December 2008 @ 8:44AM >>
The Islamification of Great Britain continues: Muslim prayer rooms should be opened in every Roman Catholic school, church leaders have said. The Catholic bishops of England and Wales also want facilities in schools for Islamic pre-prayer washing rituals. The demands go way beyond legal requirements on catering for religious minorities. But the bishops - who acknowledge 30 per cent of pupils at their schools hold a non-Christian faith - want to answer critics who say religious schools sow division. [...] Islam teaches that Muslims are unfit for prayer if they have not performed Wudhu after breaking wind or using the toilet. Wudhu involves washing the face, hands, arms and feet three times each, gargling the mouth three times and washing the neck and inside the nose and ears. Some Muslims also wash their private parts. Catholic schools would need to install bidets, foot spas and hoses to facilitate such extensive cleansing rituals, Muslims say. Daphne McLeod, a former Catholic head teacher from south London, said it would be ‘terribly expensive’ for the country’s 2,300 Catholic primary and secondary schools to provide ritual cleansing facilities. She said: ‘If Muslim parents choose a Catholic school then they accept that it is going to be a Catholic school and there will not be facilities for ritual cleansing and prayer rooms. ‘They do their ritual cleansing before they go to a mosque, but they are not going to a mosque.’
8 September 2008 @ 8:52AM >>
Sex doesn’t sell, at least not in Europe: [Members of European Parliament] want TV regulators in the EU to set guidelines which would see the end of anything deemed to portray women as sex objects or reinforce gender stereotypes. This could potentially mean an end to attractive women advertising perfume, housewives in the kitchen or men doing DIY. Such classic adverts as the Diet Coke commercial featuring the bare-chested builder, or Wonderbra’s “Hello Boys” featuring model Eva Herzigova would have been banned. The new rules come in a report by the EU’s women’s rights committee.
Swedish MEP Eva-Britt Svensson urged Britain and other members to use existing equality, sexism and discrimination laws to control advertising. She wants regulatory bodies set up to monitor ads and introduce a “zero-tolerance” policy against “sexist insults or degrading images”.
7 July 2008 >>
According to London’s Telegraph, British “[t]oddlers who turn their noses up at spicy food from overseas could be branded racists by a Government-sponsored agency.” The paper’s political correspondent Rosa Prince reports: The National Children’s Bureau, which receives lb12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care. [...] The 366-page guide for staff in charge of pre-school children, called Young Children and Racial Justice, warns: “Racist incidents among children in early years settings tend to be around name-calling, casual thoughtless comments and peer group relationships.” It advises nursery teachers to be on the alert for childish abuse such as: “blackie”, “Pakis”, “those people” or “they smell”. The guide goes on to warn that children might also “react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying ‘yuk’”. Staff are told: “No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action.”
1 July 2008 >>
The Islamification of Great Britain continues: A police force has apologised to Islamic leaders for the “offensive” postcard advertising a new non-emergency telephone number, which shows a six-month-old trainee police dog named Rebel. The German shepherd puppy has proved hugely popular with the public, hundreds of who have logged on to the force’s website to read his online training diary. But some Muslims in the Dundee area have reportedly been upset by the image because they consider dogs to be “ritually unclean”, while shopkeepers have refused to display the advert. Tayside Police have admitted they should have consulted their ‘diversity’ officers before issuing the cards, but critics argued their apology was unnecessary. [...] A spokesman for Tayside Police said that Rebel had proved “extremely popular” with children and adults since he joined the force aged six weeks. He added: “His incredible world-wide popularity - he has attracted record visitor numbers to our website - led us to believe Rebel could play a starring role in the promotion of our non-emergency number. “However, we did not seek advice from the force’s diversity adviser prior to publishing and distributing the postcards. That was an oversight and we apologise for any offence caused.”
22 May 2008 @ 8:13AM >>
The Guardian reports: A teenager is facing prosecution for using the word “cult” to describe the Church of Scientology. The unnamed 15-year-old was served the summons by City of London police when he took part in a peaceful demonstration opposite the London headquarters of the controversial religion. Officers confiscated a placard with the word “cult” on it from the youth, who is under 18, and a case file has been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. [...] The incident happened during a protest against the Church of Scientology on May 10. Demonstrators from the anti-Scientology group, Anonymous, who were outside the church’s lb23m headquarters near St Paul’s cathedral, were banned by police from describing Scientology as a cult by police because it was “abusive and insulting”. Writing on an anti-Scientology website, the teenager facing court said: “I brought a sign to the May 10th protest that said: ‘Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.’ “‘Within five minutes of arriving I was told by a member of the police that I was not allowed to use that word, and that the final decision would be made by the inspector.” [...] After the exchange, a policewoman handed him a court summons and removed his sign.
Update: Sanity prevails, belatedly: Legal action has been dropped against a 15-year-old who faced prosecution for branding Scientology a “cult”. [...] Lawyers for the human rights group Liberty represented the teenager in his legal battle. James Welch from the organisation said: “The police may have ended their inquiries into this tawdry incident but rest assured that Liberty’s inquiry will continue. “Democracy is all about clashing ideas and the police should protect peaceful protest, not stifle it.”
Update 2: Canada’s National Post explains why this reversal is not a victory for free speech: It was quickly pointed out by civil libertarians that the eventual happy outcome did nothing to reverse the consequences of the initial error. If expressive materials at a public protest can be confiscated pending two weeks of review by prosecutors, then not much is left of the right to protest, practically speaking. [...] It constitutes no “victory” for freedom of expression that he was let off arbitrarily just because the public took his side against a secretive and widely ridiculed religious group. On the contrary: the police succeeded in communicating their real message to those who might wish to imitate him. Watch what you say. We have enough power to give you a hard time, whether the crown backs us up in the end or not. And make damned sure your targets are relatively unpopular, or you might not find so many columnists and activists leaping to your defence. This is what comes of attempting to legislate offensiveness of speech and thought out of existence: all of us are left at the mercy of those who do the actual policing. In this case, it was a couple of ignorant coppers who decided they didn’t like the look of the “c” word.” In Canada, it might be some dowdy, politically connected empire-builder working in the office of a human rights tribunal. (Would it be actionable to say or write that “Islam is a cult” here? Who but someone with money, free time and a law degree would dare try?) This is why the principles of free expression have to be guarded stringently in a liberal democracy, and why they cannot safely be subjected to nudging by those who think enforced politeness comes ahead of fundamental liberty. Any law allowing for the suppression of content because it might exasperate someone is bound to be tested more and more ambitiously until its actual political limits are found. And it will go on being tested, and go on growing in scope, as political sentiments change. And any such law will always end up being a more effective suppressant through the fear of inviting expense and trouble than it is by its actual application.
1 May 2008 >>
Get ready to start surrendering more of your rights to government. You knew the Nannycrats wouldn’t stop at smoking, fast food and foie gras. Now they’ve got their crosshairs zeroed in on that modern-day horror, the thing most of us dread and fear... you guessed it... Plastic bags: [Baltimore City Councilman James Kraft] equated using plastic bags with Nazi extermination tactics at a City Council meeting earlier this week. “We don’t want to be criticized by future generations for not doing enough now as were those who dealt with the Germans then,” Kraft said. So what follows? Should those who use plastic bags be charged with murder? Genocide? No one can claim plastic bags help the environment. But he hurts his cause by outsizing their danger by orders of magnitude - especially when similar plans have failed throughout the rest of [Maryland]. Bills in both Anne Arundel County and the state legislature failed to make it into law in the past year. And studies show plastic bags are cheaper and require less energy to make than paper bags.
They are also much less environmentally-unfriendly than people like Councilman Kraft believe, according to the London Times: Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims. The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds. [...] Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals. They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.” [...] The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags. Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian Government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags”. The figure was latched on to by conservationists as proof that the bags were killers. For four years the “typo” remained uncorrected. It was only in 2006 that the authors altered the report, replacing “plastic bags” with “plastic debris”.
Oops. Nevertheless, knowledge of this error will not quell the Nannies’ desires to meddle more. Bored people seeking the tingle of power are drawn to becoming Nannies because they get to feel morally superior while also controlling the behavior of others. It’s a win-win. So I predict, the campaign against plastic bags will continue.
8 April 2008 >>
In the 1980s and ’90s, many schools began adding children’s books to the curriculum that portrayed gay relationships. At the time, some people objected, but the people who objected did not outrank gays in the Multicultural Hierarchy, so the books stayed in the classroom. But because multiculturalism depends more on faddish following than coherent philosophy, today’s politically correct darlings can be quickly cast aside as more exotic and fashionable groups are anointed with Victim Status. In the schools of one British town, gays are now being looked on as no better than those rapacious Dead White Males who, because they fanned out from Europe over centuries past to destroy everything good in the world, needed to be purged from the curriculum. Say hello to multiculturalism’s new power constituency: Two primary schools have withdrawn storybooks about same-sex relationships after objections from Muslim parents. Up to 90 gathered at the schools to complain about the books which are aimed at pupils as young as five. One story, titled King & King, is a fairytale about a prince who turns down three princesses before marrying one of their brothers. Another named And Tango Makes Three features two male penguins who fall in love at a New York zoo. Bristol City Council said the two schools had been using the books to ensure they complied with gay rights laws which came into force last April. They were intended to help prevent homophobic bullying, it said. But the council has since removed the books from Easton Primary School and Bannerman Road Community School, both in Bristol. A book and DVD titled That’s a Family!, which teaches children about different family set-ups including gay or lesbian parents, has also been withdrawn. The decision was made to enable the schools to “operate safely” after parents voiced their concerns at meetings. [...] Members of the Bristol Muslim Cultural Society said parents were upset at the lack of consultation over the use of the materials. Farooq Siddique, community development officer for the society and a governor at Bannerman Road, said there were also concerns about whether the stories were appropriate for young children. [...] He added: “In Islam homosexual relationships are not acceptable, as they are not in Christianity and many other religions but the main issue is that they didn’t bother to consult with parents.”
15 March 2008 @ 1:56PM >>
The Associated Press reports on the latest attempt to impose Sharia standards on Western civilization: The Muslim world has created a battle plan to defend its religion from political cartoonists and bigots. Concerned about what they see as a rise in the defamation of Islam, leaders of the world’s Muslim nations are considering taking legal action against those that slight their religion or its sacred symbols. It was a key issue during a two-day summit that ended Friday in this western Africa capital. The Muslim leaders are attempting to demand redress from nations like Denmark, which allowed the publication of cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in 2006 and again last month, to the fury of the Muslim world. Though the legal measures being considered have not been spelled out, the idea pits many Muslims against principles of freedom of speech enshrined in the constitutions of numerous Western governments. “I don’t think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy,” said Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. “There can be no freedom without limits.” [...] “Muslims are being targeted by a campaign of defamation, denigration, stereotyping, intolerance and discrimination,” charged Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the group. The report urges the creation of a “legal instrument” to crack down on defamation of Islam. Some delegates point to laws in Europe criminalizing the denial of the Holocaust and other anti-Semitic rhetoric. They also point to articles within various U.N. charters that condemn discrimination based on religion and argue that these should be ramped up. “In our relation with the western world, we are going through a difficult time,” Ihsanoglu told the summit’s general assembly. “Islamophobia cannot be dealt with only through cultural activities but (through) a robust political engagement.” [...] Hemayet Uddin, the lead author of the OIC report and head of cultural affairs for the group said legal action is needed because “this Islamophobia that we see in the world has gone far beyond a phobia. It is now at the level of hatred, of xenophobia, and we need to act.” A new charter drafted by the OIC commits the Muslim body “to protect and defend the true image of Islam” and “to combat the defamation of Islam.”
The image if Islam isn’t damaged by people criticizing the excesses of the Jihadists, it is damaged by people who commit murder and other atrocities in the name of Islam. If the OIC spent as much time trying to stamp out the extremism in their own ranks, maybe the world’s perception of Islam would be a little better. But instead of trying to rein in the extremists who kill in the name of Islam, the OIC wants to prevent anyone from even discussing it. The West has a long tradition of allowing very strong and sometimes quite pungent criticism of religion. Here in America, we’re so tolerant that if you want to put a Christian cross in a jar of urine, you can get a government grant as long as you call it “art.” If you smear elephant dung on an image of the Virgin Mary, we’ll feature it in one of our nation’s most prominent museums. But if the OIC and their multicultural enablers in the West had their way, legitimate commentary on the state of the world—such as a cartoon depicting Muhammad with a bomb in his turban—would be illegal. If the OIC wants respect, they should start by focusing their anger at the people who really are tarnishing Islam by killing in its name. And stop demanding that the West carve out a special exemption for Islam that no other religion enjoys.
3 March 2008 @ 7:49AM >>
Sharia law now governs the content of art exhibits in Germany: A Berlin gallery has closed an exhibition of satirical art by the controversial Danish group Surrend after receiving threats from a group of Muslims. The men were objecting to a picture of the Kaaba at Mecca under the title “Dumb Stone.” Eighteen months ago, the severed head of Muhammad was enough to get an opera temporarily cancelled in Berlin. This time around, it’s an irreverent image of the Kaaba in Mecca that has caused an exhibition in the German capital to shut its doors. But there is one major difference between the two incidents: Whereas the mere spectre of possible attacks was enough to get the Deutsche Oper to put the kibosh on a Mozart opera in 2006, Berlin’s Galerie Nord closed its doors this week after a group of Muslims walked into the gallery and threatened staff with violence. “It was a very explosive situation,” Jan Egesborg, whose satirical art group Surrend created the Galerie Nord exhibition, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “We don’t want to be part of the current Islamophobic tendency in Europe. We weren’t trying to provoke Muslims.” The exhibition, called “ZOG — Surrend,” opened last Friday and was scheduled to run until the end of March. Conceived by the controversial Danish satirical art group, it included a picture of the black, cube-shaped Kaaba in the Muslim holy city of Mecca. Above the image, a headline read “Dumb Stone.” Gallery manager Ralf Hartmann decided on Tuesday to shut down the show after six men believed to have been Muslims turned up demanding that the image be removed. The men reportedly threatened the staff with violence should they not comply. The president of Berlin’s influential Academy of Arts, Klaus Staeck, who opened the exhibition last week, expressed his support for the Danish group Friday. “I extend my solidarity to all artists ... whose work is threatened by violent people who hold different beliefs,” Staeck said, adding that he hoped the exhibition could re-open soon. Egesborg, one of the four artists who created the works in the exhibition, said that the exhibition was intended to satirize the far-right “Zionist Occupied Government” (ZOG) conspiracy theory, which holds that groups of Jews are secretly running certain countries. “If we were trying to provoke anyone, then it was the neo-Nazis,” Egesborg said. He explained that Surrend “could not make good satirical art about the ZOG theme without making fun of radical Islam,” given that such anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are popular in the Middle East. He described the exhibition, which also satirizes Jewish extremists, as “very balanced,” adding: “That’s why the attack is so ignorant. We are surprised as a group by the reaction.”
Silly Europeans. Haven’t they figured out by now that you can’t criticize radical Islam?
23 February 2008 @ 10:03AM >>
It no longer matters whether you live in a Western country that respects free speech. If you dare say anything critical of radical Islam, the long arm of Sharia law will still try to reach out and choke you: Iran has urged the Netherlands to block a planned anti-Koran film, citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as the legal basis for doing so. [...] Iran’s Justice Minister Gholamhossein Elham asked his Dutch counterpart Ernst Hirsch Ballin to use European human rights law to stop a European from exercising one of those most basic rights. Freedom of expression has been the rallying cry of those who defended the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten for publishing the Mohammad cartoons - and republishing the most controversial one (the turban bomb) this week after a death threat against the artist who drew it. [...] On Friday, Iran’s news agency IRNA reported on the letter, which the Dutch government told NRC Handelsblad it had not yet received. IRNA wrote the following [...]: “You can stop the process of this satanic and highly intriguing move resorting to articles in European Convention on Human Rights ... We, too, know and respect the freedom of expression, but insulting the sanctities and ethical values on that pretext is totally unacceptable.”
Elham reminded Balin of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, where it states, “...On this basis, observing freedom of expression, keeping in mind the responsibilities thereof, can be restricted in order to avoid the occurrence of chaotic social conditions, commiting crimes, safeguarding ethical values, or the others’ rights.” Iran’s Justice Minister at the end of his letter to his Dutch counterpart considers the movie insulting against the most sacred sanctity of the world Muslims, a satanic move that can intrigue social unrest, and violating the rights of the entire world Muslims, asking for immediate halting of the blasphemous film’s production.
If you assume that complaints like this won’t go anywhere, you haven’t been paying attention.
8 February 2008 @ 9:24AM >>
That’s what you’d have to say if the Archbishop of Canterbury had his way: The Archbishop of Canterbury has today said that the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is “unavoidable” and that it would help maintain social cohesion. Rowan Williams told BBC Radio 4’s World At One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system. He says that Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court. He added Muslims should not have to choose between “the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty”.
Great idea. Let Sharia law govern marital disputes. If that happens, Britain is one step closer to legalizing the killing of Muslim women, as long as the murderers are male relatives. Thankfully, the misguided Archbishop doesn’t go quite so far as to suggest that British law should never apply to Muslims, and therefore under his scheme there would be a right to “appeal” to British common law: “It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some community which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general.
But still, setting up parallel rules of law for different communities is a great way to ensure the eventual disintegration of a society. With honor killings already occurring in Western societies, granting legitimacy to separate judicial systems is a further signal that Muslims in Western countries will not be held to Western standards. If such a plan is instituted, eventually, someone will argue that this partial accommodation of Sharia law is insufficient and that by putting British law above Sharia law, Muslim are in effect second-class citizens. And the multicultural enablers in Britain will be convinced that this is true, that Sharia law should not take a back seat to British law. They will say that bigotry is the reason that Sharia law is subordinate to British law, and the only way to end the bigotry is for Muslims communities to have full control over policing their own affairs. In the long run, there is no way to partially apply Sharia law. Either it applies, or it does not. And if it applies, then Muslims in Britain would have no more rights than Muslims in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
9 December 2007 >>
An imam in Great Britain is attempting to impose Sharia law—through the execution of his own daughter: The daughter of a British imam is living under police protection after receiving death threats from her father for converting to Christianity. The 31-year-old, whose father is the leader of a mosque in Lancashire, has moved house an astonishing 45 times after relatives pledged to hunt her down and kill her. The British-born university graduate, who uses the pseudonym Hannah for her own safety, said she renounced the Muslim faith to escape being forced into an arranged marriage when she was 16. She has been in hiding for more than a decade but called in police only a few months ago after receiving a text message from her brother. In it, he said he would not be held responsible for his actions if she failed to return to Islam. [...] Hannah was born in Lancashire to Pakistani parents who raised her and her siblings as strict Sunni Muslims. She prayed and read the Koran, wore traditional Muslim clothes and was sent to a madrassa, a religious Muslim school. She ran away from home at 16 after overhearing her father organising her arranged marriage. [...] But when she opted to get baptised, while studying at Manchester University, her family were incensed and the death threats began. Her father arrived at her home with 40 men and threatened to kill her for betraying Islam. “I saw my uncle and around 40 men storming up the street clutching axes, hammers, knives and bits of wood,” she said. “My dad was shouting through the letter box, “I’m going to kill you”, while the others smashed on the window and beat the door. “They were shouting, ‘We’re going to kill you’ and ‘Traitor’.
And if that weren’t troubling enough, a significant share of young British Muslims apparently believe that this is entirely appropriate: A study this year found that 36 per cent of British Muslims between 16 and 24 believe those who convert to another religion should be punished by death.
18 November 2007 @ 12:26PM >>
Jared Lapidus, who got his start in professional filmmaking shooting footage for Indoctrinate U, has just released a short film he directed called The Libel Tourist. The film covers the abuses of exceedingly loose, plantiff-friendly libel laws in Britain, where American authors can now be sued for books never published there. As long as a single after-market copy of a book is sold in Britain—such as on eBay or Amazon’s used books section—British courts can claim jurisdiction and rule against authors for things that would be protected First Amendment speech here in the U.S. The Libel Tourist covers an issue that’s going to become increasingly important in a world where it’s next to impossible to contain the written word within a single country’s borders.
14 November 2007 @ 7:43AM >>
Proposed speech regulation in Great Britain: The right to crack jokes or be rude about homosexuals could fall victim to new government laws to stamp out “homophobic” behaviour, Rowan Atkinson, the Blackadder star warned yesterday. Atkinson, who mounted a successful campaign in 2004 to water down legislation aimed at criminalising expressions of religious hatred, has returned to the fray to defend the art of gay leg-pulling. His concern is that Labour ministers are so obsessed with creating laws to stop people being rude about each other that they are putting in danger the right to free speech and, equally dear to his heart, the comedian’s craft. In a letter to a newspaper he accused ministers of filling their legislative programme with measures that have “serious implications for freedom of speech, humour and creative expression”. [...] Atkinson added: “The devil, as always, will be in the detail but the casual ease which some people move from finding something offensive to wishing to declare it criminal - and are then able to find factions within government to aid their ambitions - is truly depressing.”
The problem with regulating speech is, an awful lot of power is placed in the hands of the people charged with deciding what is and is not within bounds. Given how speech codes have been abused to punish political speech on college campuses, it’s even more chilling to think of government, with all of its various powers, trying to make these distinctions. Do you trust that the right decision—as opposed to the politically expedient decision—would always be made in these cases? If so, you have a hell of a lot more confidence in government than I do.
15 July 2007 @ 7:11PM >>
The times, they are a-changin’: Britain’s World War II prime minister Winston Churchill has been cut from a list of key historical figures recommended for teaching in English secondary schools, a government agency says. The radical overhaul of the school curriculum for 11- to 14-year-olds is designed to bring secondary education up to date and allow teachers more flexibility in the subjects they teach, the Government said. But although Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin and Martin Luther King have also been dropped from the detailed guidance accompanying the curriculum, Sir Winston’s exclusion is likely to leave traditionalists aghast. [...] “If you’re surprised that people do not seem to care that much about the country in which they live, the reason is that they don’t know much about it.” The History Curriculum Association said it was “appalled” by the move, saying the new curriculum would “promote ignorance” and was pandering to a politically-correct agenda. [...] Schools Secretary Ed Balls defended the move, saying a slimmed-down curriculum was overdue and traditional elements in all subjects had been protected. Among the few named figures that stay in the new history curriculum are William Wilberforce, the British law maker who was instrumental in efforts to abolish the slave trade.
3 July 2007 @ 11:34AM >>
A former British Jihadist: [W]hat drove me and many others to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary worldwide Islamic state that would dispense Islamic justice. If we were interested in justice, you may ask, how did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting such a (flawed) Utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn’t enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a model of the world in which you are either a believer or an infidel. Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same. For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war. But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further. Their first step has been to argue that, since there is no pure Islamic state, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr (The Land of Unbelief). Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. [...] For decades, radicals have been exploiting the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state - typically by starting debate with the question: “Are you British or Muslim?” But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Muslim institutions in Britain just don’t want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex truth that Islam can be interpreted as condoning violence against the unbeliever - and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace and hope that all of this debate will go away. [...] Because so many in the Muslim community refuse to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. Crucially, the Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from its state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.
25 June 2007 @ 1:28PM >>
Multiculturalism is an ideology that prefers to think of people as members of groups rather than individuals. It also rejects integration, which leads to separate communities living by their own rules within the same society. The logical result of this is that Islamic law is applied in Western nations, something that’s been happening with frightening regularity in the West lately. And according to this study, there is increasing support among young Muslims for Sharia law being implemented in Britain: Young British Muslims are more likely than their elders to support Shari’a law and admire al-Qaida, but three-fifths of 16-to 24-year-olds say they have as much in common with non-Muslims as with Muslims, according to an opinion poll published on Monday. The survey, entitled “Living Together Apart: British Muslims and the Paradox of Multiculturalism” and carried out by UK think tank Policy Exchange, found evidence that young Muslims held more fundamentalist beliefs on key social and political issues than those over age 55. Forty percent of Muslims between aged 16 to 24 said they would prefer to live under Shari’a law in the UK, compared to only 17% of those over 55. Thirty-six percent of the younger group said a Muslim who converted to another religion should be “punished by death,” while only 19 percent of the older group agreed. [...] “There is clearly a conflict within British Islam between a moderate majority that accepts the norms of Western democracy and a growing minority that does not,” she added. Shahid Malik, a Labor member of Parliament who is a Muslim, said, “This report makes very disturbing reading and it vindicates the concern many of us have that we’re not doing enough to confront this issue. “For years, I have argued that the [far right] British National Party is a white phenomenon which it is up to the white community to address. Well, extremism exists in the name of Islam, and that’s something the Muslim community has to take leadership on. It’s my view that the mainstream umbrella Muslim organizations have not risen to the challenge and don’t accept the depth of the problem that’s facing them.”
19 June 2007 @ 8:55AM >>
The Washington Times reports that Pakistan is condemning Britain’s decision to grant knighthood to author Salman Rushdie. You may recall that Rushdie’s 1988 novel The Satanic Verses led to an Iranian fatwa being issued against him that ordered his death. This leads to the Quote of the Day, courtesy of Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, Pakistan’s Religious Affairs Minister: The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body, he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the ’sir’ title.
In other words, do what we say—and don’t accuse us of being terrorists!—or we’ll blow you up. As the Washington Times report indicates, this sentiment has some support: In the eastern city of Multan, hard-line Muslim students burned effigies of Queen Elizabeth II and Mr. Rushdie. About 100 students carrying banners condemning the author also chanted, “Kill him. Kill him.”
Remember this next time someone tries to tell you that it is our foreign policy that creates terrorism. In reality, the Jihadists want the rest of the world to bow down before their demands. This war will end in one of two ways: the Jihadists will be defeated, or the world will be ruled by Sharia law. Odds are, we’ll be gone long before this battle for civilization is over. Update: More thoughts here, from Flemming Rose, the editor of the Danish newspaper whose publishing of cartoons containing images of Mohammed sparked worldwide violence.
24 May 2007 >>
From London’s Daily Mail, more evidence that multiculturalism is more important than truth to politically correct educators: Schools are dropping the Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, a Government backed study has revealed. It found some teachers are reluctant to cover the atrocity for fear of upsetting students whose beliefs include Holocaust denial. There is also resistance to tackling the 11th century Crusades - where Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem - because lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques. The findings have prompted claims that some schools are using history ‘as a vehicle for promoting political correctness’. The study, funded by the Department for Education and Skills, looked into ‘emotive and controversial’ history teaching in primary and secondary schools. It found some teachers are dropping courses covering the Holocaust at the earliest opportunity over fears Muslim pupils might express anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class. The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework. The report said teachers feared confronting ‘anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils’.
20 May 2007 @ 1:25PM >>
Last fall, I commented on an ill-conceived proposal in the Netherlands to ban the wearing of burqas in public: The way to address the fact that there are some Jihadists in the Muslim world who need to be defeated is not to strip all Muslims of their right to wear religious attire. Doing so does nothing to further the integration of Muslims, it only serves as a signal that they are not welcome. Western cultures will go down a dangerous path if we start outlawing legitimate, non-violent and uncoerced expressions of faith.
I feel the same way about this proposal in Switzerland: A group of right-wing politicians is gathering signatures to try to force a national vote on banning the construction of minarets in Switzerland. The planned building of minarets, the towers attached to mosques from which the Islamic call for prayer is issued, in small Swiss towns has sparked local protests. A group of politicians from the Swiss National Party and Federal Democratic Union are seeking to prevent the construction of minarets in national law, saying they are a symbol of power and threaten law and order in Switzerland. The campaign has to gather 100,000 signatures by November 2008 to force a national vote on the initiative which, if it gains a majority vote, would then be written into law. “We have no doubt that we’ll reach the goal,” Ulrich Schlueer, a Swiss National Party parliamentarian for Zurich who is heading the initiative, said.
Muslims living in the West can be our long-term allies against the Jihadists, but only if they are integrated into society as equal members. To treat them as second-class citizens by placing restrictions on the construction on their houses of worship when no such restrictions apply to any other religion is not only short-sighted, it goes against the founding ideals of Western civilization. It is legitimate to combat those who would seek to destroy us, but it is unfair to treat all Muslims as though they fall into that category.
16 May 2007 @ 9:08AM >>
I guess al Qaeda was hoping that the Socialist would win: An Al-Qaeda front group in Europe threatened on Tuesday to launch bloody attacks in France in response to the election of “crusader and Zionist” Nicolas Sarkozy as president. “As you have chosen the crusader and Zionist Sarkozy as a leader ... we in the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades warn you that the coming days will see a bloody jihadist campaign ... in the capital of Sarkozy,” the group’s “Europe division” said in an Internet statement addressed to the French people. [...] The group previously claimed responsibility for the July 2005 terror attacks in London, as well those in Madrid in March 2004 and in Istanbul in November 2003.
The only way for Western nations to be safe from this type of terrorism is to let al Qaeda choose our future heads of state.
10 May 2007 @ 8:18AM >>
In a fascinating and in-depth piece from The Wall Street Journal, the president of the Rousseau Institute in Paris wonders whether France’s decline will accelerate to an unstoppable fall—or whether newly-elected French President Nicholas Sarkozy can save the Fifth Republic.
8 April 2007 @ 6:15PM >>
London’s Telegraph reports on more bias at the BBC: Amid the deaths and the grim daily struggle bravely borne by Britain’s forces in southern Iraq, one tale of heroism stands out. Private Johnson Beharry’s courage in rescuing an ambushed foot patrol then, in a second act, saving his vehicle’s crew despite his own terrible injuries earned him a Victoria Cross. For the BBC, however, his story is “too positive” about the conflict. The corporation has cancelled the commission for a 90-minute drama about Britain’s youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq.
I wonder if the BBC has ever cancelled a project because it might alienate people who support the war in Iraq. Call me cynical, but for some reason, I doubt it.
2 April 2007 @ 9:19AM >>
Germany’s Der Spiegel asks “ Does Germany already Have Sharia Law?“ And in another piece, the widely-read pan-European magazine looks at anti-Americanism in German society, noting that Germans now “believe that the United States is a greater threat to world peace than Iran.” Perhaps part of the reason Germans don’t perceive Iran as a threat is that the country, like the rest of Europe, has carefully avoided inflaming Iran for decades: The German political establishment, which will no doubt loudly lament the result of the poll, is largely responsible for this wave of anti-Americanism. For years the country’s foreign ministers fed the Germans the fairy tale of what they called a “critical dialogue” between Europe and Iran. It went something like this: If we are nice to the ayatollahs, cuddle up to them a bit and occasionally wag our fingers at them when they’ve been naughty, they’ll stop condemning their women to death for “unchaste behavior” and they’ll stop building the atom bomb. That plan failed at some point — an outcome, incidentally, that Washington had long anticipated. Iran continues to work away unhindered on its nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reacts to UN demands with an ostentatious show of ignorance. The UN gets upset and drafts a resolution. [...] For us Germans, the Americans are either too fat or too obsessed with exercise, too prudish or too pornographic, too religious or too nihilistic. In terms of history and foreign policy, the Americans have either been too isolationist or too imperialistic. They simply go ahead and invade foreign countries (something we Germans, of course, would never do) and then abandon them, the way they did in Vietnam and will soon do in Iraq. [...] Iran is a different story. The last time someone made a joke on German TV about an Iranian leader, the outcome was not pleasant. Exactly 20 years ago, Dutch entertainer Rudi Carell produced a short TV sketch portraying Ayatollah Khomeini dressed in women’s underwear. Carell received death threats. The piece, which lasted all of a few seconds, led to flights being cancelled and German diplomats being expelled from Tehran. Carell apologized. Jokes about fat Americans are just safer.
Fast forward to the Cartoon Intifada, the rioting, the burning embassies, and the death toll that arose out of cartoons in a newspaper, and you can see why the trembling Europeans are reluctant to say anything critical about Iran or radical Islam. But they might not see Iran as a threat, much in the same way that a compliant gradeschooler doesn’t see the local bully as a threat as long as he hands over his lunch money whenever he’s asked. Say what you want about the Americans, though, because your head won’t get chopped off as a result. So it’s easy, although shortsighted, for you Europeans to direct your anger at the United States. There are no consequences for it. We’ll still come to your defense when your cities start falling to your own home-grown Jihadists in a generation or two, just as we provided for the common defense of Europe for the half-century bounded by World War II and the fall of the Soviet Empire, allowing you to spend next to nothing on your own defense and build up your lavishly unproductive welfare states. But by engaging in this ostrich act whenever confronted with reality, Europe is not only postponing the inevitable, but making it inevitably worse. Because today’s schoolyard bully doesn’t have a nuclear weapon...yet. But it may soon, no matter how many worthless pieces of paper the U.N. issues. So when the bully graduates to mass murder of unspeakable proportions, there will be those of us who said we told you so. And we’ll remember all those nasty words you said about us. And then we’ll help, because this is our fight too. We just wish you’d wake up and see it for yourselves.
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