 Google, the Internet’s ubiquitous search engine, is under fire this week for censoring negative search results about Islam. If you type “Christianity is” into the Google search box, there immediately pop up a series of suggested completions to the sentence, most of them derogatory: “Christianity is bulls—t,” “Christianity is not a religion,” “Christianity is a lie,” “Christianity is false,” “Christianity is wrong,” “Christianity is fake.” No positive suggests come up. Likewise with “Buddhism is,” and the sentence is once again completed with numerous negative suggestions: “Buddhism is wrong,” “Buddhism is not what you think,” and so on. But type in “Islam is,” and nothing comes up at all. The negative suggestions inundating the searcher for other religions are nowhere to be seen. Google, however, says it was all a mistake, and denies have done anything to favor Islam. “This is a bug,” insisted a Google spokesman, “and we’re working to fix it as quickly as we can.” Oddly enough, however, even with all of Google’s technical savvy, this “bug” persisted for days and continues as of this writing, long after Google’s announcement that it would quickly be fixed. Or perhaps it isn’t so odd, in light of Google’s long-established penchant for favoring the hard Left and its allies in the global jihad. Critics have complained for years about Google’s tendency to decorate its logo colorfully for cherished days of the Left such as Earth Day and International Women’s Day, while ignoring Christmas (aside from bland Holiday greetings) and Easter. What’s more, Google-owned YouTube has more than once removed material critical of Islamic jihad supremacism, while allowing blood-curdling pro-jihad and vile anti-Semitic material to remain on the site. Google’s policies on removing videos all too often has appeared to follow a consistent Leftist line: anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-jihad. It is also a remarkable coincidence that Google’s “bug” would appear in Google not about Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism, but in connection with the world’s most thin-skinned religion.
The one religion shielded from adverse judgment at Google is also the only religion that has is currently engaged in an organized campaign to stifle honest discussion about its texts and teachings that inspire violence. In 2008 the Secretary General of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations today, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, warned the West about “red lines that should not be crossed” regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. For years now the OIC has spearheaded an effort at the UN to compel member states to criminalize what it calls “defamation of religions,” but by which it clearly means any honest discussion of the texts and teachings of Islam that jihadists invoke to justify violence and supremacism. Interestingly enough, the OIC stepped up this campaign in the wake of the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper that touched off worldwide Muslim riots. Google, at the time those riots were raging, was dutifully removing from YouTube videos that depicted the cartoons. Thus when the OIC has Google, it doesn’t need international edicts muzzling free speech. Like many on the Left, Google seems all too willing to carry water for the Islamic bloc’s war against free speech and to oblige the OIC’s totalitarian and thuggish influences, by voluntarily refraining from doing anything that might offend Muslims. While its restriction of the automated search suggestions may seem insignificant, its overall willingness to conform to notoriously fragile Islamic sensibilities and deep-six criticism of Islam is anything but trivial. What’s more, what with Google’s influence as by far the premier search engine, the idea that Western non-Muslims must make special allowances for easily-offended Muslims sets a precedent that can only bear bitter fruit in the future.
Ultimately Google, and every individual, group, business, and governing authority in the West, is going to have to decide whether it is going to stand for the hard-won principles of free speech and free inquiry, or kowtow to Islamic supremacism and intimidation. When the censorship is voluntary and self-imposed, as in Google’s case, it is all the more shameful. FPM 
 A JOURNALIST sacked from a leading Arab news channel says she was dumped for following up Australian media reports stemming from a near miss involving an Emirates Airlines jet at Melbourne airport last year. American journalist Courtney Radsch wrote a report that mentioned the incident -- in which an Emirates jet almost failed to take off due to incorrect payload data -- and subsequent safety concerns for Al Arabiya's English site. Her article drew on a Sunday Herald Sun story revealing that Emirates pilots complained about fatigue to air safety authorities months before the near disaster. Radsch, who was the associate editor of the site, said she immediately came under internal pressure from management at the Dubai-based channel to withdraw the article. "One of the heads of the channel came over and said that this article was causing problems and it needed to be taken down," she said. "I said to them: `There is supposed to be a separation between editorial and business' and they kind of laughed it off," she said. "In the end my colleagues were urging me to take the story off. It wasn't worth going to jail for or being fined thousands of dollars for, so I decided that if Al Arabiya wasn't going to stand up for the story then I wasn't either." She said new media laws in Dubai meant journalists could be imprisoned or fined for writing stories that had on impact on Dubai's economy.
Despite taking the article down, Radsch was then told she had lost her position due to a "restructure". She believes it was actually as a result of pressure from Emirates over the story. An Emirates spokesman denied the claim, saying: "Emirates does not interfere with the operations of Al Arabiya." The airline's Australian-based public relations firm -- PPR -- also supplied a statement the airline released following Radsch's report, claiming inaccuracies. Al Arabiya did not respond to requests for comment. The Australian
 Egypt – Regimes throughout the Arab world are consistently censoring the Internet and arresting and torturing Internet users, a new human rights report has claimed. The 235-page report, “One Social Network With a Rebellious Message”, examines Internet freedom in 20 Arab countries. “In the Arab world, where the most repressive regimes lie, the Internet has been a tool used to bring democracy and free expression to the region,” read the report, issued by the Egypt-based, Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI). “This new force cannot be stopped by governments’ actions of censorship, blocking the internet and arresting and even torturing internet users.” The report looks at four online platforms – blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – as examples of Internet-based tools which Arab Internet users, especially young people, use to express their opinions, expose corruption and counter repression. “The problem is that there are no laws to regulate Internet usage,” Rawda Ahmed, a lawyer and head of the legal division at ANHRI told The Media Line. “Here in Egypt, there are many internet users, bloggers and Facebook users? Many of them are arrested, tortured or illegally detained, and receive arrest warrants under the Emergency Law.” The report found that Syria also employed its Emergency Law to censor and repress Internet users. In Saudi Arabia, the report said, religious authorities issued fatwas, or religious decrees, to ban certain websites the government was unable to block. According to the report the number of Internet users has reached 58 million in the Arab world, of which only users in Lebanon, Algeria and Somalia have Internet freedom. The report claimed that the relative freedom experienced by Internet users in Lebanon and Somalia is mainly due to the widespread practice of phone tapping in Lebanon and the government’s engagement in a conflict in Somalia. The report found that Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, countries which allowed Internet freedom in the past, have started to show a repressive attitude towards Internet users, while Egypt has become the Arab world’s most repressive country towards Internet users. Egypt stopped the policy of blocking websites five years ago, but has heightened its oppression of bloggers and Internet users. “The number of Internet users and bloggers in the Arab world who actually deal with political issues is only a few thousand,” the report said. “But these activists and bloggers have managed to shed light on corruption and oppression and are getting many forces and opposition blocs on their side.” The two Arab League members not included in the report are Djibouti and the Comoros Islands, for lack of information on Internet usage in these countries. Statistics on communications in the Arab world from the report: – 58 million Internet users – 176 million mobile phones – 34 million land lines – 12 million Facebook users – 600,000 bloggers, a quarter of them active – Algeria has the highest numbers of Internet cafes – around 16,000 – Egypt has the highest number of Internet users – 15 million and also the largest number of YouTube users – Mauritania has the lowest number of Internet users, with 60,000 – Countries with the highest number of Facebook users are Egypt, Algeria and Lebanon – The UAE has the highest number of mobile phone users
 Blood will flow. One of the 'facts' about which we are assured by those wise rulers who seek to censor our freedom of speech about the darkest aspects of Islam as it is actually practised in much of the world is this: if we should so much as point out that, for example: Islamist Muslims really are taught to despise the rest of humanity; or to indicate that Koran, Sira, and Hadith contain numerous examples of hostile and downright lethal injunctions to Muslims to wage undending warfare on the rest of Mankind with the intent to subjugate us; or that the present violent acts of Islamist Muslims are motivated by those parts of Islam about which we are not to discuss, then brutal, bloody, and unreasoning vengeance will generally break out as mobs of unbelievers; inflamed by our mentioning these truths, seek to punish any and all Muslims, irrespective of their beliefs, morality, motives or general law-abiding behaviur. Geert Wilders was excluded from Britain in case his discussion of Islamism in the Netherlands should lead to outbreaks of Islamophobic vigilantism in the UK. Mark Steyn was taken to the kangaroo court of the Ontario Human Rights Commission for articles critical of some aspects of Islam and was witch-hunted and found guilt y in advance, whilst being the first ever defendant not to be formally condemned by that insane body and was variously defended by others and maligned by its officials thus: "There was no hearing, no evidence presented and no opportunity to offer a defence — just a pronouncement of wrongdoing." The OHRC defended its right to comment by stating, "Like racial profiling and other types of discrimination, ascribing the behaviour of individuals to a group damages everyone in that group. We have always spoken out on such issues. Maclean’s and its writers are free to express their opinions. The OHRC is mandated to express what it sees as unfair and harmful comment or conduct that may lead to discrimination." Today's demonstration by the English branch of Stop The Islamification of Europe has attracted similar 'fears' of knuckle-dragging racists as 'anti-fascist' UAF and Islamists misrepresent its members as being. Last time, the anti-Islamification protest was called off by the organizers for fear of harm to the police, but the violence went on anyway, which only left one source of rioting and bigotry. Now, despite all those dire warnings of massive and vicious persecution of innocent Muslims by individuals inflamed by the very mention of Islam's scriptural cruelties and historical and present oppressiveness, what hasn't happend is widescale or even small-scale mosque burnings; hangings; or beatings of Muslims in the West (except perhaps by their enraged male relatives) as a result of this talk. Nor as a result of the gloating pronouncements of Islamists about our foreign policy. Nor for harrassment against Western troops. Nor for calling for the murders of Britain's colourful artistic temperament community. Nor for attempted terrorism. Nor for successful terrorism. There have been some beatings, it seems; but we may never know what motivated that attack, but not the holocaust we're always promised every time someone quotes the murky passages of the Koran or from Islamists' own words and deeds or publish pictures or writing about Islam and Muslims. Hey guys, are we Islamophobic hate-mongers not trying hard enough or what? You know what? This is all so insulting. Insulting to the Muslims who find scriptural reasons to question the violent and brutal aspects of Islam and oppose its practices. Insulting to the Muslims who ignore the dark stuff and peacefully get on with their lives regardless of it. Insulting to the rest of us who are quite capable of discriminating between the killer crazies and the Muslims who work in our hospitals and colleges and supermarkets and schools and restaurants and shops and who just want to take whatever comfort and salvation they can from their faith. The 'Don't mention the Jihad' argument has more holes in it than a, well, you know. And if talking about it is bad enough, what bloodthirsty massacres will follow the Swiss'vote refusing to allow any more minarets to be built in their country. Let's just wait here for the claret to rain down over the Alps at the hands of us killer infidels, yeah? Just sitting here. Waiting. Any time now. It's going to be scary, you betcha.
 Partying like it's 1984. Of course, many of these terms are euphemisms employed in the first place to dodge the heart of the matter, Islamic jihad. But euphemisms themselves eventually begin to take on too much of the connotation of the words they replaced, and it's soon time to roll out a fresh batch of non-offensive terminology. Eventually, this list will also require revision and supplementation... at taxpayer expense. But maybe, just maybe, it will keep some Misunderstander of Islam from becoming "radicalized." No, scratch that. Apparently you can't say "radicalize" now, either. "Don't call extremists 'extremists'," by Graeme Wilson for The Sun, December 4: MINISTERS have been BANNED from using words like Islamist and fundamentalist - in case they offend Muslims. An eight-page Whitehall guide lists words they should not use when talking about terrorism in public and gives politically correct alternatives. They are told not to refer to Muslim extremism as it links Islam to violence. Instead, they are urged to talk about terrorism or violent extremism. As opposed to violent moderation? Or non-violent extremism? Is the latter ok, then? Fundamentalist and Jihadi are also banned because they make an "explicit link" between Muslims and terror. Ministers should say criminals, murderers or thugs instead.
Radicalization must be called brainwashing and talking about moderate or radical Muslims is to be avoided as it "splits the community". Islamophobia is also out as it is received as "a slur that singles out Muslims". It's hard to make heads or tails of that one; the use of passive voice doesn't help. The guide, produced by the secretive Research, Information and Communications Unit in the Home Office, tell ministers to "avoid implying that specific communities are to blame" for terrorism. It says more than 2,000 people are engaged in terror plots. The guidance was branded "daft" last night by a special adviser to ex-Communities Secretary Hazel Blears.
Paul Richards said: "Unless you can describe what you're up against, you're never going to defeat it. Ministers need to be leading the debate on Islamic extremism and they can't do that if they have one hand tied behind their back." The Home Office said: "This is about using appropriate language to have counter-terrorism impact. It would be foolish to do anything else." The secret weapon, the fruits of the Manhattan Project of the 21st century: "appropriate language." With thanks to JihadWatch
 Anne Frank's diary has been censored out of a school textbook in Lebanon following a campaign by the terror group Hezbollah claiming the classic work promotes Zionism. The row erupted after Hezbollah learned excerpts of "The Diary of Anne Frank" were included in the textbook used by a private English-language school in western Beirut. Hezbollah's Al-Manar television channel ran a report slamming the book for focusing on the persecution of Jews. "What is even more dangerous is the dramatic, theatrical way in which the diary is emotionally recounted," said the report aired last week and also published on the station's website. It questioned how long Lebanon would "remain an open arena for the Zionist invasion of education." A member of the school board, Jimmy Shoufani, told AFP the school dropped the textbook from its curriculum after the controversy erupted. He asked that the school not be identified. Hezbollah officials could not reached for comment. In the Al-Manar report, party MP Hussein Hajj Hassan had criticized the school for showing poor judgment in picking out its textbooks. "These respected, established schools are teaching the so-called tragedy this girl lived, and yet they are ashamed to teach the tragedy of the Lebanese people, the tragedy of the Palestinian people... the tragedy of the people of the south under the hands of Zionist occupation," he told Al-Manar. Paris-based organization Aladdin's Project, which fights Holocaust denial and first translated Anne Frank's diary into Arabic, issued a statement condemning Hezbollah's "intimidation campaign." Hezbollah fought a devastating war with the Jewish state in 2006. It has since refused to surrender its weapons arguing they are necessary to fight Israel, which withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. The militant party last month also took aim at another textbook used in a leading private school in Beirut in which Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas are referred to as "terrorist organizations". The chapter in question is usually blanked out by Lebanon's censorship bureau, but an uncensored copy purchased by a student abroad apparently sparked the uproar.
By L. Gordon Crovitz In today's world of instant global communication, disagreements happen more quickly and resentments get established in real time. Just as the British and Americans have been called two nations divided by a common language, today we all share the Internet, yet we are divided by the instant communicating that digital technology makes possible. Recall the incident in 2005, when a Danish newspaper printed a dozen cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed, including one with a bomb in his turban. Posting the cartoons on the Web resulted in protests in much of the Muslim world, including riots and deaths. The bomb-in-the-turban cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, has received death threats and lives under 24-hour police protection in Copenhagen. Last week he visited the U.S., with the message that when it comes to insult and humor, there is little common ground around the world. Read more ...Source: WSJ H/T: Europe News
 Elan Journo Four years ago this week, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons featuring Mohammad.
What followed, some months later, was an outright assault by Muslim activists and regimes on our freedom of speech.
Aftershocks from that crisis continue to erode free speech in the West. A recent example was the decision by Yale University Press to cut all images of Mohammad from a book on the cartoons crisis(!).
The stated reason for that move was the publisher’s fear of violent Muslim reprisals. In an interview with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Flemming Rose, the editor behind the notorious cartoons, talks about the incident at Yale and free speech. One of his comments — about the response of U.S. publishers to a book he’s writing on the crisis — was particularly illuminating: [FR] Yes, I am still in the process of writing this book. Hopefully it will be published in Denmark next year. In fact, I already have had contact with some top publishers in the U.S., but it was my impression—though I can’t prove it—that they were quite positive to the book, but when I said that I couldn’t imagine a book without the cartoons, they lost interest. I wonder just how much self-censorship is going on today. Regarding the Yale U.P. book that was stripped of all visual depictions of Mohammad, Mr. Flemming quips that it seems “…Al-Qaeda has been appointed editor-in-chief of Yale University Press.”
To me that aptly names the stakes: until our government takes a principled stand and firmly upholds our right to free speech in the face of intimidation and threats, we in effect subordinate our liberty to Islamic religious dogma. Source: Ayn Rand Center
 Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president, has ordered an immediate end to state censorship of the media ahead of the country's first elections in almost 25 years. In a decree carried by the official Suna news agency on Sunday, al-Bashir put an end to "pre-censorship", the system where newspapers are screened by state censors before being available to the public. "We had a meeting with President al-Bashir. He ordered a stop to censorship from today," Ali Shomo, the chairman of Sudan's national press council, the state regulator, said. Editors gave the announcement a cautious welcome, but some said they would still face pressure over sensitive stories. Sudan's Ajras al-Huriya newspaper, which is linked to the former southern Sudan People's Liberation Movement, warned that journalists would still face pressure when writing about Darfur and other highly charged topics. "There is no way they [the security services] are going to tolerate anything about security, about the International Criminal Court," said Faisal Silaik, the paper's deputy editor-in-chief. Sudan's journalists have complained of regular censorship, saying security officers often visit their offices to check and sometimes remove articles ahead of publication, despite constitutional guarantees of a free media. Editors say print-runs have been seized and titles shut down, particularly when writers tried to tackle controversial subjects such as the Darfur conflict and the International Criminal Court's war crimes case against al-Bashir. Fadlallah Mohamed, the editor of independent al-Khartoum newspaper, said the move was "important" ahead of the national election due in April 2010 under the terms of a faltering 2005 peace deal that ended the country's north-south civil war. "Censorship is contrary to free press in Sudan," he said. "We are expecting the general election. It is very important to have a free press in such circumstances." Read more here,,,, Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 by Alan M. Dershowitz A group of hard left filmmakers and writers from around the world have been using their celebrity to try to coerce the Toronto International Film Festival into banning Israeli films. Their petition, which is filled with misstatement of facts and rewriting of history, describes Israel as “an Apartheid regime.” It focuses not so much on Israel’s occupation of the West Bank since 1967 but rather on Israel’s very existence since 1948.
It characterizes Tel Aviv, a city built by the sweat of Jews largely on baron coast land, as illegitimate. It never mentions the fact that the Palestinians were offered and rejected statehood in 1938, 1948, 1967 and 2000-2001. It fails to mention that when Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, the result was rockets being fired at Israeli schoolchildren and other civilians. They claim that the inspiration for their censorship effort includes “former President Jimmy Carter,” who they say has characterized Israel as an “Apartheid regime.” Jimmy Carter has said many nasty things about Israel but he has expressly disclaimed any allegation that the Israeli regime itself is Apartheid. He acknowledges that Israel is a multicultural democracy in which Arabs vote, serve in the Knesset, serve on the Supreme Court and teach in Israeli universities. Many even volunteered to serve in the Israeli Army. His use—misuse in my view—of the word “Apartheid” was limited to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. As Rhoda Kadalie and Julia Bertelsmann, two black South African women whose families were active in the anti-Apartheid movement, wrote recently, Israel is not an apartheid state. . . . Arab citizens of Israel can vote and serve in the Knesset; black South Africans could not vote until 1994. There are no laws in Israel that discriminate against Arab citizens or separate them from Jews. . . . South Africa had a job reservation policy for white people; Israel has adopted pro-Arab affirmative action measures in some sectors. Israeli schools, universities and hospitals make no distinction between Jews and Arabs. An Arab citizen who brings a case before an Israeli court will have that case decided on the basis of merit, not ethnicity. This was never the case for blacks under apartheid.
 The famous photo of Adolf Hitler sitting with Grand
Mufti Hajj Muhammad Amin al-HusseiniThe publicly funded Multicultural Center's (Werkstatt der Kulturen) decision to remove educational panels of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, who was an ally of Adolf Hitler, from a planned exhibit, sparked outrage on Thursday among a district mayor, the curator of the exhibit, and the Berlin Jewish community. The curator, Karl Rössler, told The Jerusalem Post that it is a "scandal" that the director of the Werkstatt, Philippa Ebéné, sought to censor the exhibit. "One must, of course, name that al-Husseini, a SS functionary, participated in the Holocaust," said Rössler. The exhibit covers the "The Third World during the Second World War" and three exhibit panels of 96 are devoted to the mufti's collaboration with the Nazis. The grand mufti delivered a talk to the imams of the Bosnian SS division in 1944, and was a key Islamic supporter of Nazi Germany's destruction of European Jewry. Ebéné denied that there was an "agreement " reached with the local German-Muslim community to shut down the exhibit. She termed media queries regarding an agreement as "Eurocentric." She told the Post that the exhibit was intended as a "homage to soldiers from African" countries who fought against the Nazis. When asked about her opposition to the inclusion of the mufti panels, she asked, "was there ever a commemoration event in Israel to honor the [African] soldiers?" Rössler was notified last Friday that Ebéné wanted to take out the panels dealing with the grand mufti, but he rejected her demand to remove them. Meanwhile, the exhibit in its uncensored version has been relocated to the UferHallen gallery. Read more here ... Source: JPost
 When an organization organizes an annual banned books week to celebrate "the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular," it is a little disturbing to see the same group cancel a panel discussion because one of the invited speakers is considered objectionable. But that's how the American Library Association (ALA) handled pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to silence an invited speaker for a panel discussion at its annual convention who has a perspective on Islam, jihad, and terrorism that CAIR doesn't like. Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer, author of eight books on Islam and jihad, had been scheduled to appear July 12 on an ALA panel entitled "Perspectives on Islam: Beyond the Stereotyping." ALA canceled the panel after the other speakers decided to boycott the panel due to Spencer's participation. But rather than inviting others to replace them, or letting Spencer honor his commitment, the ALA capitulated and gave the critics what they wanted. Read more ...Source: IPT NewsAmerican Library Association
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
Court wades into brewing battle over rights of Internet journalists July 04 | By Drew Zahn When Internet journalist Joe Kaufman wrote an article exposing terrorist connections in two American Muslim groups, he was sued by a swarm of Islamic organizations, none of which he had mentioned in his online article. The technique is called by some "legal jihad" or "Islamist lawfare," and the Thomas More Law Center, which is representing Kaufman in the lawsuit, claims Muslim advocates are using the strategy to bully online journalists into silence. "The lawsuit against Kaufman was funded by the Muslim Legal Fund for America. The head of that organization, Khalil Meek, admitted on a Muslim radio show that lawsuits were being filed against Kaufman and others to set an example," claims a Thomas More statement on the case. "Indeed, for the last several years, Muslim groups in the U.S. have engaged in the tactic of filing meritless lawsuits to silence any public discussion of Islamic terrorist threats." The organizations suing Kaufman also sought to legally deny him certain legal protections granted to traditional journalists, claiming that as an Internet writer, his right to seek a quick and inexpensive dismissal of the case didn't apply. The case set up a battle, not only between Islamic advocates and those that would question their political connections, but also between organizations that fly low under the mass media's radar, enjoying little public scrutiny, and the burgeoning field of Internet journalism that often investigates places the mainstream media ignores. In an unanimous decision from a three-judge panel of the Texas Second Court of Appeals, however, not only did the court rule that the Muslim organizations had no basis for claiming defamation – since Kaufman didn't name or point to them in his article – but the judges also declared that online journalists do merit the same status and legal protections that their more traditional media peers enjoy. Though the case against Kaufman is therefore dismissed for now, the Law Center reports the seven Muslim organizations have filed an appeal, continuing their quest for, according to court documents, "injunctive relief related to Kaufman's existing and future Internet publications." As WND reported, Kaufman's troubles began when he wrote an article for the online FrontPage Magazine in 2007, criticizing two Islamic groups for hosting a "Muslim Family Day" at Six Flags over Texas, a Dallas-area amusement park. The Islamic Circle of North America and the Islamic Association of North Texas, Kaufman revealed, had funneled money to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and al-Qaida. "While using images of cartoon characters and sponsoring events at amusement parks may seem innocuous, the danger that the Islamic Circle of North America poses to the United States, Canada and others is clear," Kaufman wrote. "As a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization looks to impose Islam on Western society, and as a donor to a terrorist organization, the group is a willing participant in the act of violence." And while neither the ICNA nor the IANT claimed libel, seven other Muslim organizations – the Islamic Society of Arlington, Texas, Islamic Center of Irving, DFW Islamic Educational Center, Inc., Dar Elsalam Islamic Center, Al Hedayah Islamic Center, Islamic Association of Tarrant County and Muslim American Society of Dallas – cried foul, bringing the defamation suit against Kaufman. Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commented, "This frivolous lawsuit is an example of the legal jihad being waged by radical Islamic organizations throughout our nation. These lawsuits are aimed at stifling the free speech rights of Americans who dare to expose their agenda. They intentionally file lawsuits to intimidate reporters who seek to expose their agenda. By making it costly to defend against their lawsuits, they hope journalists will refrain from writing about the threat to our nation." The opinion of the court, written by Justice Terrie Livingston, overturned a lower court's denial of Kaufmann's motion to dismiss the libel claim before a time-consuming and expensive trial. Listing seven different reasons for the court's decision, Justice Livingston wrote, "We conclude that an Internet author's status as a member of the electronic media should be adjudged by the same principles that courts should use to determine the author's status under more traditional media." The court did not, however, uphold that all Internet writers – such as bloggers – should be afforded the protections traditional journalists enjoy. Kaufman, the court noted, has written for a variety of national publications since 1995, has appeared on several television news networks and in writing for FrontPage Magazine, was writing for a separate online news source with the freedom to accept or reject his article. The court concluded, "We believe that these facts and circumstances, establishing Kaufman's journalistic background and his notoriety outside of the parameters of the article and graphic at issue and FrontPage Magazine's broad readership and its existence as a news/commentary medium that is independent from Kaufman's articles, are sufficient to qualify Kaufman as a member of the electronic or print media and to qualify FrontPage Magazine as an electronic or print medium." Furthermore, the court ruled, that the Muslim organizations' contention that an Internet author could "never" qualify as a member of the media "would make as little sense as an inverse rule that a print author (such as someone distributing their own photocopied musings) would always qualify as such." Source: WorldNetDaily
The international Quranic Center is extremely dismayed by the recent actions by some Gulf countries, including the governments of Saudi Arabic and Bahrain to block the center's website: www.ahl-alquran.com. The center encourages the users inside these two countries and internet usurers who face censorship at large to read the general instructions below from wikihow on how to bypass blocking of websites.
It worth mentioning that ahl-alquran website also has more than two thousand registered users who comment on the articles posted on the website and engage in lively discussions on daily basis. Right now the website has more than thirty thousand comments in the website. The result is that there is currently more than one hundred thousand visitors who read the website every month. The website is particularly well read in the Middle East, including countries like Egypt, Libya, Algeria, and Kuwait. Source: The International Quranic Center
Many of my readers are aware of my wrath toward cowards who quiver in the face of threats made to people who choose to retain their free speech in the face of Islamism arrogance. Geert Wilders is a hero in this department, the UK gov't is full of cowards. Geert has made a documentary named, 'Fitna', which uses the parts of the Koran which the jihadis exploit for political manipulation to warn the west about what is vital to our survival. For this, he is being prosecuted by the Dutch government, thanks to the Muslims who've invaded their country and silenced the good Muslim population. The UK invited Geert to speak at their showing of this documentay, but a couple of ministries (how ironic, stop using the name 'Ministry'. You are not ministers!) disinvited him because HE is considered a bigger threat to their peace than the jihadis! So. What to do? I have the documentary for you to watch here. Let them come after me, too. I am not afraid. Ya see, we have this little thing called the 2nd Amendment in America, and I know how to use it to my benefit and protection. I consider a threat from any jihadi to my person and livelihood to be a reasonable enough threat to do my duty for my country. Don't be afraid. Tell me your name and address. Unless, of course, you are cowards like the rest of the jihadis and the UK government... You may also read The speech Geert Wilders would have given had the UK not been filled with cowards and dhimmis. BTW, jihadis are those who give Muslims a bad name and make life harder for them. This in no way has anything to do with the good Muslims I know and the good Muslims I do not know. Let's just make this perfectly clear. After 9/11/01, my door and heart was open to any Muslim woman who felt they needed refuge. So don't even go down that road. Jihadis are the racists here, not the American people. It sure would be nice, however, if more American Muslims would stand up against the jihadis. There are a few that I know of who do a great job of standing up and against the jihadis. Here are their links: The Spirit Of Man, Muslims Against Sharia and American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Check them out and decide for yourself if they are speaking out loudly enough for you. Frankly, I don't believe they are receiving the attention they deserve. There are also many more, but I do not have their links. Thank you, and have a nice day. Source: Geert Wilders. H/T: Rosemary's Thoughts.
By Gregor McClenaghan DUBAI // Internet blocks imposed in the UAE and other Middle East countries are failing to stop young people from seeing the censored websites, security experts were told yesterday. A survey of internet habits showed that many young people in the region have used proxy servers or software to get around censorship, suggesting that blocks imposed in the UAE and other countries are little deterrent to a generation that has grown up with technology. The results of the survey were released at the National Security Summit, which ended yesterday. More than two-thirds of the 16-to 35-year-olds surveyed said they had used the internet to communicate with people it would normally be considered culturally inappropriate for them to interact with, such as members of the opposite sex. Read more ...Source: The National
 Ben Hoyle | October 01, 2008
TWENTY years after the publication of the book that almost cost him his life, Salman Rushdie is still glad that he wrote The Satanic Verses.
In the second of a series of interviews with leading cultural figures filmed exclusively for The Times, he tells Clive James that he "wouldn't not have wanted" to be the writer asking the big questions about religion and civilisation posed by the book.
His remarks are uncomfortably pertinent, coming at a time when Muslim extremists have again driven a literary figure into hiding. This time the victim is Martin Rynja, a Dutch-born London publisher who had agreed to release The Jewel of Medina, a controversial novel by Sherry Jones about the Prophet Muhammad's relationship with his nine-year-old bride, Aisha.
Mr Rynja's home in Islington, North London, was firebombed in the early hours on Saturday. Undercover police tipped him off hours earlier and arrested three men from East London.
Rushdie criticised Random House, his own publisher, in August for refusing to publish the book in the US, calling it "censorship by fear."
The interview stretches beyond the fatwa against Rushdie. It ranges from the partition of India to how he played air-guitar Elvis on a squash racket when a child in Bombay.
Rushdie says he is an atheist who finds dead religions "much more attractive" but says he has nothing against true believers until their faith spills over into the public sphere and becomes "my business".
Like all the interviewees in the series (Sir Tom Stoppard was the first and Germaine Greer is among others to appear later on Times Online) Rushdie is filmed chatting on a sofa in James's London flat.
The Times first reviewed The Satanic Verses 20 years ago today. The review carried no hint of the controversy to come but praised the book as "better than Midnight's Children", Rushdie's Booker Prize-winning second novel.
The first sign of serious trouble came four days later when India banned the book after complaints that it was offensive to Muslims and protests began in Muslim communities around the world. In February 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini, then supreme leader of Iran, issued a fatwa calling on all Muslims to murder Rushdie, and the writer went into hiding for the best part of ten years.
Rushdie says: "The question I'm always asking myself is: are we masters or victims? Do we make history or does history make us? Do we shape the world or are we just shaped by it? The question of do we have agency in our lives or whether we are just passive victims of events is, I think, a great question and one that I have always tried to ask. In that sense I wouldn't not have wanted to be the writer that asked it."
During his time in hiding there were explosions at bookshops in London, York and High Wycombe, the book's Japanese translator was stabbed to death, its Italian translator survived a stabbing, its Norwegian publisher narrowly escaped an attempt on his life and 37 people died after a gang set fire to a Turkish hotel where the Turkish translator was staying (he survived).
The writer is more relaxed about his security today but the fatwa cannot be annulled, and when he was knighted last year protests in Pakistan and Malaysia called for his death. No wonder Rushdie prefers "dead religions". Source: The Australian
By Steve Emerson The Investigative Project on Terrorism is among those who are critical of new guidelines discouraging the use of terms like "Islamist" and "jihad" when discussing terrorism and extremism that were issued earlier this year by the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center. While the agencies argue that the words may boost the popularity of terrorists among Muslim radicals, it's a bad idea to hide the motivations behind those who seek to attack the United States, or innocent people around the world. Another weakness was exposed last month, when the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) attacked California Congressman Ed Royce (R-Orange County) for using the term "Islamist terrorism." Read more ...Source: Family Security Matters
By Nick Cohen Far in the distance, a protracted scream comes out of a dark tunnel. As it rises, the ground begins to shake. A dot of light speeds towards the viewer. In seconds, it fills the screen and a rattling blur of the cold steel shrieks past the camera. The action cuts to the forecourt of King's Cross station. Hasib Hussein, a gawky 18-year-old with soft eyes, looks imploringly at the authoritative figure of Sidique Khan. "Sidique ... wait ... ," he says, with a voice full of fear and uncertainty. The older man calms the boy with a bear hug. "There is nothing to fear in death, Hasib," he says. "When the time comes, we'll face towards Makkah together, as one." He looks Hussein in the eyes. "Our lives begin today." Read more ...Source: Standpoint
 By Andrew C. McCarthy
Last spring, legislators in New York State joined with the governor, David Paterson, in passing a law entitled the Libel Tourism Protection Act. The act has a narrow focus. It empowers the state’s courts to invalidate a judgment of libel or defamation against a writer or publisher who resides or does business in New York, so long as that judgment was obtained in a country that affords writers and publishers a lesser degree of free-speech protection than does the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Though the law does not say so explicitly, it was passed without much controversy because a writer in New York State was in danger of being driven into penury by one of the world’s richest men—a Saudi banker with Irish citizenship who has undertaken to intimidate and silence writers, editors, and publishers daring to examine his role in the murky world of Islamic charitable giving. Over the past decades, Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz has become the world’s foremost “libel tourist,” journeying beyond his own country to find a hospitable judge’s ear in Great Britain. According to the late Robert O. Collins—whose 2006 book Alms for Jihad, co-authored with J. Millard Burr, was one of bin Mahfouz’s targets—the tactic has been brilliantly successful. In three dozen cases in which legal action has been either threatened or carried through to trial, bin Mahfouz has succeeded in securing apologies and cash damages. Cambridge University Press, the publisher of Collins and Burr’s study, had every copy of their book put through a shredder and pulped. Source: Commentary MagazineH/T: Shariah Finance Watch
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Google, the Internet’s ubiquitous search engine, is under fire this week for censoring negative search results about Islam. 
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