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.
(CNSNews.com) – Une campagne menée par les pays musulmans contre la « diffamation » des religions a essuyé un nouveau revers aux Nations Unies où le nombre des votes favorables parmi les états membres a atteint un nouveau point bas dans un contexte d’inquiétude croissante sur le fait que les résolutions anti-diffamation mettent en danger les non-musulmans des sociétés islamiques et nuisent à la liberté d’expression.
Pendant que l’attention du monde se concentrait pour l’essentiel sur Copenhague, la semaine dernière, l’assemblée générale des Nations Unies a adopté une série de résolutions relatives aux droits de l’homme. Aux yeux des critiques de l’organisation mondiale et de son Conseil des droits de l’homme, les résultats sont mitigés.
La dernière en date de toute la série des résolutions sur la diffamation des religions qui ont été examinées au cours des dix dernières années par l’assemblée générale et les organismes consacrés aux droits de l’homme a réuni contre elle plus de pays que jamais. Lire la suite...
These are the kinds of laws that the Organization of the Islamic Conference is working to bring to the West.
"Egypt court upholds 4-year sentence for blogger," from Reuters, December 22:
CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court confirmed the four-year jail sentence imposed on an Egyptian student blogger for posting writings critical of Islam and the government, the state news agency MENA said.
Blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, then 22, was arrested in 2006 and charged with publishing opinions aimed at disturbing public order, insulting the head of state and defaming Islam. He was expelled from al-Azhar University, Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning.
Suleiman will spend only one year in jail as he has already spent three years in detention since his arrest....
U.N. vote shows 'continuing pattern of growing opposition' to proposal
Support for a United Nations proposal that critics contend would be used to ban criticism of Islam, censor the message of Jesus Christ and attack and kill Christians and members of other faiths is plunging, according to the newest vote totals.
A resolution has been pending in one form or another since 1999 and originally was called "Defamation of Islam."
The name later was changed to "Defamation of Religions," but Islam remains the only faith protected by name in the proposal.
It is being sought by the 57 members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to "protect" Islam from what OIC members perceive as "criticism," which could include anything referencing Christianity since that could be considered a challenge to the beliefs of Muslims.
The latest vote on the nonbinding proposal came as the U.N. headed into the weekend, with 80 votes in favor of the proposal, 61 against and 42 abstentions. The results show support declining from the 86 yes votes a year ago and the 108 yes votes from two years ago.
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, has been working to raise the world's awareness of the implications of the plan for several years. He's especially concerned that the ultimate goal appears to be a binding action by the U.N.
"For several years now, we have been working to oppose this resolution and this afront to religious freedom," he said in a blog posting shortly after the vote. 'During that time, we have seen a dramatic decline in support for this resolution.
He saw today's vote as "a very encouraging sign."
"What this tells us is that our message is getting through," he said. "A growing number of nations around the world understand that this resolution is unacceptable – that it is harmful, not helpful, to preserving religious liberty and freedom.
We will continue to work on this issue and to educate more nations about the dangers of this resolution and encourage them to vote against it."
Lindsay Vessey, advocacy director for Open Doors USA, an international Christian ministry operating in many Islamic states, previously told WND that U.N. human rights provisions always have focused on individuals, but the concept of protecting a religion would give authoritarian governments virtually unrestrained power to attack individuals whose message they don't like.
"It would legitimize national blasphemy laws in countries that are actually going to persecute religious minorities, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan," she said.
Open Doors President Carl Moeller recently published a commentary describing what could happen under the proposal.
"The United Nations is once again on the verge of introducing a resolution that goes against everything the world body supposedly stands for. A successful resolution would actually undermine the religious liberty and personal safety of Christians and members of other faiths," he wrote.
He contended the resolution would "silence words or actions that are deemed to be against a particular religion, and that religion is Islam. While the stated goal seems relatively innocuous – blocking defamation of people's deeply held religious beliefs – in practice the statement is used to silence those whose only crime is to believe in another faith, or no faith at all."
He said the OIC is the driving force behind the plan and noted, "The OIC's goal is anything but peaceful."
Free speech goes on trial in the Netherlands on January 20, when Dutch politician Geert Wilders appears before the Amsterdam District Court on charges of having “intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion,” as well as having incited to hatred and discrimination.
What did Wilders do to warrant such charges? He told the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, and their roots in Islamic texts and teachings, in his film Fitna and elsewhere.
But nowadays truth-telling is at such a premium that those who still dare to engage in it are threatened, harassed and prosecuted.
But Wilders is defiant: “On the 20th of January 2010, a political trial will start. I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing.
If a politician is not allowed to criticise an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom. However I remain combative: I am convinced that I will be acquitted.”
The very idea of trying someone for offending someone else is absurd – especially when the offended group is known to traffic in the PC multiculturalist coin of wounded feelings, so as to gain the political power that comes from victim status.
That the Amsterdam District Court would aid and abet this absurdity and obvious manipulation unmasks the Wilders trial – even before it starts – as what it really is: an attempt by the nation’s political elites to silence one of their most formidable critics.
The one who has the power to decide what is an actionable offensive statement or prosecutable incitement has the power to control the discourse – and that’s what the prosecution of Wilders is all about. If offending someone is a crime, can those who find hate speech laws offensive bring suit against their framers?
The action against Wilders is taking place, moreover, against the backdrop of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference’s ongoing efforts at the United Nations to silence speech that they deem critical of Islam — including “defamation of Islam” that goes under the “pretext” of “freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security.”
If they succeed in doing this, Europeans and Americans will be rendered mute, and thus defenseless, in the face of the advancing jihad and attempt to impose Sharia on the West — in fact, one of the key elements of the laws for dhimmis, non-Muslims subjugated under Islamic rule, is that they are never critical of Islam, Muhammad, or the Qur’an. Thus this prosecution in Amsterdam not only aids the advance of Sharia in the West, but is itself an element of that advance.
The stakes are so high in the Wilders case also because the OIC has a new, powerful ally as it moves against the freedom of speech. In October the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
Echoing Obama’s stated determination to combat “negative stereotyping of Islam” in the United States, the resolution also condemns “negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups.” This is, of course, an oblique reference to accurate reporting about the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism — for such reporting, and not actual negative stereotyping or hateful language at all, is always the focus of OIC complaints.
Last year the Secretary General of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, issued a warning: “We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed” regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism.
And he reported success: “The official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.”
For the first time, an American President has bowed to the OIC’s demands and taken cognizance of that “responsibility.”
Both Sunnis and Shi’ites believe in the use of sacred violence. The right to coerce the infidels and subdue them was given by Allah to Mohammed as owner of the earth.
Theologically, mocking Mohammed’s method of controlling the infidels is blasphemy, for the violent method of Mohammed comes directly from Allah.
Allah’s method trumps human logic, even the Western ideal of free speech that is based on mere human philosophy and mere human reasoning, rather than Allah’s Divine Command.
In mere human philosophy, Mohammed’s fitna-prevention method is built on a fallacy of logic called the Appeal to Force in place of logical argument. But this fallacious argument is the main argument of the Koran. Muslims know that the Koranic argument for violence against the infidels takes up 2/3 of the Koran and they further know that the Koranic argument cannot be wrong, for it comes directly from Allah and Allah is not a liar.
Mohammed’s method for eliminating fitna is jihad and all Muslims should freely use Mohammed’s method, since Mohammed is their role model. This is what Muslims did in the Danish cartoon riots.
Normally, Muslims will not kill infidels for merely thinking non-Islamic thoughts. After all, who knows what another person is thinking, even one’s own spouse? Sacred violence is authorized when open disagreement with Mohammed is expressed in the public domain, as with a cartoon or an anti-Islamic book. It need not be the guilty person who is punished, so we can never be sure of the physical safety of any infidels, since throughout history, jihads have often included mass slaughters and genocides of men, women and children.
Mohammed approved of such indiscriminate killing of unbelievers on occasion, if it was convenient for him. During a night-time sneak attack on a town, Mohammed was asked about his customary method of sparing women and children (so that they could be sources of revenue as slaves). According to the Hadith by Abu Muslim 19:4322 , Mohammed responded, “They are of them.” In other words, the women and children are accomplices in the fitna of the defending males. And besides, it was inconvenient to attack and carry lanterns to check everything that moves in the dark.
Here Mohammed authorized wholesale slaughter of an entire community. The justification for this was the political charge of fitna. So no infidel is ever innocent of fitna, a capital crime.
Such logic was used by Major Nidal Hasan when he committed a wholesale slaughter http://www.faithfreedom.org/islam/islamic-mind-major-nidal-hasan of 13 unarmed American soldiers: …the American army opposes Mohammed’s method…it is guilty of fitna…and the 13 slaughtered soldiers ‘are of them.’
This made Dr. Hasan a hero to the former mullah of his mosque, because he executed the enemies of Mohammed using deceit and surprise, just like Mohammed did. Mohammed frequently executed unarmed prisoners of war. Dr. Hasan is a rational, pious Muslim. His ideas agree with the official scholarly concensus of normative Islam.
Mohammed’s brilliant method of ruthless assassination silences fitna by paralyzing the brain with fear. Mohammed’s method may not be judged by any external standard, because his method is itself the standard. Forget the obvious ethical flexibility or opportunism. Mohammed’s method takes a position above human logic, ethical analysis and philosophical discourse. To analyze Mohammed’s ethical inconsistencies is fitna.
Today, Islamic governments are seeking new ways to control fitna beyond their borders. Kafir fitna is temptation or luring that tempts Muslims to question or lose their faith. Kafirs commit fitna every time they disagree with Sharia law in the public domain, when they mock Mohammed’s violent method in cartoons or use reason or logic on the Internet to show Mohammed is wrong.
Such politically incorrect utterance keeps the Islamic state from insuring all information supports the unity and power of that State and its jihadist army.
Information control is normative Islam and is fully acceptable to all pious Muslims, since it prevents fitna, the ultimate crime. Modern Muslims agree that fitna should be removed from human society through censorship of discourse that disagrees with Islam, even in the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. By removing the right to disagree with Islam at the UN, Muslim governments hope to implement global information control.
Politically, this will allow Islamic governments to totally ignore all human rights complaints by claiming Muslims have a unique human right: the right of not hearing any criticism.
When governments of the Islamic Conference say they wish to remove utterances that criticizes Islam, they actually mean ‘fitna’…public disagreement with Mohammed.
Islamic governments know fitna control is needed before discriminatory Sharia law can be fully implemented and jihad can go ahead. They seek to shut down the freedom of UN diplomats to discuss any human rights aspect of Islam. They cast a veil over Islamic discrimination against women and minorities in view of the radical claim that Muslims have a superior, unique human right which infidels do not possess.
Hypocrisy. That is, it is hypocrisy from a Western point of view. As far as these "scholars" are concerned, Islam is the truth, its truth is self-evident, and therefore the Swiss are obligated to accommodate it in a way that the Saudis are not obligated to accommodate non-Muslim religious observance.
"Saudi scholars slam Swiss minaret ban," by Abdul Rahman Shaheen for Gulf News, December 6
Riyadh: Several prominent Saudi Islamic scholars and preachers lambasted the recent Swiss referendum to impose ban on the construction of mosque minarets in the country
Speaking to Gulf News, they said that this is another evidence of the West's antagonism towards Islam and such moves detail the serious initiatives being undertaken for holding dialogue among followers of various religions in different parts of the world.
Shaikh Abdul Mohsen Al Shahri, an eminent scholar in Islamic jurisprudence, said that the Swiss referendum was part of a new hostile campaign unleashed against Islam and Muslims in the West.
"This is a clear evidence of the racial and religious segregation still prevails in the West, especially in a country, which boasts of an exemplary model of democratic ideals," he said adding that this serves as a severe blow to the so called secular image of Switzerland.
On his part, Shaikh Murshid Al Motairi, a noted Saudi preacher, underlined the need for launching a massive campaign to withdraw investments of Muslim countries from Swiss banks and halt going to Switzerland for holiday making.
Now you're talkin', al-Motairi!
More hypocrisy from the chief enemy of free speech in the world today, the OIC:
Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Prof. Ekmeliddin Ihsanoglu voiced disappointment and concern over the Swiss public referendum to ban building of minarets in the mosques in Switzerland.
The Secretary General of OIC, which groups 57 Muslim countries, qualified the ban as an unfortunate development that would tarnish the image of Switzerland as a country upholding respect for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights.
He described this as the latest example of growing anti-Islamic incitements in Europe by the extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, racist, scare-mongering ultra-right politicians who reign over common sense, wisdom and universal values.
The Chief of OIC, which represents about 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide, expressed his deep regret that at a time when the Muslim world and Muslim societies around the world have been engaged in a struggle to fight extremism, the Western societies are being hostage to extremists who exploit Islam as a scapegoat and a springboard to develop their own political agenda which in turn contributes to polarization and fragmentation in the societies.
He stated that this move also highlighted the need for promoting genuine dialogue at the grass-roots level to alleviate all misunderstandings and misinformation that lead to intolerance and misconceptions.
They're doing it, of course, under the cover of criminalizing "blasphemy," but the real agenda here is to compel the West to adopt Sharia norms forbidding criticism of Islam, including analysis of the jihad terrorists' motives and goals.
This, of course, would leave us mute and defenseless before them.
AP thinks that the free nations of the West will oppose this.
But with Barack Obama in the White House, that isn't actually certain.
Earlier this evening I spoke at NYU on a panel with Elan Journo. I had just started explaining the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism when a young man in the middle of the audience stood up and started yelling and refused to be quiet.
When the security guards went over to start moving him out of the room, they left a side door by the stage unsecured -- and sure enough, the yelling guy turned out to be a diversion.
Two other young men rushed in that side door and threw pies at Elan Journo and me. They hit Dr. Journo on the shoulder but missed me altogether, as I had jumped aside when I saw them coming.
Of course a pie in the face is a staple of American comedy going back to the Marx Brothers (by far my favorite Marxists), but this was no joke.
In the first place, it is yet another manifestation of Leftist thuggery, antipathy to the freedom of speech, and alliance with the global jihad; it also shows yet again the degeneration of our nation's universities into propaganda mills in which those with opposing views are hounded out or intimidated into silence. (And then there is this.)
As we continued the event with pie splattered all over the curtain behind us, it was a vivid object lesson in how much free inquiry threatens the Left, and created a nice backdrop for our discussion of the Organization of the Islamic Conference's war on free speech, which is, of course, intended to enable the global jihad to advance without challenge.
Here is an eyewitness account of what happened from the audience's perspective (thanks to Pamela).
As support wanes for its campaign to secure controversial but non-binding “defamation of religion” resolutions at the United Nations, the Islamic bloc is pushing ahead with an alternative route – one that would carry the weight of international law.
The OIC is now attempting to have a key U.N. panel amend an existing international treaty to encompass supposedly religiously defamatory speech.
Unlike the resolutions, changing the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) to cover religion would be legally enforceable.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has for the past decade overseen the passage of non-binding resolutions at the U.N. General Assembly and human rights bodies.
Last week, the most recent effort passed in the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with social, cultural, and humanitarian issues. It will go before the full General Assembly for a vote next month, but the committee vote indicates a continuing, measurable decline in support.
Eighty-one countries voted for the resolution, 55 opposed it and 43 abstained. The result showed less support for and more opposition against the resolution than for those introduced by the OIC over the last three years.
As in past years, most support came from the 57-member OIC (although two members, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon, abstained) plus non-Muslim allies in the developing world, led by China, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela.
Comparisons of voting records from 2006 to date reveal a continuing erosion of support in Latin America. Chile, Mexico, Panama, Uruguay all voted against the OIC-led resolution this year, having abstained in 2008. Elsewhere, Lesotho and Sri Lanka were among those who moved from supporting the resolution in 2008, to abstaining this year.
Saudi Arabia is continuing to attack a Shia rebel stronghold in northern Yemen by air, while Saudi troops and Houthi rebels have been engaged in bloody clashes for more than a week.
At least two Saudi soldiers have been killed in the latest fighting, and the conflict is further raising tensions in the region, with Iran warning Saudi Arabia not to interfere in Yemen's internal affairs.
Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, said on Sunday: "The intervention of Saudi government in Yemen and repeated bombardment of unprotected Yemeni Muslims by Tornado and F-15 fighters is astounding.
"How has his Excellency, the servant of the two honourable shrines, allowed Muslims' blood be split in Yemen by means of its military devices? The news proves that the US government has been the accomplice and assistance in such suppressive measures."
The Iranian parliament also called on the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to intervene to stop the killing of Yemeni Muslims.
Hashem Ahelbarra reports from Sana'a, the Yemeni capital, where he's been gauging the fallout from this ongoing battle.
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has appealed for closer trade ties with fellow Muslim countries to help Afghanistan break its cycle of conflict.
Karzai met representatives of eight governments, including Abdullah Gul, the Turkish president and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, on the sidelines of an economic summit held by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Istanbul.
Most trade with landlocked Afghanistan passes through the conflict-ridden border with Pakistan and through Iran.
Karzai said: "Afghanistan's interest is primarily in having close brotherly relations with its neighbours, freedom of trade and transit, and an effective environment of co-operation."
A Turkish foreign ministry official said there would be a follow-up conference on Afghanistan in the near future, which Turkey had offered to host.
Turkey has troops serving with Nato forces in Afghanistan and Gul said Afghanistan would need foreign military and economic support until Afghans were trained and equipped to look after their own security.
"As stakeholders in the region, we cannot expect that the United States and other Western powers solve the problems by themselves. We should shoulder our responsibilities," Gul said.
The widespread fraud reported during the Afghan election and the refusal of Karzai's chief rival to contest a run-off have damaged Karzai's credibility at the start of his second term.
Karzai was seen as a guarantor of Western aid when he was first elected in 2004, but his relations with the US and other Western allies have become strained by allegations of corruption and poor governance.
His popularity has dwindled as many ordinary Afghans believe they have not benefited from billions of dollars in aid.
Also speaking at the summit, Ahmadinejad said the global economic order needs "radical change", calling for Islamic principles to replace capitalist values.
"The present economic crisis is due to the capitalist system. The world needs radical change," the Iranian president said.
Describing interest rates as the "biggest and most fundamental problem of the capitalist system," Ahmadinejad said economic programmes based on Islamic principles offered the way out.
"The world is looking for fairer values that we cannot find in the capitalist system. The world system based on usury has collapsed, proving its failure," he said.
"We have to draw up programmes based on Islamic economic thinkers. That way we can guide people to happiness, security, justice and honesty. This is the most correct way to salvation."
The president urged member countries of the OIC to agree to carrying out trade in their national currencies and setting up a common market.
"By announcing the type of money to be used between member countries, we will be saved from the adverse effects of global capitalism," he said.
Islam is on its march of death on many fronts. A very dangerous front has been recently re-opened at the United Nations (UN) by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest group of nations within the UN, by introducing a new resolution.
The resolution under consideration—Defamation of Religions—aims to enlist the power and prestige of the UN in defense of religion by declaring religions to be immune from the general discourse practiced in non-religious domains.
The aim of the resolution is to impose a gag order on people against breathing a word that religionists may find defaming or offensive. Isn’t that a great idea, folks?
Now, any crackpot, more than ever, can start a scheme and call it a religion. And by so doing, he can be under the protective umbrella of the UN, immune from any criticism and litigation. By contrast, any religious order can take any offender to court for offensive statements.
I can just see the legions of lawsuits that will be launched and financed by the petrodollar rich Islamists in an unrelenting effort to muzzle any and all people who might dare to point out the truth about Islam. The very expenses of litigation, even without convictions, can ruin any individual or organization.
And what happens to the First Amendment, freedom of speech, of inquiry and expression? Freedoms we have come to cherish and celebrate as priceless treasures for free people and societies?
The answer: well, limits are also needed, particularly when the limits serve the interests of those who want to set them: In this case, the recently-empowered incorrigible, un-repenting dark-ages Islamists and their follow travelers.
My response is that gag orders, no matter where they are applied, exact an unacceptably high price for the possible good that they may do. In my ideal world, I would like to see a world where all ideas and beliefs, religious or otherwise, are expressed, even clash, and fend for themselves in a battlefield of ideas.
Established in 1969 to safeguard global Muslim interests, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) is the second largest inter-governmental body after the UN.
In its 40-year history, the OIC has worked with the UN and others to settle conflicts and disputes, particularly among its member states.
While the preamble to the OIC's charter holds that Islam "is a strong factor for rapprochement and solidarity between peoples", conflicts continue to rage in many parts of the Muslim world.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary-general of the OIC, says the organisation has gained prominence in recent years as a trusted mediator in conflicts involving the Muslim world and was the "initiator" of a UN war crimes inquiry in Gaza.
Al Jazeera's Firas al-Atraqchi spoke with Ihsanoglu on the sidelines of the seventh annual Doha Conference on Interfaith Dialogue.
Al Jazeera: The UN's Goldstone report has been in the headlines in the past few weeks - not without controversy - and has brought to light the conduct of the Israelis and Hamas during the war on Gaza earlier in the year. Does the OIC see this as a step forward in recognising what transpired during that war and in bringing the plight of the Palestinians to the fore on an international scale?
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu: Let me first start by completing the story of the history of the Goldstone report.
What I would like to put on record is that the OIC was the initiator of this process.
In Human Events today I discuss the latest bad news in the Obama Administration's ongoing quiet war against free speech:
The Obama Administration has now actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council last Friday, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."
What could be wrong with that? Plenty.
First of all, there's that little matter of the First Amendment, which preserves Americans' right to free speech and freedom of the press, which are obviously mutually inclusive. Any law that infringed on speech at all -- far less in such vague and sweeping terms -- would be unconstitutional.
"Incitement" and "hatred" are in the eye of the beholder -- or more precisely, in the eye of those who make such determinations. The powerful can decide to silence the powerless by classifying their views as "hate speech."
The Founding Fathers knew that the freedom of speech was an essential safeguard against tyranny: the ability to dissent, freely and publicly and without fear of imprisonment or other reprisal, is a cornerstone of any genuine republic.
If some ideas cannot be heard and are proscribed from above, the ones in control are tyrants, however benevolent they may be.
Now no less distinguished a personage than the President of the United States has given his imprimatur to this tyranny; the implications are grave. The resolution also condemns "negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups," which is of course an oblique reference to accurate reporting about the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism -- for that, not actual negative stereotyping or hateful language, is always the focus of whining by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and allied groups.
They never say anything when people like Osama bin Laden and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed issue detailed Koranic expositions justifying violence and hatred; but when people like Geert Wilders and others report about such expositions, that's "negative stereotyping."
But we still have the First Amendment, right? Legal expert Eugene Volokh, in an excellent analysis of the resolution, explains why it isn't that easy to dismiss this. "If the U.S. backs a resolution that urges the suppression of some speech," he explains, "presumably we are taking the view that all countries -- including the U.S. -- should adhere to this resolution. If we are constitutionally barred from adhering to it by our domestic constitution, then we're implicitly criticizing that constitution, and committing ourselves to do what we can to change it." He adds that in order to be consistent, "the Administration would presumably have to take what steps it can to ensure that supposed 'hate speech' that incites hostility will indeed be punished. It would presumably be committed to filing amicus briefs supporting changes in First Amendment law to allow such punishment, and in principle perhaps the appointment of Justices who would endorse such changes (or even the proposal of express constitutional amendments that would work such changes)."
Last year the Secretary General of the OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu issued a warning: "We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed" regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. And he reported success: "The official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked."
For the first time, an American President has bowed to the OIC's demands and taken cognizance of that "responsibility" -- after years in which George W. Bush resisted such initiatives at the UN.
In October 2008, I wrote this in Human Events about early signs that Barack Obama had no great love for the freedom of speech: "If candidate Obama is willing to have people arrested when they say things about him that he doesn't like, will President Obama have the vision or courage or understanding to stand up against the OIC when it demands restrictions on freedom of speech at precisely the same time that he wants to build bridges to the Islamic world and demonstrate his power to restore hope and bring change to old stalemated conflicts?"
“Chechen rebels have today called for prominent separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev to be killed, saying he has abandoned Islam.” – from this news article
Zakeyev is to be killed not because he is himself a bully-boy and murderer (he is both of those things), but because -- nota bene -- he has "fallen away from Islam."
That is the only category that makes sense for Muslims. Mere corruption or murder of opponents is not enough.
The Ruler is to be obeyed, unless his behavior can be characterized as not that of a Muslim.
There is no appeal to universal principles of morality. It is not that this family has appropriated much of the nation’s wealth, or that ruler has appointed all of his cousins to high positions, or that the sons of that other ruler go around raping girls with impunity.
Had Zakeyev been someone else, someone just as vicious and murderous as he is, but merely an indigenous lord of Muslim misrule, instead of, as Zakeyev is, a local enforcer for the Russians, then only the usual handful of the intellectually and morally advanced would have been against him. The rest would have been subservient to the ruler’s authority. Despotism comes naturally to Muslim polities.
Look at the Muslim-dominated countries. There are 57 members of the O.I.C. How many of those dominated by Muslims are at all "democratic"? How many hold elections, but the elections are farcical? How many Arab Muslim countries are ruled by families who seize much of the nation's wealth -- or demurely, by now, merely have it appropriated --- such as the Al-Maktoum of Dubai, the Al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, the Al-Thani of Qatar, the Al-Sabah of Kuwait, and so on?
A couple of days ago I posted the video of Wafa Sultan’s June 14 speech in Copenhagen. I mentioned at the time that parts of the audio were hard to understand, and a reader named Kosher Kitty kindly rose to the occasion and transcribed the entire speech for Gates of Vienna:
Hello everyone. Thank you so much for inviting me to attend this conference. I am so honored to be here today.
Two years ago, in the aftermath of the turbulent times related to the Danish cartoon depiction of Muhammad, I traveled to your beautiful country to express my gratitude for your courage, to stand up and protect our valuable Western attribute to include freedom of speech, expression, and freedom of conscience. As you may remember, I insisted that publishing the cartoons was a very initial step to educate Muslims all over the world to acknowledge criticism and listen respectfully to how others view aspects of their religion.
Ever since, I have been closely watching Arabic media, and assure you that publication of those cartoons has played a major role in making a positive change. And if that crisis, Islamic ideology emblazoned in hatred, violence, and intolerance, had not been questioned or challenged by outsiders in such a strong manner, the cartoon episode changed the paradigm and so was a turning point from which there is no way back.
However, Muslims still find it difficult to accept responsibility for their actions, and the question is why. Muslims have been hostages to their belief system for 1400 years. They simply have not been exposed to the world outside their Islamic restricted prison. They follow blindly their dogma and aren’t at all capable of critically reflecting and self-criticizing.
For Muslims, self-evaluating and challenging their religion is a pure taboo. According to Bernard Lewis, and I confirm it, Muslims reject newness. On the other hand, Western political correctness, triggered by fear, under the umbrella of multicultural creed, has played a major supportive role in Muslims on [unintelligible] following their beliefs and behaviors without need to reform.
Islamists interpret Western society’s silence and soft approach as capitulation of their demands are therefore under the impression that they hold the upper hand on their path to submission of all others under Islam and sharia law. I recently read an article entitled “In the Casbah of Rotterdam” by Julio Mittu [or Mutti (sp?)] hopefully, I’m pronouncing his name the right way — an article which shockingly describes how Rotterdam, the second largest city in Holland, is becoming the first Muslim city in Europe.
The newspaper article included a quote made a year ago in form of a letter written by [unintelligible] Ismaili, a Rotterdam city councilman, where Ismaili stated: “Listen, up, crazy freaks, we’re here to stay. You’re the foreigners here. With Allah on my side, I am not afraid of anything. Take my advice. Convert to Islam and you will find peace.”
It is obvious to me that Mr. Ismaili’s insult would not have been allowed to be printed 15 or even 10 years ago. This is because in the past Muslims like Ismaili felt too weak and outnumbered to publicly make such an appalling statement — or announcement. Now their populations have increased substantially, gaining Islamists power and muscle to openly express their true intention.
The majority in the West have easily taken their freedom for granted. They forget the history of European struggle to advance into the age of Enlightenment, to establish secular liberal democracy. Therefore, the general public is reluctant to protect these treasured values. At the same token [sic], they lack basic understanding of the nature, focus, and underlying principles that drive Muslims.
In Western culture, violence is a last resort. For Muslims, it’s culturally instinctive reaction. As a result, in the face of barbaric acts like honor killings, raping of non-Muslims, and organized vandalism by Muslims in European cities, government officials and law-abiding citizens, liberal academic elite, the liberal media, and the proponents of interfaith dialogue legitimize sharia-approved doctrines by ignoring them, or worse, by approving those doctrines to be woven in Western social fabric, thus creating a harmful, syncretic relationship.
On one hand, young Muslims are taught in mosques, schools, and at home that non-Muslims are kafr, infidels, and not respected, that Muslims must never assimilate into Western society, that death is valued over life, that Jews are pigs and monkeys, and that raping non-Muslim women is not a crime, that it is allowed to beat wives to discipline them, and I could go on and on listing unacceptable Muslim activities permitted by sharia law. At the same time, we hear entirely unreasonable messages of tolerance from many European leaders, including high-level government officials, such as a lawsuit pursued by a Dutch court against Geert Wilders for hate speech.
Hence, instead of defending his right to free speech, Wilders has been punished by [sic] exposing the struggle between Islamization of the West and the need to protect the free world. Instead of protecting Wilders’ rights to prefer true liberal values, he’s silenced and viewed as a racist Islamophobe. I believe that the Dutch case against Wilders is an expression of the powerful influence of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference over European institutions.
As you may know, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, an association of 57 Islamic states, promotes a United Nations resolution to suppress voices of critical dissent against Islam. This initiative is a most destructive and dangerous proposal. I strongly urge its defeat.
Just like in the case of Mr. Wilders, the liberal establishment, cheered by the growing Muslim population, is successfully able to portray anyone who criticizes Islam as warmonger, anti-peace, right-wing extremist, racist, and Islamophobe. By now, this atmosphere of multiculturalism has been strident, consequently, the superficial political correctness tone adopted by the West has failed to recognize the danger of letting weeds creep into the Western garden to eventually destroy its humane beauty.
Fortunately, after September 11, and more specifically after the Danish cartoons riot, some courageous individuals in the West have realized the enormous aspect of the Islamic culture and boldly spoken up against it. Mr. Wilders is with us today. He is among these brave leaders. He is a true hero who has in spite of numerous obstacles risked his well-being to secure us all. By producing the documentary film Fitna, Mr. Wilders allowed the audience to question links between Islamic teachings and Muslims’ manifestations of their texts, letting viewers reach their own conclusion.
As an Arab, I am convinced that as people in the West learn the truth about Islam, many more would follow Geert Wilders’ footsteps. I therefore call upon Western government officials to study Islamic principles from their original Arabic textbooks without distortion or sugarcoating.
One of the principles is a very dangerous Islamic concept called in Arabic al-taqiyya. It allows and even commands Muslims to lie and deceive in order to achieve their defined objective, submitting the world to Islam and the sharia law.
To be sure, Islamists who follow the political ideology of subverting non-Muslims under Islam do use the concept of al-taqiyya. I believe that Muslims’ al-taqiyya and the West’s ignorance about the true intentions of Islamists both violate our right to know the truth, regardless of how evil or unintentional their objective is. The relationship between the two is the recipe for irreversible damage to liberal democracy and values of freedom, the foundation of European Union.
It is obvious that people in the West and especially those in position of leadership who live by Western moral code on which they were nurtured refuse to judge individuals on the basis of their religious affiliation, and that’s their right. But they don’t have the right to be ignorant or to disregard the fact that Islam is not only a religion, it is also a political doctrine that imposes itself by force.
That’s precisely what Mr. Wilders has been trying so hard to convey and that is exactly what the Saudi flag represents.
Would you please take a look at the Saudi flag. The writing on the flag translates, No God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. Underneath that religious statement there is the large sword. It represents the superiority of Islam and its desire to impose it by force on the non-Muslim. This statement is the underlying foundation of Islam.
You may be familiar with the saying that it takes an entire village to raise a well adjusted, healthy child. In that spirit, I call anew, as a community of people, countries, and nations, caring to preserve that eternal child, our treasured freedom and liberty, to be bold and fully support Mr. Wilders [unintelligible] to preserve liberal democracy as your highest priority.
I call on you to please keep in mind that they who forget their history are doomed to repeat it, and they who don’t know their enemy will never be able to defeat it. As the wise said, Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or abridging the freedom of speech. There is no freedom without the freedom to criticize and exercise reasonable civil discussion; there is no values [sic] without mutual respect.
The threat of violence is the [unintelligible] of criminals, not civilization. As for you the Danish people, you are well known for your historical record as fighters against evil. I believe the Danish people indeed deserve credit for demolishing [sic] the first break in the Islamic prison wall. By doing that, I am certain, you opened the door and granted a sense of confidence to others in the European Union to get involved in fighting this predicament, which threatens our way of life and our core values. For that, I salute you.
Lastly, the great Thomas Paine, one of the founding fathers of the United States, stated: “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, so that my child may live in peace.” So, let’s deal with this trouble now, right now, so our future generation may live in peace.
The United Nations human-rights office on Friday banned for a month an accredited human-rights activist who was at the centre of a recent controversy involving Canada's top diplomat in Geneva.
David Littman of the World Union for Progressive Judaism said he is convinced his protest over the incident involving Canada's Ambassador Marius Grinius provided impetus for the UN to move against him.
In a March 6 debate in the UN Human Rights Council, Grinius used his position as chair to prevent Littman from completing a statement describing bias in Islamic books against Israel and Jews. The office of Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon said Grinius had acted on advice from the UN secretariat, but added the ambassador had been wrong to cut Littman short.
Insiders said a number of UN officials were embarrassed over the matter, which contrasted the relatively limited criticism in the Council of controversial Islamic practices compared to the number of harangues against Israel by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) states.
A letter informing Littman of the suspension lists several rules governing activist participation in council debates, but says the sanction against him is based on an "understanding" reached at a meeting April 30 to which senior UN officials had summoned him. Read more ...
In this difficult economic climate, as American citizens are seeking ways to cut costs, the U.S. government must consider ways to eliminate waste. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is not only a wasteful expenditure but, unbeknownst to most U.S. taxpayers, this U.S.-funded agency serves as an incubator for Arab-Palestinian terrorists. In the 60 years of its existence, UNRWA has done little to rehabilitate and settle the Palestinian-Arab refugees and much to foster incitement, hate, and terror against Israel.
The dominant position held by the 57 members of Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in the United Nations has enabled the Palestinian-Arabs “refugees” to receive special treatment that no other group of refugees was ever granted. Other refugees from throughout the world, numbering in the millions, have been resettled and others are currently served by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) with that intention. However, the UNRWA was specifically designated to deal with the Palestinian Arab issue and has, in the intervening years served to accommodate the political designs of the Arab League and unelected Palestinian leaders. Read more ...
The official website of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) reported this week that Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu had briefly met with President Obama on April 6, 2009 at an official reception in Istanbul. "President [Obama] reiterated to the Secretary General the willingness and readiness of the US Administration to explore areas of cooperation with the Organization of the Islamic Conference," according to the website. In addition, President Obama extended an invitation to Prof. Ihsanoglu to visit the White House in Washington D.C.
We can only hope that Ihsanoglu misinterpreted courtesy expressions on the part of President Obama as an open invitation to visit. Otherwise, Obama must not be reading his briefing books as Ekmeleddin Ihsanogluclosely as he should.
In the one-month period before the Istanbul meeting, Ihsanoglu:
• "Called upon Palestinian parties to expedite ... national reconciliation." These parties include the Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas, which is fighting the Palestinian Authority. Ihsanoglu has held a joint press conference with Hamas political director Khaled Mishal, at which he said, "With its win, Hamas begins a new stage in the development of the Palestinian issue. We assure that Hamas will deal with all national and international requirements in a practical and logical way." According to the OIC's 2002 Declaration on International Terrorism, "We reject any attempt to associate Islamic states or Palestinian and Lebanese resistance with terrorism."
• Met with Sudanese President Al Bashir in Khartoum where he "stressed the rejection of the OIC of the double standards pertaining to the issue of justice, particularly in regard to the extradition of those accused of committing war crimes in Darfur." This was in reference to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant against Al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
• Spoke of "the suffering of Muslims as a consequence of ... defamation campaigns unraveling in the West." The OIC has been a major force behind a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution calling upon member states to provide legal "protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general."
The resolution could make defamation of Islam a criminal offense.
Perhaps the President should plead prior commitments when Ihsanoglu decides to visit Washington DC, and avoid any further direct contact with a leader with such views on free speech and human rights. Read more ...
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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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