Muslim gang forces Paris cafe to censor cartoon show

Eurabia Alert from the Middle East Times, with thanks to Kaiser:

PARIS -- A gang of young Muslims wielding iron rods has forced a Paris cafe to censor an exhibition of cartoons ridiculing religion, the owners of the establishment said on Friday.

Some 50 drawings by well-known French cartoonists were installed in the Mer a Boire cafe in the working-class Belleville neighborhood of northeast Paris, as part of an avowedly atheist show entitled, "Neither god nor god".

The collection targeted all religions - including Islam - but there were no representations of the Prophet Mohammed such as sparked the recent crisis between the West and the Islamic world, according to Marianne who is one of the cafe's three owners.

"We used to give glasses of water to a group of local boys aged between 10 and 12 who played football across the street. On Tuesday a few came in, flung the water on the ground and accused us of being racists," said Marianne, who did not wish to give her family name. "Later more of them came back with sticks and iron rods and tried to smash the pictures. They managed it with a few of them. With the customers we chased them away, but they kept coming back," she said.

Later the cafe-owners were approached by a group of older youths. "They said they did not approve of what the youngsters had done. But what we were doing was unacceptable, too. They warned us that if we didn't take down the cartoons they would call in the Muslim Brothers who would burn the cafe down," said Marianne. "They kept saying: 'This is our home. You cannot act like this here'," she said.

Refusing to dismantle the exhibition, the owners have placed white sheets of paper inscribed with the word 'censored' over the cartoons that were targeted by the gang.

"To take down the cartoons would have been a surrender. But on the other hand we cannot expose ourselves to this kind of violence. This way you can still see the pictures if you lift the paper," said Marianne.

One of the cartoons that aroused the wrath of the youths was a bar scene, in which the barman offers a drink to an obviously inebriated man who says "God is great". The caption is: "The sixth pillar of Islam. The bar pillar." In France a "bar pillar" is a barfly or drunk.

The aim of the exhibition was to poke fun at all religions, according to cartoonists who took part.

"Putting on this type of show in this place was not in the least a provocation. Unless you think that freedom of expression in itself is a provocation," the cartoonist Charb told Le Parisien newspaper.

Jill Carroll: "The Mujahedeen are merciful and kind that’s why I’m free and alive"

Never mind that they murdered her interpreter. Jill Carroll seems to have a full-blown case of Stockholm Syndrome, and/or advanced dhimmitude. Sandmonkey presents the whole sorry transcript of her defenses of the murderous jihadists who held her captive, and comments: "This makes me want to shoot myself for ever supporting her release!"

UPDATE: Carroll spoke under duress, as we noted here on April 1.

Fitzgerald: The errors of the deux-rivistes

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald exposes the fallacies of Deux-Rivisme:

"…still did not fully understand the complexities of the Mediterranean." -- from this article, describing Josep Borrell, president of the European Parliament

Perhaps Josep Borrell can begin to understand the complexities of the Mediterranean starting with the following:

In France successive governments over the past 35 years thought that France, and through France Europe, could be strengthened, could become a counterweight to mighty America, if there were some kind of alliance with the newly-rich and therefore newly-powerful (so it was felt) Arabs. They believed in the policy of "Deux-Rivisme," in which both banks (rives) of the Mediterranean would be seen to have much in common, with the only thing dividing them of importance being the Mediterranean itself. In other words, a feature of geography, and not much more, divided France from, say, Algeria.

That was the theory. On that theory, the French allowed millions of Algerians, and large numbers of Moroccans and Tunisians, to settle within Metropolitan France. The promoters of this policy never thought to ask themselves what Islam was all about, even as millions of Muslims made their taciturn way into France. Of course they were there for economic reasons. Of course it was easy for the French to assume, without more, that these Muslim Arabs would in the end integrate into society, just the way the Portuguese immigrants in the 1950s had, or the Vietnamese immigrants. It was not to be. The strength of the belief-system of Islam, which works against integration, works against acceptance of Infidel neighbors and against loyalty to the institutions of the Infidel nation-state, its laws, its customs, its understandings. But this was not made clear to the rulers by those they counted on for advice. A case of criminal negligence, at all levels of government.

Yet these deux-rivistes are still in power, and it is they who danced to the Arab tune (Mr. Josep Borrell should be sent, posthaste, a copy of Bat Ye’or’s seminal Eurabia). They were hoping, in many cases, to be able themselves, or to have their friends, relatives, and business associates recycle petrodollars, which would naturally be directed to those toward whom the Muslim Arabs felt had done the most to promote Arab interests and the Muslim agenda. And that included giving the Arabs a large say in who taught what about Islam, and where, in France. And this too had consequences.

The deux-rivistes -- of whom Dominique de Villepin is a perfect example, with his gush about Islamic greatness, his conceit that because he was born in 1953 in Sale, next to Rabat, he therefore "understands" the Arabs -- are coming a cropper today. But they still do not realize it. Nor do those who in other countries parroted the same nonsense, the nonsense which says: the only real division between Europe and North Africa is that pesky Mediterranean sea.

No, that sea is the least of it. There is a gulf that divides North Africans from Europeans. That gulf is called Islam. That is what Josep Borell should be studying -- but who can he trust to guide him through the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira, and understand their effect on Believers, when a small army of apologists for Islam has been deployed all over Western Europe, and now constitutes an army of occupation that controls much of what it is possible to learn about Islam, and what is off-limits for investigation and discussion?

In the 1970s, at the end of his life, the distinguished French scholar of Islam Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq foresaw the terrible consequences of the heedlessness of French immigration policy, and the madness of believing that any Euro-Arab Dialogue could lead to anything but another occasion in which the persistent, relentless, and cunning Arab side would wear down or trick the European side and gain every advantage. And that is exactly what happened, and happens still. The Arabs and Muslims were given a large say in how Islam would be perceived and taught in France and elsewhere in Europe, and they took full advantage of that. Meanwhile, those who had nothing like the scholarly background of Dufroucq, Abel, Fagnan, and other French Orientalists, managed to rise high as advisors on Islam. Deplorable and missing-the-point researchers (conductors of state-supported "recherches" on this and on that) such as Gilles "Wrong Again" Kepel and Olivier "Always Wrong" Roy rose high and are still in place, misleading yet another group of French leaders who, no matter what good grades they may have obtained at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA), never learned to think for themselves.

D.C. Watson: Borders & Waldenbooks: Understanding Islam better than we thought

D. C. Watson discusses the recent dhimmitude displayed by America's beloved bookstore chain.

Should Muslim organizations such as the Council on American Islamic Relations be proud? Or should they be ashamed?

Borders and Waldenbooks have made headlines for choosing not to carry the April-May issue of "Free Inquiry" magazine because this particular issue contains cartoons of Islam's prophet, Muhammad.

CAIR had no trouble posting this Associated Press article on their website, either.

Shouldn't this story fall under the CAIR website's "Incitement Watch" instead? Since Islam is a "religion of peace," shouldn't CAIR be adding Borders and Waldenbooks to its long list of "Islamophobes"?

From the column: Beth Bingham, Borders spokesperson: "For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority."

Has CAIR viewed this as some sort of a victory? In truth, it is a defeat.

It is a defeat for this organization and others like it because Borders and Waldenbooks didn't choose not to carry "Free Inquiry" out of respect for Islam, but out of the fear of repercussions being carried out by Muslims against the bookstores' customers, property, and personnel.

If CAIR were anything close to a legitimate civil rights group operating in the United States, they would be encouraging two things:

1) That Borders and Waldenbooks feel free to carry any publication of their choosing, no matter the content, or whom it may offend.

2) That all Muslims living in America should respect free speech and expression, as it is guaranteed to all Americans by the U.S. Constitution, and that there should never be the slightest hint of retaliation against anyone for exercising this Constitutional right.

What a shame it is that right here in our own nation, there has to be a fear of Islamic retaliation over such trivial matters. It should come as little surprise, however, after Americans have learned about Mohammedans like Ali Warrayat, a student at Arizona State, who had a Qur'an and a Palestinian flag in his trunk as he rammed his car through the doors of an Arizona Home Depot store, drove his car through the store to the section that stocks the flammable liquids, and then set it ablaze.

Or about Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, a Mohammedan born in Iran, a current resident of Chapel Hill, NC, and recent UNC graduate. He plowed a rented SUV into a crowd of pedestrians at the UNC at Chapel Hill, injuring nine people, stating that he was "seeking retribution for the treatment of Muslims around the world," and that he wanted "to spread the will of Allah."

Yes, Americans, winners like these are here in our neighborhoods. The "Islamophobia" that groups like CAIR whine about doesn't exist: the discomfort that people have with Islam has continually been demonstrated to be for good reason. These two men are prime examples and living proof that Islam, as it is practiced by all too many Muslims today, and freedom are incompatible, and that immigration from Islamic states should be stopped. Islam is not a religion of peace or tolerance. It could be, maybe, if it jumped forward about fourteen centuries. Until it does, through badly needed reform, Islam will handle its business as it has from its beginning: with violence, and with the additional strategy of playing the poor, oppressed, innocent victim.

If our friends at the Council on American Islamic Relations would like to refute this, they are free to do so. We're all ears, Ibrahim. What we see all over the world, however, is not a figment of our imagination; it is sadly, all too real.

Back to Borders and Waldenbooks: A letter from a Borders employee was recently published at Little Green Footballs. The letter describes Borders receiving past complaints from Muslims that the Qur'an was stocked on the bottom shelf, and that it is now the Borders policy to stock the Qur'an only on the top shelf. If I owned a bookstore, I surely know where I'd stock them.

Fear, not respect, has created this policy at the bookstore. Is this the message that CAIR wants to see being sent?

This is a defeat for any Islamist puppet whose job it is to push Islam as a peaceful, benign faith. When it comes to winning Americans over with Islam, CAIR and groups like it are batting .000.

State Department criticizes Russia for religious intolerance; praises Afghanistan for religious freedom

It's buried at the end of this report, "Church to Open a Rights Center," from The Moscow Times, with thanks to Daryl:

Also, Kirill criticized a recent U.S. State Department report that criticized religious tolerance in Russia while praising Afghanistan for its religious freedom.

I hereby nominate Abdul Rahman to man State's Afghanistan desk.

Euro-Med Assembly condemns Danish cartoons

Eurabia Alert from the EU Observer, with thanks to Fjordman, who remarks: "Those who still think Eurabia is 'just a conspiracy theory' should read the news more closely. Notice how they only refer to the Arab world as 'the Mediterranean.'"

EUOBSERVER/ BRUSSELS- MEPs and national MPs from the EU and Mediterranean countries have approved a resolution which "condemned the offence" caused by the Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed as well "as the violence which their publication provoked."

The two-day plenary session of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, held in Brussels, also urged governments to "ensure respect for religious beliefs and to encourage the values of tolerance, freedom and multiculturalism."

Speaking during the parliamentary assembly, Egyptian parliament speaker Ahmed Sorour insisted that the cartoons published in Denmark and other recent events showed the existence of a cultural deficit.

Jordanian MP Hashem al-Qaisi also condemned the cartoons while remarking that it is not sufficient to deplore the cartoons as these things might occur again in another country.

But Danish parliamentarian MP Troels Poulsen, reacting to extensive criticism on Danish society over the issue, insisted that Danish society is based on both freedom of expression and religious tolerance.

He added that the government can not influence the media.

The Danish MP also said the violent reaction to the cartoons was disproportionate....

Addressing the assembly, European Parliament president Josep Borrell referred to the Mediterranean as "a concentrate of all the problems facing humanity."

He said that after one year presiding over the assembly he "still did not fully understand the complexities of the Mediterranean."

Yes, it's especially tough when you ignore the implications of the evidence that is staring you in the face.

Bruno: Will the Internet Slay Islam?

Another provocative essay from Wolfgang Bruno (news links in the original):

A remarkable testimony to the power of the modern mass media revolution was noted in the complaints of an Egyptian cleric in 2005:

Leading Egypt Cleric Wants Fewer Frivolous Edicts

The chief Muslim cleric in Egypt wants tighter controls on who may issue religious edicts, or fatwas. Egypt's Grand Mufti says more fatwas have been issued in the past 10 years than in the previous 1400 years. Modern technology has made it easier than ever to issue or receive a fatwa, one of the religious edicts that guide Muslims' interpretations of Islamic law. Someone with a specific question about what Islam allows can get a personalized fatwa on the matter over the Internet, through television or via cellphone. The number of religious edicts keeps growing, and because Islam has no central authority there is no set system for governing who is allowed to issue them.

This explosion of unorthodox religious activity can only be compared to that of Christian Europe in the early 16th century. Just as Gutenberg’s invention marked the first mass media revolution in the West, the Internet and satellite TV are now doing the same thing in the Islamic world. However, the outcome may be very different, and the parallels between the Protestant Reformation and what is happening in the Islamic world now shouldn’t be pushed too far. The introduction of the printing press was delayed by several centuries in the Islamic world because of religious resistance and never had the same effect there as it did in the Christian West, which should strongly indicate that although technology is important, it isn’t everything. Culture matters. Islam does not have quite the same centralized hierarchy as the Catholic Church had in Europe, which means that the change cannot be linked to a specific date as it did with Martin Luther’s 95 theses. Although it did ultimately have consequences far beyond the borders of Europe, and although it did happen at a time of Ottoman Muslim expansion in the Mediterranean, the Reformation was primarily an internal, Christian and European affair. The turmoil in he Islamic world now affects more or less the entire world, and many of the critics are based in rival civilizations. And last, but not least: The religions are entirely different. Christianity was reformable, whereas Islam probably isn’t.

Does this mean that the current information revolution will destroy Islam? That is the view of David Wood:

Islam Beheaded

The truth about Muhammad has been one of the world's best-kept secrets. For centuries, it has been virtually impossible to raise objections about the character of Muhammad in Muslim countries, for anyone who raised such objections would (following the example set by Muhammad himself) immediately be killed. Outside the Muslim world, there has been little interest in Islam. But things have changed. Now many people are interested in Islam, and Muslims aren't able to silence everyone. Moreover, with the advent of the Internet, it is now impossible to keep Muhammad's life a secret. The facts about the founder of Islam are spreading very rapidly, and Muslims are frantically scurrying to defend their faith. But the information superhighway is paving over the ignorance that has for centuries been the stronghold of Islamic dogma. In the end, Islam will fall, for the entire structure is built upon the belief that Muhammad was the greatest moral example in history, and this belief is demonstrably false.

This optimistic view ignores several important facts. Many of the worst Islamists have above average education, as did many supporters of Communism in the West. Which shows that, unfortunately, increased knowledge does not always translate into increased wisdom. The second catch is that Muslims do not view the world in the same way as Westerners of infidels do. In his book The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam, renowned cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi explains how Islam has restricted the authority to legislate the haram and the halal (forbidden and permitted), taking it out of the hands of human beings and reserving it for the Allah alone through explicit verses of the Qur'an and from clear ahadith of the Prophet Muhammad. The jurists' task does not go beyond explaining what Allah has decreed to be halal or haram. Prohibiting something which is halal is similar to committing shirk (idolatry).

According to traditional Islamic law, and confirmed by leading scholars today, it is perfectly allowed for a Muslim man to have forced sex with the infidel concubines he just captured by massacring their relatives in front of their eyes. Muhammad himself did this several times. You just shouldn’t wear a silk tie while doing it. Likewise, it is perfectly permissible, halal, to behead a Buddhist schoolteacher in southern Thailand, but haraam to wear a gold ring at the same time. This thinking is why slavery was eventually abandoned and forbidden by the Judeo-Christian West, where the emphasis is on what’s moral or immoral, but only banned through external pressure by the same West in the Islamic world, where the emphasis is on what’s permitted or forbidden. It also explains why Qaradawi himself is reputed to be married to a girl in her pre-teens, 60 years his junior. He is perfectly aware of the fact that Muhammad had sex with a 9-year-old child, and has confirmed, in Arabic, but not in English, that this is allowed even today. To say that “Muhammad was immoral” just won’t wash with a truly devout Muslim, who is trapped in a circular thinking where the very concept of “morality” begins and ends with the example of Muhammad, his Sunna.

The website Islam Q&A gives an explanation of why it is forbidden for Muslim men to wear silk in this life, but permitted in Paradise, just as the case is with wine, which is also forbidden on Earth but exists in abundance in the afterlife. Islam is adept at taking something away from its Believers, but promising lots of it to them after death. Again, it doesn’t matter to a true Believer whether this makes any sense. Islam means “submission,” so you should simply submit to the wisdom of Allah:

Why are men not allowed to wear silk?

It is not right to make following a command or prohibition dependent upon knowing the wisdom behind it; rather we should hasten to carry out the commands of sharee’ah, regardless of whether the wisdom behind it is clear to us or not. If it is clear, then praise be to Allaah, and if it is not, then the Muslim should not let the fact that he does not know it prevent him from acting in accordance with the ruling of sharee’ah. Islam means submission to Allaah, may He be exalted, and obeying Him. If a person makes his actions dependent on understanding matters which may or may not convince him, he is in effect following his own thoughts and desires, not his Lord and Master. (….) (silk) was basically created for women, as is the case with gold jewellery, so it was forbidden for men because it can corrupt them by making them resemble women. (…) when it touches the body, it makes a man effeminate and goes against his masculinity and manliness, so if he wears it his heart gains the characteristics of femininity and softness. There is no doubt that wearing silk will diminish manly characteristics(…) Whoever is too dense to understand this should just submit to the Wise Lawmaker.”

Yes, the Internet is important in this struggle, but it is at least as important for informing non-Muslims about the true nature of Islam as enlightening Muslims, many of whom will be mentally immune to criticism of Islam. Some of them, however, can be reached. There are approximately one billion nominal Muslims in the world. How many of these are secret ex-Muslims? Ibn Warraq has estimated that 10- 15% of the Muslims in the UK are actually apostates. If that percentage reflects the Islamic world as a whole, we are talking about a number of people the equivalent of a country the size of Japan. Even half of this is a country the size of Britain. Although only a (fast-growing) minority of Muslims around the world have access to the Internet, simple mathematics indicate that there are already hundreds of thousands, probably millions or maybe even tens of millions of ex-Muslims in cyberspace. This, as well as additional tens of millions of Muslims who already have at least some doubts, is the soft underbelly of Islam.

We’re now stuck in a race against time, and Muslims know it. That’s why they are working so hard to shut down freedom of speech and any “mockery” or rational criticism targeting Islam in infidel countries. Will Muslims bomb away freedom of speech in the West before we detonate this unexploded bomb underneath Islam’s feet? Every time they hit us with a terrorist attack, we should respond by increasing the volume of criticism of Islam in circulation on the Internet. Some would claim that this isn’t our fight. It is now. Ernest Renan has said that if there ever was something like a Reformation in the Islamic world, the West should gracefully stay out of it. However, he lived in the 19th century and could not have imagined that we would be stupid enough to let millions of Muslims settle in our major cities. We are implicated now, whether we want to or not. We are no longer just fighting against Islam but for our own freedom of speech, and thus democracy itself. Maybe we cannot slay this dragon, but we can certainly help the people who can.

Muhammad and his thugs went to great lengths already in the early days of Islam to shut up critics. The punishment for leaving Islam is death, a fact which has largely kept organized groups of ex-Muslims from forming. Until now. With a significant Muslim presence in the West, we see elements of such groups forming for the first time in history. Secret ex-Muslims around the world are quietly watching these developments. Some are stepping forward.

Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles until she blasted Islam on Aljazeera. TV is a powerful medium, and has a stronger immediate impact than the Internet. However, many ex-Muslims will probably prefer to hide on the Internet rather than showing their face in front of millions of Muslims, many of whom think they deserve to die. It takes the extraordinary courage of someone like Wafa Sultan to do so, and it takes a TV station to air these views in the first place. For these reasons, this movement may best be nurtured and spearheaded through the Internet, the way Ali Sina and Ibn Warraq are doing now, and let the ripples spread to other media.

I have earlier stated that Islam is a “dinosaur in the age of mammals.” I believe this is true. However, it is still a big and bad beast, even more dangerous and angry now precisely because it is wounded. We cannot allow such a creature to roam the streets where our children are growing up. We need to cage it, and hope that rational criticism, which its immune system cannot in the long run withstand, will slowly wear it down. This is a world war, and the best thing we can hope for is a prolonged “cold” war, with many minor clashes but no huge, cataclysmic hot war. This will require a global containment of the Islamic world, the expulsion of any Muslims in the West deemed to be a security threat and strong support to the movement of ex-Muslims. All of these steps will have to be implemented soon, or we will have no other options left but a full-scale war, with massive casualties. We will probably win such a war if it comes to it, but the death toll will exceed that of any other war in human history, and leave scars for generations to come. Time is growing short. Are we up to the job?

Creating the Online Infidel Library

An anti-dhimmitude initiative from the European author Wolfgang Bruno (news links in the original):

Fatima Houda-Pepin, raised a Muslim and active in the struggle against the use of sharia in Canada, warns that the public should make an effort to get to know those in the Muslim community who are lobbying for application of Shari‘a: “One of the strengths of Islamists is that they know you very well. They know our history, they know our culture, they know our justice system.” The reason why so many Westerners reacted with defeatism and despair over the Muhammad cartoons affair is because we are mentally on the defensive. We are reacting more than acting, waiting passively for the next Islamic move. We haven’t even named the enemy yet. The attacks of 9/11, the London and Madrid bombings were reduced to the work of “evildoers who had hijacked a great religion,” not Islam itself. Muslims have been carefully studying our weak points for decades, to find ways to exploit them. Meanwhile, we have largely been ignoring them, first because we didn’t take them seriously, and later because we would not want to get involved in a global clash with the Islamic world. Get real: This is a world war, at least a cold one. War has already been declared upon us, and it is irrelevant whether Westerners and infidels like this or not. We need to recognize this and start fighting back, before we lose this fight without ever having admitted that we were in it.

It’s time to turn the tables. We’re the most powerful civilization in human history. We’ve split the atom and sent men to the moon. We can deal with a cult from 7th century Arabia, if we put our minds to it. Yes, they have a head start, but they have weak points, too. Many of them, and sometimes huge ones. Find a pressure point and squeeze. As philosopher Eric Hoffer has said, you can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. If we had some basic understanding of our enemy and watched him closely, we would see that he made at least two major mistakes during these recent cartoon events that we could exploit. First, he showed us his hand and his true intentions, thereby waking up millions of infidels just a little bit too early. Second: He also clearly demonstrated some of his weak points, both the extreme arrogance and the ridiculous hypersensitivity to even the slightest criticism. During the Muhammad cartoon affair, the Islamic world might as well have worn a gigantic neon sign saying: “We fear freedom of speech above all else. Give us bombs, just don’t send us rational criticism or mockery.” They scream “We love death,” yet cringe like shivering Christmas puddings in front of a few cartoons. If this is what they fear most, then this is where we should push harder.

Jihadist Muslims are war fetishists. Their obsession with orgies with virgins in the heavenly Islamic brothel and the close connection between death and orgasm borders on necrophilia. You don’t frighten a war fetishist with war, and you don’ scare a death cult with death. Although the use of force will sometimes be necessary to win this fight, it is important to understand that this is not Islam’s weak point. Islam is a warrior creed, a very good one. War, death and mayhem are its home ground. Free speech is ours. We should draw the enemy away from his home ground by teasing his arrogance, lure him out into the open and over to our home ground, where we have the natural advantage.

Now is the perfect time to launch an ideological counter-offensive, using the Internet. Internet censorship is still less effective in most Muslim countries than in China, and there is now a critical mass of ordinary Westerners who understand that Islam constitutes a mortal threat to their freedom. Many of them could be mobilized, if somebody leads them and shows them how. The key to winning this struggle is not to engage the silent majority in the Islamic world, but to mobilize the silent majority in the West and in the infidel world, and perhaps the minority of ex-Muslims within the Islamic world.

The idea of using the Internet to spread critical thinking isn’t new, although it is not always directly linked to Islam:

In Arabic, "Internet" Means "Freedom"

Somewhere in Baghdad a man is working in secrecy to edit new Arabic versions of liberal classics. He has made Arabic translations of more than two dozen articles and nine books and booklets. Sponsored by the Cato Institute, he joins a small but growing assortment of Arabic-language blogs promulgating liberal ideas. "No more than 10,000 books were translated into Arabic over the entire past millennium," says the U.N., "equivalent to the number translated into Spanish each year." "The Internet is a historical opportunity for Arab liberalism," Pierre Akel, the Lebanese host of one such site, metransparent.com, said. "In the Arab world, much more than in the West, we can genuinely talk of a blog revolution." The U.N. report notes that in the Arab world—a region of 284 million—a book that sells 5,000 copies qualifies as a best-seller. The Internet, in contrast, makes possible worldwide, instant distribution, at a nearly negligible cost.

However, some books critical of Islam are already available online, and more will probably be added:

Call for Internet Publication of Sex, Sharia and Women in the History of Islam.

This is a call for the Internet publication (and eventual translation) of the book Sex, Sharia and Women in the History of Islam by Marywan Halabjaye. The book concerns how Islam is allegedly used to oppress women. Halabjaye’s book is based on an analysis of the Qur’an as well as recognized Sunnah and Hadith. This call for Internet publication is based on the belief that the best response to those who would suppress publication of a book is to increase publication, promotion and distribution of that book. The most efficient way to do that is on the Internet. This request is also based on the belief that it would be a powerful and timely lesson if the only thing accomplished by those who seek to suppress publication of the book Sex, Sharia and Women in the History of Islam is to cause it to be published to the entire world.

I have advocated the idea of creating an organized network to promote Islam-critical books in cyberspace. Maybe a dozen or more blogs and websites could form the global backbone of this network, the cyberspace version of Radio Free Europe. This to make it more difficult for hackers to block the efforts, and to disseminate the books as much as possible. The websites should preferably be based in the USA, since it has the strongest protection of freedom of speech, or at least outside of the jurisdiction of the Eurabian Union. Start with those who are already in the business, for instance Jihad Watch, Faith Freedom International, Little Green Footballs, Michelle Malkin and others. These “backbone” websites should receive financial compensation for this task. Anybody, anywhere should be able to download the books or republish them at their own websites. This would bypass media censorship and create an Online Infidel Library. It would mirror the online library Google is trying to create now, but with books about Islam only. The information would spread around the planet faster than CAIR can say “Islamophobia”. The genie would be out of the bottle, and no amount of intimidation, hacker attacks or “hate speech” lawsuits could return it to the bottle.

I have been contacted by at least one person who was pondering the possibility of financing and hosting critical books on Islam on the Internet, and wondered whether this was feasible. To publish in English a handful of these books on the Internet isn’t too complicated, it just requires some private individual or group of people with sufficient means to buy the copyrights and support the backbone websites and it could be done quickly. I don't know all of the practical details of how much such an operation would cost. But since the entire text of these books would be put online for free, I reckon one would have to pay significant sums to buy the copyrights. The good thing about starting out with private citizens is that we would directly engage the silent masses who are fed-up with Islam and Islamic demands. If our so-called leaders won’t lead this fight, then we will have to push them and force their hand. They only feel pressured by Muslims now, it’s time they feel some pressure from infidels, too. That goes for European politicians in particular.

However, when you increase the number of books and thus costs, and certainly when you start with translations into multiple languages, it probably becomes too complicated and time-consuming for private citizens to undertake. I have suggested publishing Bat Ye’or’s book “Eurabia” online, both in the full version and in abridged versions, translated into multiple European languages. Some of the most important Islam-critical books should also be translated to major non-Western languages, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and so on. I envisioned this to receive clandestine support of, for instance, the US government. It is unlikely whether they can or want to do so openly, but the amount of money it would cost would be peanuts compared to what the Iraq campaign costs on a single day and could be provided secretly. This could be called Operation Theo van Gogh, or perhaps Operation Asma bint Marwan, after the poetess who was murdered by Muhammad’s thugs for mocking Islam.

NOTE: The following list of books is based solely on my own subjective views. The authors have not been consulted about whether they would agree to publish their books on the Internet, and it is quite possible that some of them might object to this. However, it is likely that several of them would agree to this, provided that they get adequate financial compensation for this. The number of suggested titles could easily be doubled, but any such Online Infidel Library would probably include some of the books I have listed here. I have read most of these books myself, but include some by reputation or recommendations from people I trust:

Group 1:

"Leaving Islam - Apostates Speak Out" edited by Ibn Warraq

“The Islam Threat” by Ali Sina from www.faithfreedom.org, whenever it gets published. I have had the pleasure of reading it, and it is good.

“The Legacy of Jihad” by Andrew G Bostom

"Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis" by Bat Ye'or

"Onward Muslim Soldiers" by Robert Spencer

“The Force of Reason” by Oriana Fallaci

"Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries" by Paul Fregosi

“While Europe Slept : How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within” by Bruce Bawer

"Mohammed and the Rise of Islam" by David S. Margoliouth

“American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us” by Steven Emerson

Group 2:

"Why I am not a Muslim" by Ibn Warraq

"What the Koran Really Says" edited by Ibn Warraq

“The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam And the Crusades” by Robert Spencer

“Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples” by V.S. Naipaul

“Militant Islam Reaches America” by Daniel Pipes

“Islam and Dhimmitude” by Bat Yeor

“The Sword of the Prophet” by Serge Trifkovic

“Rage Against the Veil” by Parvin Darabi

"Women and the Koran" by Anwar Hekmat

“View from the Eye of the Storm: Terror and Reason in the Middle East” by Haim Harari

Group 3:

“The Quest for the Historical Muhammad” by Ibn Warraq

”Twenty Three Years” by Ali Dashti

“The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?” by Tony Blankley

“The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat” by Roger Scruton

"Muhammad" by Maxime Rodinson

"Among the Believers" by V. S. Naipaul

“The Closed Circle: An Interpretation of the Arabs” by David Pryce-Jones

“Menace in Europe : Why the Continent's Crisis Is America's, Too” by Claire Berlinski

Western Standard sued for publishing cartoons

An update on the victimization of the courageous Ezra Levant, one of the few Canadian media figures to stand up for free speech. From the Western Standard blog (with thanks to all who sent this in):

Earlier this month, the Western Standard was sued in human rights court for publishing the Danish cartoons. It's been ten years since I've graduated from law school, and I've never seen a more frivolous, vexatious, infantile suit than this.

But that's the point -- this complaint is not about beating us in the law. Freedom of speech is still in our constitution; we'll win in the end. It's a nuisance suit, designed to grind us down, cost us money, and serve as a warning to other, more timid media.

The hand-written scrawl and the spelling errors were what first disgusted me with the suit; but the arguments were what really got me. The complainant, Imam Syed Soharwardy, a former professor at an anti-Semitic university in Saudi Arabia, doesn't just argue that we shouldn't have published the cartoons. He argues that we shouldn't be able to defend our right to publish the cartoons. The bulk of his complaint was that we dared to try to justify it.

He argues that advocating a free press should be a thought crime.

Here is a letter I sent out to our e-mail list, explaining our legal situation.

Here is the formal response I shall file with the human rights commission tomorrow.

And here is where you can chip in to our legal defence fund if you want to support us. Our lawyers tell me we'll likely win, but it could cost us up to $75,000 to do so -- and the case against us is being prosecuted by government employees using tax dollars.

We're a small, independent magazine and we don't have deep pockets to fight off nuisance suits, so please chip in if you can.

Borders will only stock Qur'ans on the top shelf

Little Green Footballs has published a letter from a Borders employee showing that the corporate dhimmitude there extends to far more than their refusal to stock a magazine that has reprinted the Muhammad cartoons. They also make sure that their Qur'ans appear only on the top shelf in all their bookstores:

I work for Borders Books and after reading the article you posted on Wed. 3/29 about our company not carrying the magazine due to it showing the dreaded cartoons of blasphemy, I thought I should write with another tidbit of information I learned about my company the other week.

I was shifting rows of books in our religion section and it happened to be that all of our Koran books (a section on its own) ended up on the bottom shelf. The next day I was informed by my General Manager that it is Borders policy as a whole (not my particular store) that due to complaints in the past from Muslim customers, we are not allowed to put our copies of the Koran on any shelf other than the top.

When I heard of this I became so infuriated that the company I work for (and I do love working for it) has caved in to Islamic pressure and is still continuing to do so. I love my job and my company but it does deeply disturb me to see what is happening to it.

Imagine, as Charles Johnson points out, if a Christian group demanded that Bibles be placed only on the top shelf. I expect that the mainstream media might even find that newsworthy enough to engage in a bit of ridicule and scare-mongering. But when it comes to Muslims demanding special treatment for the Qur'an, and Borders readily caving, that's just business as usual.

Islam humiliates religious freedom of Christians and human rights of Muslims. It’s time for change

Samir Khalil Samir, SJ is one Catholic priest who isn't afraid to speak the truth about Islamic oppression of non-Muslims and denial of the freedom of conscience. From AsiaNews, with thanks to Uncle Jeff:

The ordeal of Abdul Rahman of Afghanistan is shared by many converts from Islam and poses the problem of Islam’s systematic violation of human rights. If Sharia kills a man who changes religion, it is to be condemned and cannot be the principle inspiring law, in that it destroys any ideal of coexistence and contradicts the UN declaration on human rights, approved in 1948 by almost all Muslim countries.

Rome (AsiaNews) – Abdul Rahman, the Afghan who converted from Islam to Christianity, was released from prison with a juridical ploy: deemed to be mentally unfit and thus incapable of undergoing trial, he was able to avoid the death penalty foreseen by sharia in the case of apostasy. But his ordeal is just one case in tens of thousands each year. In Egypt alone there are at least 10,000 Muslims who convert to Christianity each year. At the same time, there are at least 12,000 Christians who become Muslim.

This phenomenon of conversions from Christianity to Islam is rampant throughout the Middle East and in the world. Fundamentalist violence that currently characterizes the Muslim world brings many to ask themselves: can such a violent religion truly come from God? But what is the lot of former Muslims? That of having to flee, hide, emigrate.

A friend of mine who wanted to be baptized was forced to flee from his university friends because one day they found a pocket-sized Gospel in his room. They began to threaten him with death and he fled, abandoning his university studies.

The solution found in Afghanistan is the best one, but is a compromise. It must serve to lead us to a radical question: what takes precedence in Islam? Internationally recognized human rights or Islamic sharia? And if sharia runs counters to human rights, is it not time that the international community condemns it? And if sharia is inscribed – as fundamentalists maintain – in the Koran, there are two things to consider: either the Koran denies human rights, or it must be reread to purge it of false and violent incrustations.

Read it all.

Planned Mother Teresa statue irks Albania Muslims

Islamic Tolerance Alert from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:

SHKODER, Albania (Reuters) - Muslims in Albania's northern city of Shkoder are opposing plans to erect a statue to Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Catholic nun in line for elevation to sainthood by the Vatican.

The dispute is unusual for Albania, where religion was banned for 27 years under the regime of dictator Enver Hoxha and where religious harmony and mixed marriages are the norm.

Seventy percent of the population are liberal Muslims, the rest are Christian Orthodox and Catholic.

But Muslim groups in Shkoder rejected the local council plan for a Teresa statue, saying it "would offend the feelings of Muslims."

"We do not want this statue to be erected in a public place because we see her as a religious figure," said Bashkim Bajraktari, Shkoder's mufti or Muslim religious leader.

"If there must be a statue, let it be in a Catholic space."

UK cemetery bars burials of all but Muslims

4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, and in not one of them can a non-Muslim be buried. "Confusion as mourners are turned away," from the Times Online, with thanks to Douglas Murray:

A COUNCIL was accused last night of responding to the local government strike by barring burials at its cemetery for anyone who was not Muslim. Funeral directors who attempted to arrange Christian interments at the council-run cemetery in Blackburn, Lancashire, were told that it would be closed throughout yesterday due to the industrial action.

Families were forced to re-arrange funeral plans and other mourners were told that they would not be allowed to visit the cemetery to read its book of remembrance.

Undertakers were subsequently outraged to discover that the closure would apply only to Christian burials.

The local authority had ruled that an emergency service would be provided for Muslims, who — by religious tradition — must be buried as soon as possible after their death.

Borders won't carry magazine containing prophet cartoons

I heard enough stories of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) being hidden away in dark corners at Borders not to be surprised by this latest bit of dhimmitude.

From AP, with thanks to all who sent this in:

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.

In other words, we are afraid, and we are caving in to violent intimidation.

US bans contact with ruling Hamas

A welcome bit of anti-dhimmitude from Washington. Let's hope it lasts. From Reuters, with thanks to JE:

THE United States has ordered its diplomats and contractors to cut off contacts with Palestinian ministries after a Hamas-led government was sworn in, the State Department said today.

A directive, distributed to diplomats and other officials in the region by email, instructed them with immediate effect not to have contacts with Hamas-appointed government ministers or those who work for them, whether they are members of the Islamic militant group or not, officials said.

Hamas is formally committed to the destruction of Israel and is classed by the US government as a terrorist organisation. It won a landslide victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.

"We will not have contact with members of Hamas, no matter what title they may have," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

Danish Muslims sue newspaper over cartoons

Defamatory? Certainly not. Some of them showed a connection between Islam and violence, which Muslims around the world have daily been bearing out -- not least by means of cartoon rage itself. Injurious? Yes, they were, but only indirectly. They did grave damage to the image of Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance, by giving rise to an orchestrated campaign of violent intimidation and an ongoing assault on the principle of freedom of speech. The eyes of many have been opened.

From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A group of 27 Danish Muslim organizations have filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper that first published the caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, their lawyer said Thursday.

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday, two weeks after Denmark’s top prosecutor declined to press criminal charges, saying the drawings that sparked a firestorm in the Muslim world did not violate laws against racism or blasphemy.

Michael Christiani Havemann, a lawyer representing the Muslim groups, said lawsuit sought $16,100 in damages from Jyllands-Posten Editor in Chief Carsten Juste and Culture Editor Flemming Rose, who supervised the cartoon project.

“We’re seeking judgment for both the text and the drawings which were gratuitously defamatory and injurious,” Havemann said.

Straw asks European leaders to learn more about Islam

Because gee, Islam is really swell. And of course, I'm all for European governments learning more about Islam. In fact, I think they should devote an enormous amount of attention to learning about Islam. They just shouldn't trust Jack Straw's favorite authorities to tell them anything useful about it.

I hereby volunteer my services to any European government that wants to learn more about Islam. I will travel to your country at my own expense for meetings with government officials. I will take you step-by-step through the Qur'an and Sunnah, and introduce you to Sharia and fiqh. I will work strictly from Islamic sources, so that you can see for yourself whether or not what I am saying is accurate. Give me a week or two, and you will be quite familiar with the essentials of Islamic teaching and practice. Contact me at director@jihadwatch.org.

Straw, by the way, also comes out here against freedom of expression.

From the Khaleej Times, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

LONDON — British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has asked European governments to learn more about Islam and “protect the rights of every citizen irrespective of their faith and creed.”

Addressing an award ceremony organised by the Muslim News in the capital, Straw said European governments have to provide a space in which the rights and diversity of people of all faiths are protected....

“My point is this: the story of Europe is not a simple, linear one of secular values steadily pushing out and eroding religious ones. Rather the European experience is one of an accommodation between faith and modernity. And it is the future of Europe too.”

Straw said the reason for singling out of Islam as a target of attack might be due to its reputation as a new European religion.

“There have been Muslim communities in Europe for centuries,” said Straw. “But it is true that in recent decades those communities have grown in size and that Islam is now the fastest growing religion here. Another reason might be the feeling that many people seem to have that Muslims are in some way more religious than followers of other faiths. Again, I think it is probably undeniable that for most of the Muslims whom I know their faith is more obviously apparent in their daily actions and rituals than it is in the daily lives of the majority of people in Britain.”

Straw also condemned the decision of some European newspapers to reprint the controversial Danish cartoons by claiming the right to freedom of expression.

“I said at the time that the cartoons were reprinted in Europe — though not here in the United Kingdom — that doing so was needlessly insensitive and disrespectful,” said Straw. “The right to freedom of expression is a broad one and something which this country has long held dear. It was the focus of our human rights work during our recent Presidency of the European Union. But the existence of such a right does not mean that it is right — morally right, politically right, socially right — to exercise that freedom without regard to the feelings of others."

“A large number of Muslims in this country were upset by those cartoons being reprinted across Europe and at their deeply held beliefs being insulted. They expressed their hurt and outrage but did so in a way which epitomised the learned, peaceful religion of Islam. In doing so they were not being 'unreasonable' or 'un-European'. They were not threatening anyone's values.”

Qaradawi to Arla Foods: Good dhimmi!

Of course, Arla had nothing to do with the cartoons in the first place, and should not have been victimized. But now that they have kowtowed and apologized, Qaradawi is magnanimous in victory. "Qaradawi lifts curbs on Arla products," from The Peninsula of Qatar, with thanks to Interested:

DOHA: Islamic scholar Dr Yousuf Al Qaradawi has stated that curbs imposed on Danish firm Arla will be withdrawn. The firm had been blacklisted by retailers in Qatar following the uproar over the publication of offensive cartoons against the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) in a Danish newspaper.

Qaradawi made the announcement at an international Islamic conference being held in Bahrain. He praised Arla’s stand for stating that there was no need to publish such cartoons unnecessarily. Because of this stand, he said that curbs should be withdrawn and the company’s position would enable the opening of the avenues of dialogue for further such initiatives.

The company had announced its position in a 52-page insert in an Arabic-language magazine. Further, representatives of the firm also interacted with the Bahrain conference attendees and made their opposition to publication of such cartoons clear....

Qaradawi had been at the forefront of protests against Danish products followingthe publication of the cartoons. Addressing a congregation in Doha on February 3, during Friday prayers, he urged people to boycott Danish goods. “Today is the day of anger, a day to express our fury on behalf of Allah and His Prophet (PBUH),” Qaradawi had said.

British govt moves to block probe in £60m BAE ‘luxury’ fund for Saudi royal family

Don't investigate how we bribe them! They may get angry! From the Khaleej Times, with thanks to Sr. Soph:

LONDON — The attorney-general, Lord Goldsmith, has been asked to block a criminal investigation into allegations that Britain's biggest defence company ran a £60 million slush fund to support the extravagant lifestyle of Saudi businessmen and members of the Saudi royal family.

Goldsmith has been asked by government officials to examine whether the inquiry by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the slush fund allegedly run by BAE Company is “in the public interest.”

They fear it could provoke Saudi Arabia into pulling out of Britain's biggest export contract.

Well placed legal sources say that the Saudis are becoming increasingly alarmed about the inquiry, which is examining how the fund was used to provide Saudi princes and princesses with luxury holidays, Rolls-Royces, rented apartments and other perks. The government decision was taken after the Saudi government had expressed dissatisfaction over the investigation.

Afghanistan: More Christians Arrested In Wake of ‘Apostasy’

It looks as if many in Afghanistan believe that the local Christians have violated their dhimma. From Compass Direct, with thanks to all who sent this in:

March 22 (Compass) – An avalanche of media coverage of an Afghan man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity has apparently sparked the arrest and deepening harassment of other Afghan Christians in the ultra-conservative Muslim country....

During the past few days, Compass has confirmed the arrest of two other Afghan Christians elsewhere in the country. Because of the sensitive situation, local sources requested that the location of the jailed converts be withheld.

This past weekend, one young Afghan convert to Christianity was beaten severely outside his home by a group of six men, who finally knocked him unconscious with a hard blow to his temple. He woke up in the hospital two hours later but was discharged before morning.

“Our brother remains steadfast, despite the ostracism and beatings,” one of his friends said.

Several other Afghan Christians have been subjected to police raids on their homes and places of work in the past month, as well as to telephone threats.

There is much more. Read it all.

Time Magazine Smears Afghan Christian Convert

In "Abdul Rahman's Family Values," Time Magazine (thanks to all who sent this in) reveals "an official police report on the Christian convert in Afghanistan" which "alleges a tawdry domestic life."

It never seems to occur to Time that anyone in Afghanistan might have any interest in blackening Abdul Rahman's name, and they retail these stories from supposedly disinterested officials and family members (that's right, the family that turned him in for apostasy) without critical comment.

Most importantly, these stories are a gigantic red herring, of interest only to the most befogged dhimmis. It doesn't matter if Abdul Rahman is a deadbeat dad, a father stabber, a mother raper, or the second coming of Adolf Hitler. If he is any of those things, of course he should be prosecuted in a sane society by a sane court system. But ultimately whether he is or is not those things is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he is free, or should be free, to leave the Islamic religion in Afghanistan.

He said he was a Christian, you see, so Time Magazine has to portray him in a negative light. Time's enemy, after all, is Christianity, not the global Islamic jihad.

By attempting to divert attention away from that central question, Time Magazine deserves the opprobrium of all free people everywhere.

Western leaders breathed a sigh of relief yesterday at the release of Abdul Rahman, a Christian convert who had faced the death penalty under Afghanistan's Islamic law for renouncing his Muslim faith. Rahman, 40, has become the poster boy for the Christian right and for religious freedom. Closer up, however, the picture painted by the local police who arrested him shows a candidate not quite ready for family values. Rather, a portrait emerges of a deadbeat dad with psychological problems who couldn't hold down a job, abused his daughters and parents and didn't pay child support.

Colonel Mohammed Saber Monseffi, the chief crime officer at the 15th district police station in Kabul, brought Abdul Rahman in for questioning after a domestic dispute turned violent late last month. Says Monseffi, "He told me, 'I'm a Christian,' and I said that is not of any interest to me. I asked him why did you beat your father, why did you beat your daughters?" The fact that Rahman was Christian was secondary to his family's desire to get him out of the house, said Monseffi, who adds that his own wife is a Russian Christian.

Witness statements by his teenage daughters Mariam and Maria, aged 13 and 14, on the night of his arrest appear to detail his failures as a parent. "He behaves badly with us and we were threatened and disgraced by him. He has no job and has never given me a stitch of clothing or a crust of bread. Just his name as a father," said his 13-year-old daughter Mariam in a statement signed with her inky fingerprint.

Both his daughters mentioned that he had converted to Christianity and abandoned the religion of Islam but also described him as "jobless, lazy and cruel." His 14-year-old daughter Maria said that when her father returned to Afghanistan three years ago after spending many years in Germany and Pakistan he was a stranger to her. "He said he was my father but he hasn't behaved like a father since he came back to Afghanistan. He threatens us and we are all afraid of him and he doesn't believe in the religion of Islam," her statement said.

Abdul Rahman's parents did not appear to help his cause. A statement by his mother Ghul Begum reads: "We brought up his children and for eight years he didn't come home. Because he has converted from Islam to another religion we don't want him in our house." His father Abdul Manan's statement says, "(Abdul Rahman) wanted to change the ethics of my children and family. He is not going in the right direction. I have thrown him out of my house." Abdul Rahman's own statement does not dispute his financial straits. "Since I am jobless my family is with my children. I had economic problems with my familiy and my father has many complaints about me. He has warned me if I don't become a Muslim, I will be driven away from the house."

Now, both his daughters and the rest of his family are in hiding in Kabul, fearful that they could be targeted by a now liberated Rahman or by Islamic extremists. On Monday several hundred clerics, students and other protestors gathered on the streets of Mazar-i-Sharif calling for his execution and shouting "death to Christians." Afghanistan's deputy attorney general Mohammed Eshaq Aloko said Rahman would be allowed overseas for medical treatment but that the case could be reopened "when he is healthy."

Brussels Prosecutes Aramaic Priest and Fugitive for Islamophobia

From Paul Belien at the Brussels Journal, with thanks to all who sent this in:

One of the rare Belgian churches that is packed every weekend is the church of Saint Anthony of Padova in Montignies-sur-Sambre, one of the poorest suburbs of Charleroi, a derelict rust belt area to the south of Brussels. Holy Mass in Montignies is conducted in Latin and lasts up to four hours. Yesterday over 2,000 people attended the service by Father Samuel (Père Samuel). The priest’s sermon dealt with his persecution. The Belgian authorities are bringing the popular priest to court on charges of racism.

Father Samuel has been prosecuted for “incitement to racist hatred” by the Belgian government’s inquisition agency, the so-called Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR), because of a remark he made in a 2002 television interview when he said:

“Every thoroughly islamized Muslim child that is born in Europe is a time bomb for Western children in the future. The latter will be persecuted when they have become a minority.”

Read it all.

Canada Suspends Aid to Hamas-Led Gov't

Anti-dhimmitude from an unlikely place. Let's hope other Western nations swiftly follow suit. From AP, with thanks to Shinolite:

TORONTO - Canada said Wednesday it was suspending assistance to the Palestinian Authority because the new Hamas-led government refuses to renounce violence and recognize Israel. Hamas responded that Ottawa's decision was hasty and unfair.

It was the first government besides Israel to cut off financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority since Hamas won the legislative elections in January, and other nations were expected to follow suit.

Hamas formally took power Wednesday, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas swearing in its 24-member Cabinet.

Hamas and new Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh insist they won't soften the militant group's violent ideology or formally recognize its longtime nemesis.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said in a statement that Canada had no choice but to suspend assistance and decline any contact with the new Hamas Cabinet.

"The stated platform of this government has not addressed the concerns raised by Canada and others concerning nonviolence, the recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the roadmap for peace," MacKay said. "As a result, Canada will have no contact with the members of the Hamas Cabinet and is suspending assistance to the Palestinian Authority."...

But some money will still flow:

Ottawa has said, however, the Palestinian people should not be penalized over the actions of the group and currently provides $22 million in annual humanitarian aid through various United Nations and non-governmental agencies....

"Working with our partners and through the United Nations, its agencies and other organizations, Canada will continue to support and respond to the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people," Verner said. "Canada will also continue to work with the voices of moderation within Palestinian society."

Bawer: Norway's immigration policy claims another victim

Also at Bruce Bawer's site today is this harrowing confirmation of everything he warns us about in While Europe Slept, which if you have not read, you should obtain and read immediately:

Norway's asylum policy claimed another victim today. This time it was somebody I knew. Stein Sjaastad (58) was a good friend of, and the primary-care physician for, several of my best friends in Oslo. I met him several times. He was always gentle and soft-spoken, and always had a warm, slightly wry smile and a genial twinkle in his eye. He was by all accounts a wonderful, caring doctor, and when one of my best friends in Oslo was going through the worst crisis of his life, Stein was extraordinarily understanding, considerate, and helpful, going out of his way to help him through it. He was what every doctor should be.

Today an Algerian national who has been living in Norway for about a year, and whose asylum application was apparently denied (but who, as is the usual practice, simply remained here anyway), walked into Stein's office and stabbed him several times in the chest and neck with a knife that he had brought along. Apparently he had been a patient of Stein's. This afternoon, when his name surfaced in connection with the murder, several Oslo doctors told police that they had experienced this man's aggressiveness firsthand. But of course nothing had been done. Nothing is ever done. After all, lots of asylum seekers are aggressive.

One was reminded at once of August 3, 2004, when another aggressive asylum seeker -- this one from Somalia -- murdered 23-year-old Terje Mjåland on a downtown Oslo tram, the same tram my partner takes to work every day. That murderer, as it happens, was released by the authorities only two weeks ago, on March 15, on his own recognizance. He can't be held responsible for the crime, they say, because he was insane at the time. Now, apparently, he's OK.

This evening, on Tabloid, Norway's premier news-discussion program, Mullah Krekar was interviewed. He offered his views on Islam and the West, the main point being that the former will eventually conquer the latter. No mention of Stein's murder.

Stein leaves two sons and a partner, Egil.

Bruce Bawer fisks the Bandar Beacon

At his blog, Bruce Bawer, author of the stunning and essential book While Europe Slept, responds to a typically irresponsible and silly review of his book in the Washington Post, aka the Bandar Beacon. A sampling (first the review, then Bawer's comments):

The presence of imperfectly integrated communities of highly traditional Middle Eastern and North African Muslims in Europe, as well as the chasm that separates many European Muslims from the cultural norms of their adopted countries, were familiar well before Bawer arrived,

"Familiar" to whom? Not to most Americans, certainly. It was all but impossible to find mention of the situation in the European or American media.

even if Christian Europeans had no idea how to cope with them.

Indeed, Bawer's complaint was vividly and conspicuously personified by
the populist Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. A proud homosexual, he was
assassinated by an animal-rights activist in 2002.

An "animal-rights activist," that is, who was infuriated by Fortuyn's stance on Islam, and who killed him after having been brainwashed by Dutch media and politicians into viewing Fortuyn as a dangerous, racist extremist.

His right-wing, anti-immigration stance rested on the insistence that
Islam was too socially retrograde to be integrated into liberal Dutch
culture.

For the millionth time, Fortuyn was not "right-wing." His concern about the influx of Muslims into the Netherlands was based on the fact that many of them were incorrigibly right-wing -- and not just right-wing, but reactionary to a degree beyond the imagination of most Westerners.

So there's not much new here,

"Preaching to the converted," "not much new here" -- move along, folks. Don't worry. Be happy.

No, not much new. Funny, then, how I keep getting emails -- from extremely intelligent people who read newspapers like the Washington Post every day and consider themselves well-informed -- and yet have been stunned by what they've learned from this book.

Read it all.

Berlusconi Warns Against Multiculturalism

Anti-dhimmitude from the Italian Prime Minister. From AP, with thanks to Marisol Seibold, who comments: "There's a fair amount that's not being said in this article with respect to who would like to set up camp in Italy (i.e., waging jihad by migration to infidel lands), and what dangers that would entail -- including the establishment of a home base for terrorism within that country, and all the crime and legal wrangling that has afflicted other European countries in recent years. Near the end of the article, it is mentioned in passing that significant numbers of immigrants from North Africa land in Italy on a regular basis. But that mention comes long after what is apparently the central point, that Berlusconi is against both the enshrined notion of multiculturalism and a "multiethnic" demographic shift. Then surely he hates rainbows and puppies, too."

ROME - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he does not want Italy to become a multiethnic, multicultural country, drawing plaudits from a right-wing ally and criticism from center-left opponents....

"We don't want Italy to become a multiethnic, multicultural country. We are proud of our traditions," Berlusconi said Monday on state-run radio.

Berlusconi's government has put in place a tough immigration policy, including legislation cracking down on illegal immigration. The 2002 law allows only immigrants with job contracts to obtain residency permit.

"We want to open (our borders) to foreigners who flee countries where their lives or liberties are at risk," said Berlusconi, adding those who come to Italy to work also are welcome. "We don't want to welcome all those who come here to bring about damage and danger to Italian citizens."

Thousands of illegal immigrants come to Italy every year, mostly crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa on rickety boats. The latest group of more than 200 landed Monday on Lampedusa, a tiny island off Sicily.

Most immigrants, if they elude police, move on to other European countries.

The Northern League, a right-wing anti-immigrant party, welcomed Berlusconi's remarks.

"Here's the Berlusconi we want," said Roberto Calderoli, a Northern League leader who was forced to quit as reforms minister last month after he wore a T-shirt on state TV decorated with caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. "Our values, our identity, our history, our traditions" must be defended against immigration, the Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as saying....

Academic Apologists for Shariah: The Real Meaning of the Abdul Rahman Case

Irfan Khawaja gives some Islamic apologists and dhimmi fellow travelers a well-deserved skewering in this HNN piece (thanks to Andrew Bostom). News links in the original:

I suppose by now we've all heard of the case of Abdul Rahman, the Afghan convert to Christianity now on trial for what Afghan law regards as the capital offense of apostasy. The case evokes the same response from me as does every case of its kind: a sense of indignation at the injustice involved, and hope for the victim's eventual exoneration. (As of this writing, Abdul Rahman's mental fitness to stand trial has been challenged by the government—no less a rights-violation than its having put him on trial for apostasy.)

In a recent post at Liberty & Power, David Beito suggests that the Abdul Rahman case is somehow a problem for those of us who backed the war on Afghanistan. I disagree, and will deal with that claim in a subsequent post. But it seems to me that the case is much more obviously a problem for people in Near East and Islamic Studies who have been trying for so long to split the difference between liberalism and Islam. Political Islam, they keep telling us, is a more benign thing than we secularists are willing to admit. Well, let's consider.

The basic lesson to be learned from the Abdul Rahman case is eloquently expressed in a pair of sentences in this March 24 article in The New York Times by Abdul Waheed Wafa and David Rohde:

The case illustrates a central contradiction of the compromise Constitution that Afghanistan adopted in 2004, which has been cited as an example for other Islamic countries. One passage declares Islam Afghanistan's supreme law, while another states that the country grants its citizens religious freedom.

Fleshed out a bit, I think, we can draw five further lessons from the passage in the Times story.

1. It's irrational to compromise on fundamental issues. 2. Constitutional issues are fundamental to governance. 3. The choice of secularism versus religion is a fundamental constitutional issue—hence not one where compromise is acceptable. 4. It is a fundamental mistake to expect religious freedom to be secured by a sectarian constitution, or by attempts to compromise with one. 5. Contrary to those who "cited" it "as an example for other Islamic countries," the Afghan Constitution is not worth emulating, and little different in principle from the constitutions of failed Islamic states like Pakistan or Iran.

Who, exactly, would be discomfited by having to confront the preceding lessons? Well, philosophical and political pragmatists would contest the "absolutism" of lessons (1), (2) and (3). Apologists for religion would contest (4), and apologists for the Afghan constitution would contest (5). What's amazing is how many "informed" and "authoritative" experts on the Islamic Near East fall into one of those five categories.

For instance: I can readily think of one person who simultaneously falls into all five of the preceding categories: Noah Feldman of New York University.

Consider this 2004 interview with Feldman on "constitutionalism in the Muslim world":

Question: I understand that the high court is going to be a combination of secular law judges and Islamic judges. Are you optimistic that will work?

Dr. Feldman: It's an experiment. It has the possibility of working, but there are certainly no guarantees. It's an experiment with a body that will be able to mediate between those two different sets of values, and do it in a way that is perceived as legitimate by the rest of the Afghan people.

So: a contradiction has "the possibility of working" if only we'll give it the chance to. Unfortunately, that only "works" if you're willing to split the difference between faith and reason, or between illogic and logic. Noah Feldman is a smart and talented man, but unfortunately for him (and for the people of Afghanistan) intelligence and talent don't add up to the capacity to square the constitutional circle.

Close behind Feldman, I think of the vaunted "experts" in the fields of Near East and Islamic Studies who would object to lesson (4) above—principally by accusing its defenders of "bigotry."

Consider the case of Mark LeVine, who makes just that claim in this post on his HNN blog. He's referring here to an anti-Islamist manifesto written and signed by a group of Muslim and apostate intellectuals.

Equally troubling…a group of well-known intellectuals, including some prominent secular Muslims such as Salman Rushdie and Irshad Manji, issued a statement that mirrored the bigoted language as the United American Committee at UCI. In it they called Islamism "the new global threat," and condemned it as a "totalitarian and… reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present."

I'm curious to learn where LeVine finds the "mirrored bigotry" in the statement he describes. I've read and commented on the statement, and I simply don't see what bigotry there is to be found in it. It's an instructive sign of the times that one can make accusations of bigotry in this way without offering the slightest hint of an argument for one's claims.

At any rate, LeVine continues:

Such a base reduction of Muslim religious belief to one simplistic and in many ways artificial category called "Islamism" (a term which, it should be noted, most of the ultra-conservative Muslims against whom the statement was directed, do not even use to describe themselves) generalizes the worst aspects of one expression of Islamic faith as if it encapsulates the entire breadth of Muslim belief. It betrays an utter ignorance of the complexity of contemporary Islam, and the reality--which the Left as much as the Right seems to have a hard time accepting--that there is a growing body of Muslims who are both religious and progressive.

Ironically, it is precisely these people who, in the words of the Swiss Muslim philosopher Tariq Ramadan (who has been attacked by the Left and Right for allegedly misleading the West about his "true motives"), are engaged in the process of secularizing Islam that the supposed defenders of "universal values" seem totally unaware of. It seems that Muslims, and their non-Muslim allies, can be as ignorant of their religion, and willfully so, as everyone else.

LeVine's website describes him as having "a command of Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Persian, as well as Italian, French and German." I wonder if the omission of English from the list is intentional: how could a historian read so simple a document in his native tongue with such brazen ineptitude?

For starters: the document to which LeVine refers doesn't equate Islamism with Islam; it's LeVine who does that, and falsely ascribes his own equation to the document. As for the reference to "Islamism," it may be true that "ultra-conservative Muslims" don't refer to themselves as "Islamists," but then, they don't refer to themselves as "ultra-conservatives," either. The point is, an ideological group doesn't have a monopoly on the labels that can legitimately used to describe it. Nor is a label "wrong" simply because the group labeled doesn't use it. (Never mind that it is Islamists who characteristically equate Islamism with Islam.) As for LeVine's charge of ignorance, in fact it exemplifies ignorance: he seems ignorant of the possibility that the signers know something about "the growing body of Muslims who are both religious and progressive" and reject their claims.

Consider in similar vein the apologetics of John L. Esposito of Georgetown, who speaks darkly of "the dangers of secular fundamentalism," and tells us, blithely, that "Contrary to what some have advised, the United States should not, in principle, object to the implementation of Islamic law or involvement of Islamic activists in government" (The Islamic Threat, Second Edition, p. 245). I would have thought that the First Amendment objects, in principle to the implementation of any religious law in government; I guess the advisors to whom Esposito alludes would include Locke, Jefferson and Madison, whose advice we ought to throw out on his say-so.

"Too often," Esposito sighs,

analysis and policymaking have been shaped by a liberal secularism which fails to recognize that it too represents a worldview which, when assumed to be a self-evident truth, can take the form of a 'secular fundamentalism.' Secularism or liberal democracy is no longer regarded as 'a' way (one of many possible paradigms, albeit for some the best way) but "the" way, the only true path for political development….Alternative paradigms, especially religious ones, are necessarily judged as abnormal, irrational, retrogressive (249).

Translation: Liberal secularism is a worldview. A worldview affirmed dogmatically is a form of fundmentalism. Hence, liberal secularism affirmed dogmatically is a form of secular fundmentalism. From this banal series of truisms, Esposito somehow manages to infer (only God knows how) that religious political "paradigms" are normal, rational, and progressive. Reflect a bit on the predicament of Abdul Rahman in Afghanistan. Then ask yourself how to gauge John Esposito's distance from reality.

But if "distance from reality" is what you're after, you couldn't do much worse than to peruse the writings of Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl, apologist for theocracy, zealous critic of secularism, and (not coincidentally) darling of the liberal media establishment. Behold the man as he dresses down secularist writer Ibn Warraq in an essay entitled "On Revising Bigotry".

Misery loves misery, and so Pipes teams up with Ibn Warraq, a pitiful figure inviting Muslims to liberate themselves from their religion and their Lord. Earlier on, Ibn Warraq fascinated us with his ranting about why he is not a Muslim. Of course, his title came from Bertrand Russell’s Why I am Not a Christian, but while Russell wrote philosophy, what Ibn Warraq wrote is an inanity, and an utter intellectual bore. This time the man with the funny name collected a bunch of articles and published them under the title The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. One of the two introductions to the book is written by a fellow with the pathetic pseudo-name Ibn Rawandi. Perhaps, our contemporary authors are alluding to friendship between the historical Ibn Rawandi and al-Warraq, both from the third Islamic century. The Manicheism and heresy of the historical figures is debated, but compared to the originals, our modern authors are unfortunate mutations and intellectual trolls.

The passage begins with a conspiracy theory about Ibn Warraq's relation to Daniel Pipes. In fact, there is no such relation (or in fact, any relation); but never mind. Facts don't matter when venom is at hand. El Fadl goes on to tell us that Ibn Warraq is a "pitiful" figure. In fact, since El Fadl doesn't know a thing about Ibn Warraq, he has nothing of a factual nature to tell us about why Ibn Warraq is so "pitiful." This doesn't seem to matter, either. Next we're told that Ibn Warraq's book doesn't match up to Bertrand Russell's, that it's an "inanity" and "bore": oddly, El Fadl doesn't try his hand at refuting any of it.

Fast-forwarding, we get to El Fadl's dehumanizing reference to Ibn Warraq as a "mutation." This metaphor might perhaps remind you of the prosecutor in the Abdul Rahman case, who referred to the defendant as a "microbe." It might also call to mind the procedures of the Afghan court system, which would now like to declare Abdul Rahman mentally incompetent. All of that might also justifiably remind you of the Nazi use of metaphors of disease and mental incompetence for purposes of dealing with dissidents and race-enemies. It is, at last, the same mentality at work in all three cases: a mentality that equates intellectual challenge automatically with evil, and the challengers themselves with vermin. We might very well expect such beliefs from the semi-literate morons who populate the Afghan government. It comes as a bit of a surprise to hear them expressed by a fully literate professor of law at UCLA.

But only the utterly naive will be completely surprised. For the sad fact is that however hard El Fadl tries to mask his differences from the inquisitors in Afghanistan, he cannot mask his fundamental agreement with them. He shares their faith, shares their moral verdict on apostasy, and shares Islam's view of the eventual fate of the apostate. He may not want to kill an apostate with his own hands, or even want one to be killed by any actual government. But in compliance with the wishes of his "Lord" and master, he can't help acquiescing in the thought that the apostate deserves to be damned to Hell for eternity.

"In the end," God tells us in the Quran, the unbelievers "will have only regrets and sighs; at length they will be overcome; and the unbelievers will be gathered together to Hell" (8:36). As for Hell, in it (we are told) the skins of the unbelievers will be roasted and renewed (4:56), they will drink boiling fetid water (14:16), they will wear garments of fire (22:19), they will neither live nor die (20:74), they will be "broken to pieces" (99:4), etc. etc. etc.

I would insist that even the likes of Saddam Hussein deserves a fair trial and a measured punishment for his crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, Professor El Fadl, Omar and Azmeralda Alfi Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law, defends a doctrine according to which it is permissible to torture someone for eternity for having the wrong beliefs. Excuse me, but who is the bigot among us?

If there is a useful lesson for Americans in the Abdul Rahman affair, it's this: what the fields of Islamic Studies and Near East Studies need today--but completely lack--are scholars who are willing to give Islam the frontal challenge it so richly deserves. And by "challenge," I decidedly don't mean the milquetoast sort of "challenge" one finds in writers like Daniel Pipes or Bernard Lewis, who criticize Islamism but leave Islam itself untouched. Nor do I even mean the sort of "challenge" one finds in scholars like Patricia Crone or Michael Cook, whose muted criticisms of Islam come in the form of indirection and insinuation. I mean scholars capable of entertaining the hypothesis that Islam is false and irrational as such, and are willing to deal with it accordingly.

Faced with such critics from outside of the field, the reigning stars of the field have nothing to offer in rebuttal but defamation. But for precisely that reason, they have nothing to offer in defense of the Abdul Rahmans of the world. We hard-core secularists are the only critics of Islam capable of offering the sort of defense that the Abdul Rahmans of the world deserve—the one that cuts to the heart of the matter. The principle in question is succinctly stated by the philosopher Ayn Rand in the climactic speech of her epic novel, Atlas Shrugged: "The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments." (Atlas Shrugged, p. 944). A word of advice for the apologists of Islam, Muslim or non-Muslim: bring forth a sura like that one, if ye can…(cf. Qur'an, 10:37).

NYU Surrenders in Mohammed Cartoon Dispute

Not long ago I was contacted by a representative of the Ayn Rand Institute and invited to be part of a panel discussion, "Free Speech and the Danish Cartoons," which was to be held at NYU. Unfortunately I was unable to take part, but the panel will include Andrew Bostom, editor of The Legacy of Jihad. And it looks as if they will have a lot to talk about, because NYU is not letting them display the cartoons as they discuss them.

"NYU Surrenders to the Heckler’s Veto in Mohammed Cartoon Dispute," a press release from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:

NEW YORK, March 29, 2006—In violation of its own policies, New York University (NYU) is refusing to allow a student group to show the Danish cartoons of Mohammed at a public event tonight. Even though the purpose of the event is to show and discuss the cartoons, an administrator has suddenly ordered the students either not to display them or to exclude 150 off-campus guests from attending. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) is urging NYU’s president to reverse course and stand up for freedom of speech.

“NYU’s actions are inexcusable,” declared FIRE President Greg Lukianoff, who is slated to speak at the event. “The very purpose of this event is to discuss the cartoons that are at the center of a global controversy. To say that students cannot show them if they wish to engage anyone outside the NYU community is both chilling and absurd. The fact that expression might provoke a strong reaction is a reason to protect it, not an excuse to punish it.”

Earlier this month, the NYU Objectivist Club decided to hold a panel discussion entitled “Free Speech and the Danish Cartoons,” at which the cartoons will be displayed. Similar events, sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), have taken place on several other campuses. Like previous NYU Objectivist Club events, the discussion was to be open to the public.

However, on Monday afternoon, NYU Director of Student Activities Robert Butler sent an e-mail requesting a meeting with the leaders of the Objectivist Club the next day. He also informed them that NYU would now “require that this event be open only to members of the NYU community.” Butler cited “the campus climate and controversy surrounding the cartoons,” ordering the students to inform the “non-NYU people” who had already registered that they “should not plan on attending.” He concluded, “This is not negotiable.”

Following the meeting, Butler sent another e-mail clarifying that the students have two choices: they must either not display the cartoons, or not allow anyone from off campus to attend the event. Approximately 150 off-campus guests are currently registered to attend.

“This is a classic case of the heckler’s veto,” noted FIRE’s Lukianoff. “NYU is shamelessly clamping down on an event purely out of fear that people who disagree with the viewpoints expressed may disrupt it. These immoral, last-minute restrictions must be lifted.”

FIRE was informed of NYU’s actions just yesterday. Hours later, Lukianoff called NYU President John Sexton to remind him that NYU’s own policies recognize student groups’ right to open events to the public and proclaim that “the use of physical force or other disruptive means to obstruct and restrain speakers” is “destructive of the pursuit of inquiry and learning in a free and democratic society.” FIRE has not yet received a response.

NYU’s actions notwithstanding, Lukianoff still plans to speak at the event, which will take place at 7 p.m. tonight in the Eisner and Lubin Auditorium of NYU’s Kimmel Center.

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation’s colleges and universities. FIRE’s efforts to preserve freedom of expression on college campuses across the country during the cartoon controversy can be viewed at thefire.org/cartoons.

CONTACT:
Greg Lukianoff, President, FIRE: 215-717-3473; greg_lukianoff@thefire.org
Yaron Brook, President, ARI: 408-206-7756; ybrook@aynrand.org
John Sexton, President, NYU: 212-998-2345; john.sexton@nyu.edu
Robert Butler, Director of Student Activities, NYU: 212-998-4718; bob.butler@nyu.edu

New U.N. Draft on Iran Softens Condemnation

Hello, uh, Mr. Ahmadinejad?...Yes, this is Kofi...Fine, fine, thank you...Yes, that's right, alhamdulillah...Oh, Kojo is just fine as well, thank you very much...Alhamdulillah, yes...Alhamdulillah indeed...Look, Mr. Ahmadinejad, I just want to give you an update...In the Security Council we've managed to weaken the language condemning your nuclear program...Yes, yes, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah...But Mahmoud -- may I call you Mahmoud?...Thank you...Mahmoud, the resolution still calls upon you to abandon uranium enrichment activities...What's that? The Great Satan? No, not exactly...It was Britain and France...Mahmoud, calm down...Mahmoud? Mahmoud?

From the New York Times, with thanks to JE:

UNITED NATIONS, March 28 — European and American diplomats circulated a new draft statement to the Security Council on Tuesday evening that weakens language condemning Iran's nuclear program but still calls on Tehran to abandon uranium enrichment activities, which the West believes are intended to make weapons.

The new draft, written by Britain and France and supported by the United States, eliminates or softens elements in earlier drafts that had raised objections from China and Russia.

The three Western nations hope the new version can be adopted Wednesday, a day before the foreign ministers of the five permanent Council members and Germany meet in Berlin to discuss strategy on Iran.

Release of Christian convert condemned by Afghan MPs

This only highlights the fact that the release of Abdul Rahman has done nothing to solve the larger problem of Sharia in the Afghan Constitution. From Reuters, with thanks to JE:

Members of the Afghan parliament condemned the release of a man who denied Islam, insisting on Wednesday he should not be allowed to leave the country, as Italy appeared ready to offer him asylum.

Abdur Rahman, 41, was jailed this month for converting to Christianity, and could have faced trial under Islamic sharia law stipulating death as punishment for apostasy or departure from original religion.

He was freed from prison on Monday after pressure from Western countries whose troops helped bring the Afghan government to power.

"The release of Abdur Rahman was contrary to the existing laws of Afghanistan," Yunus Qanuni, president of the lower house of parliament, told the assembly during an unscheduled debate on the case.

"Abdur Rahman should not flee and should not be allowed to leave Afghanistan ... he should be kept under supervision," he said.

Muslim woman who refuses to shake men's hands wins case against Dutch school

Eurabia Alert from AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Muslim woman who refuses to shake men's hands for religious reasons cannot be barred from a Dutch teacher-training program.

The Dutch Equal Treatment Commission found Monday that the Regional Education Center in the city of Utrecht illegally ''discriminated, indirectly, on the basis of religion,'' when it rejected Fatima Amghar for its program.

Amghar, 20, said her religious beliefs forbid her from having physical contact with men over the age of 12.

The school rejected her application, arguing that shaking hands was routine for a teaching assistant in Dutch society.

But ''there are other conceivable manners of greeting that can be considered proper and respectful,'' the commission ruled.

It warned that Dutch schools risk excluding Muslim women from society unless they find a way to accommodate their beliefs.

And that accommodation, of course, is all one way.

India: Muslim man divorces his wife in his sleep

Sharia Alert: "Divorce Granted for Muslim Couple," from AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

Islamic leaders in India have ordered a Muslim couple to divorce.

The wife told friends that her husband had uttered the word "talaq" three times in his sleep.

"Talaq" means divorce.

When the story reached religious leaders, they said his words constituted a divorce under an Islamic procedure known had "triple talaq" and they ordered the split.

They had been married eleven years. Now according to Islamic law they cannot remarry until the wife marries another man, consummates the marriage, and is again divorced.

Uganda: Danish Embassy apologises to Muslims over cartoons

Nobody seems to have grasped the absurdity of an apology in Old Kampala for cartoons printed in a free and independent newspaper in Denmark -- not by representatives of the paper, of course. From the Monitor Online, with thanks to Twostellas:

THE Danish Ambassador, Mr Stig Barlyng, yesterday met Muslim leaders and apologised for the publication of cartoons ridiculing Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.

The meeting took place at the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council headquarters in Old Kampala.

Barlyng’s visit to the council was in response to a threat by Ugandan Muslims to stop buying Danish products until Denmark apologises for the publication.

McCarthy: Cold Comfort on Islam and Apostasy

Former federal prosecuter Andy McCarthy has a must read piece at NRO:

Here’s a riddle: What begins with words “In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” a formal Islamic salutation also commonly used by militants in their warnings, fatwas, and claims of responsibility regarding terrorist acts?

What extols the virtues of “rightful jehad” (also known as jihad) in its very first sentence?

What in its first article declares its sovereignty to be an “Islamic Republic,” and in its second installs Islam as the official “religion of the state”?

What, in its third article announces to the world that, within the territory it governs, “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam”?...

The answer, which will come as no surprise to followers of the Abdul Rahman apostasy trial in Kabul, is the Afghan constitution. This is the celebrated foundational law which came into force on January 4, 2004, to the ringing praises of Zalmay Khalilzad, then the American ambassador under whose kneading the drafting process was completed....

Read it all.

As a Synagogue Comes Down, a Culture Disappears, Too

The New York Times covers the demolition of the last synagogue in Tajikistan, which we noted here several weeks ago.

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan — Even during Sabbath services on a Saturday in early March, as Rabbi Mikhail Abdurakhimov read Hebrew prayers and the faithful followed along using Russian transliterations, the rumble of construction was distracting.

This is a synagogue in its last moments of existence. While the congregants prayed, a bright orange bulldozer growled outside, continuing its work at the synagogue's edge.

"They could do this anytime," whispered David Kiselkov, 56. "But of course they choose to do it now."

The synagogue is the last in Tajikistan, and will soon fall victim to redevelopment and the declining Jewish population in this remote post-Soviet state....

And, evidently, to the shifting of Tajikistan back to a more overtly Islamic identity:

Dushanbe, a quiet, verdant capital with a single central boulevard, is slowly changing, struggling to emerge from isolation, state Socialism and civil war.

Lenin's statue was recently replaced by a towering golden monument to Ismail Samani, a 9th-century Persian shah reborn as a Tajik hero. A sparkling green bank stands next to an imposing Stalinist government building, freshly painted peach.

Swedish government funds Malmö mosque repair

From our Feeding the Hand That Bites You Department, via The Local, with thanks to Fjordman:

The Islamic Centre in Malmö is to receive three million kronor in government funding for rebuilding and repairing damage caused in the latest attack on the mosque.

The government said that the donation was based on the fact that the Islamic Centre is important and contributes to creating the image of Islam in Sweden.

"The Islamic Centre is a significant player in integration work and its work, religious, social and cultural, reaches many people in southern Sweden," said Lena Hallengren, minister with responsibility for religious issues.

Turkey: Muslims accused of killing 'unclean' dogs

Sharia Alert from Enlightened Secular Turkey. "Once Gabriel promised the Prophet (that he would visit him, but Gabriel did not come) and later on he said, 'We, angels, do not enter a house which contains a picture or a dog.'" (Bukhari, vol. 4, bk. 54, no. 450)

But killing them? Sure. "Ibn Mughaffal reported: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) ordered killing of the dogs, and then said: What about them, i. e. about other dogs? and then granted concession (to keep) the dog for hunting and the dog for (the security) of the herd, and said: When the dog licks the utensil, wash it seven times, and rub it with earth the eighth time." (Sahih Muslim, bk. 2, no. 551)

"Muslims are accused of killing 'unclean' dogs," from the Telegraph, with thanks to Twostellas:

Pro-islamic municipalities in Turkey are killing stray dogs, animal rights groups claim.

Municipal workers are hunting, torturing and killing the animals by the hundreds, the campaigners say....

Animal rights campaigners who accompanied Miss Isikalp last week said that at least two of the dogs had been sexually abused.

The mayor of Mamak, Gazi Sahin, of the ruling pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party, has denied responsibility.

Fitzgerald: The sad state of American education

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald adduces some examples illustrative of the current crisis in American higher education:

A miscellany of indictments of the current state of American education:

1) The alacrity with which Princeton University hired Cornel West as a university professor, and the delight expressed by the Provost and others in the Princeton administration at this great catch.

2) The elevation of Maria Rosa Menocal, author of a book that purports to study the wonders of the "convivencia" in Islamic Spain, to the supreme authority on this subject.

Menocal’s book itself is sentimental nonsense, not only in form but content. It is a perfect compendium of all the twaddle that has been passed off as history about Andalucia. Her bibliography, incidentally, fails to mention any of the authoritative sources on the history of Muslim Spain -- in particular, it does not even list (much less give any sign of her having actually read) Evariste Levi-Provencal. Nor does it show any sign that she has read Dufourcq.

Instead, her notions of Spain are right out of the works of romantic fiction -- Irving's Tales of the Alhambra (tales indeed) and Chateaubriand's Le Dernier des Abencerages. What is fine for Chateaubriand is not fine for what is supposed to be an historical study. I mean, for god's sake, some of his best passages in the Memoires d'Outre-tombe are entirely fictional: see his sonorous sentences about his visit to "les champs de Lexington," where he never was. And that’s not all: there is also much more fantasy about il sospiro del Moro, the nobility of those Muslims, the wonderful way Maimonides was treated (why, then, did he flee Moorish Spain?), on and on.

The failure to list, or even be aware of, the most authoritative studies of Moorish Spain would be disturbing in a high school paper. What makes it more worrisome, and perhaps representative of the age in which we live, is that Menocal, in her dreamy desire to emphasize convivencia, ignores the realities of Muslim rule and the real status of non-Muslims subjugated to that rule. She has not the slightest idea of what dhimmitude entailed, or why a Jew could be a court doctor or even high-ranking official, while all of his co-religionists would still be subject to humiliation, degradation, and the permanent insecurity that was apparent, for example, in the massacre of Grenada's Jews in 1066 -- and he himself could in a New York or Cordova minute be thrust down himself.

Yet she is no goofy armchair historian, without access to a library. No, she is presented to us as the Director of the Whitney Center for the Humanities at Yale. Yale, as I understand it, likes to think of itself as having some standards. Where are they?

The latest issue of the Yale Review tells us proudly that four professors have been appointed to Sterling Professorships. Three were in science. The only one from outside science was Maria Rosa Menocal.

3) The delight expressed by Stephen Greenblatt at the appointment of Homi Bhabha to a professorship at Harvard a few years ago. Bhabha, who is a professor of English, cannot express himself clearly in written English. Not because he comes from abroad. No, his prose has won prizes because of its impenetrable jargon, its postcolonial projects of phallic hegemony, things like that. Things like the quintessence-of-nonsense paragraph specially written for the "MESA Nostra Contest" (which google).

4) Then there is Fawaz Gerges. It is stunning to think that Gerges has managed to climb the greasy pole at Sarah Lawrence, where Adda Bozeman, the unacknowledged source for much of Samuel Huntington's work, and herself the keenest early warner about Islam's threat to everyone else, once held sway.

5) There is also the entire disgraceful operation of lean, mean, jogging John Esposito, head and master of all he surveys at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown.

6) And finally, there is the MEALAC Program at Columbia. It is not possible, at Columbia's MEALAC program, to learn much of anything about the all-important subject -- Islam, its tenets, or the history of Muslim conquest and subsequent treatment of non-Muslims. So much attention is given by Saliba, Dabashi, Khalidi, El-Haj, etcetera etceterum to one subject -- "Palestine" – that they simply have no time for larger investigations.

Columbia once had the most distinguished scholars of Islam -- Joseph Schacht and Arthur Jeffery come swimmingly to mind. Now? Now it is the kind of place, in its MEALAC program, that only Adel Jubeir, and Saeb Erekat, and Amr al-Moussa, and of course 80% of the membership of MESA (the Middle East Studies Association of America, a de facto subsidiary of the Arab League in collaboration with Al-Azhar University and Hamas) could love -- or even take seriously.

In his "Edward Said" Chair, Khalidi is giving his crude money's worth. Why, he even takes part in panel discussions, sponsored by the New Yorker, on the Middle East. Everything, everything but Islam will be discussed, but especially the problem of Isr...oh, you know what I mean.

Could