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Robert Spencer in FrontPage Mag: Britain’s Free Speech Dilemma

Apr 4, 2014 9:18 am By Robert Spencer

Roya Saberi NobakhtIsn’t “insulting Islamic sanctities” as illegal in the U.K. as it is in Iran? My latest in FrontPage:

A British-Iranian woman, Roya Saberi Negad Nobakht, has spent the last five months in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison for writing on Facebook that Iran’s government was “too Islamic.” Arrested during a visit to Iran to visit family members, she has been charged with “insulting Islamic sanctities.” British authorities are indignant about this affront to the freedom of speech – but given the prevailing eagerness to avoid insulting Islamic sanctities in the U.S. as well as Britain, it is hard to see why.

Nobakht’s husband, Daryoush Taghipoor, is worried: “It’s a very bad situation. We don’t know what’s going on. Roya is not well at all. She has lost three stone and is frightened. She is scared that the government will kill her.”
According to the Independent:

“Mrs Nobakht’s situation came to light after her husband approached his friend and former employer Nasser Homayoun-Fekri, who also lives in Stockport, who wrote a letter to his local MP Andrew Stunell.”

Homayoun-Fekri wrote:

“I must request, on humanitarian grounds as well as for the sake of justice, that you exert all possible pressure on the British Government to do all that is feasible for the release of this innocent British citizen. Especially considering that the Islamic Republic, as acknowledged by the United Nations… is one of the most notorious human rights abusers at all the stages of arrest, custody and trial.”

The British government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is “urgently” examining Nobakht’s case, but there is little that it can do, as Britain does not have diplomatic relations with Iran.

Homayoun-Fekri explained to the Independent that Nobakht has apparently been charged with “an offence against attacking the holiness of Islam, which gives substance to [Internet postings] being the reason.” Bahareh Davis of Amnesty International thundered:

“If Roya Saberi Nejad Nobakht has been held solely for peacefully exercising her right to freedom of expression she must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

Yet the odd thing about this story is that while Amnesty International and the British government are offended that Roya Saberi Negad Nobakht could be executed in Iran for “insulting Islamic sanctities,” in Britain (and America as well) it is a de facto crime to insult Islamic sanctities. It won’t get you prison (yet), but it will get you public abuse, insults, the savaging of your reputation, and ostracism from circles of the politically correct and self-styled right-thinking folk. Prison is just the next step.

After all, the British government banned me from entering the country for saying that Islam is “a religion and is a belief system that mandates warfare against unbelievers for the purpose for establishing a societal model that is absolutely incompatible with Western society” – a manifestly true statement that is not controversial to anyone who has studied Islam. Imran Ahsan Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the International Islamic University in Islamabad, in his 1994 book The Methodology of Ijtihad quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.

Just days before Pamela Geller and I were banned, the British government admitted Saudi Sheikh Mohammed al-Arefe. Al-Arefe has said:

“Devotion to jihad for the sake of Allah, and the desire to shed blood, to smash skulls, and to sever limbs for the sake of Allah and in defense of His religion, is, undoubtedly, an honor for the believer. Allah said that if a man fights the infidels, the infidels will be unable to prepare to fight.”

Al-Arefe said essentially what I said – that Islam mandates warfare against unbelievers. The principal difference, aside from the fact that al-Arefe put it much more graphically than I did, was that al-Arefe is for jihad violence against non-Muslims, and I am against it. The British government banned me, in other words, for insulting Islamic sanctities – for daring to oppose the Islamic supremacist project of subjugating the world under Islamic world.

So why is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office “urgently” investigating this case? To be consistent, it should commend the Iranian government for acting so swiftly against Nobakht’s offense to Islam, and initiate prosecutions in Britain itself against those who insult Islamic sanctities. To stand for the freedom of expression, including the freedom to say something that Islamic authorities might consider insulting to Islamic sanctities, in Iran while denying it at home is patently absurd.

If Sharia restrictions on speech that is insulting to Islam are good enough for Britain, then they’re good enough for Iran. Mark Stephenson, a man who ripped pages from a copy of the Qur’an and threw them onto the ground at a soccer match, was arrested and recently fined £235 for doing so. If Britons must therefore pay proper Sharia-dictated respect for the Qur’an or face monetary penalties, the British government has absolutely no leg to stand on in complaining about the Iranians’ prosecution of Roya Nobakht.

But if freedom of expression must be upheld in Iran, then why not in Britain as well? One hopes that the British government will soon recover its sanity and defend the freedom of expression everywhere, even at home – and even if “Islamic sanctities” are thereby offended.

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Filed Under: free speech, United Kingdom Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Michael Copeland says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 9:46 am

    Using the description “a mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya-artist” of a muslim who had falsified hate-crime figures for his (state-funded) monitoring organization has brought a radio presenter a prosecution. Tim Burton, of LibertyGB, has been charged with “racially aggravated harassment”. The hearing is on Tuesday 8th April.
    See http://libertygb.org.uk/v1/index.php/home/root/news-libertygb

    • mortimer says

      Apr 4, 2014 at 1:07 pm

      “a mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya-artist” applies to all the Iranian leadership.

      The UK judiciary should be ashamed and APOLOGIZE to Tim Burton. His comment was 100% accurate as it turned out and there was NOTHING racist about it. LYING ISN’T A RACE.

  2. Anushirvan says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 10:28 am

    “Yet the odd thing about this story is that while Amnesty International and the British government are offended that Roya Saberi Negad Nobakht could be executed in Iran for “insulting Islamic sanctities,” in Britain (and America as well) it is a de facto crime to insult Islamic sanctities. ”

    The trouble is that the toothless feigning of moral indignation alone is not going to solve anything. Alas, this is the sorry state of affairs Western Civilization itself has been falling prey to in the last decades. We want to voice concerns ,surely, and make a self-centered ritual out of moral indignation, but we don’t want to back up our stance by showing the necessary balls and actually DO something about it. That’s basically how meek we have become: we’re always walking on eggshells to avoid infuriating others, as if our narcissistic concern with preserving our self-image will save us from obliteration in the end. Appeasement, denial and cowardice have evolved into the core precepts of all PC / MC !

    And that’s exactly what we can do without vis-à-vis the Islamic onslaught.

    • Salah says

      Apr 5, 2014 at 1:31 am

      “..but we don’t want to back up our stance by showing the necessary balls and actually DO something about it.”

      I agree 100%. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again:

      We have two possible solutions:

      1- Mass protests and civil disobedience (massive tax strike and media stike).
      It happened in Egypt, they brought the Muslim Brotherhood down to their knees, and they did it peaceably.

      http://crossmuslims.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-end-of-muslim-brotherhood.html

      2- Armed revolution.

      Let’s get organized and start with the first solution hoping to avoid the second.

  3. Charli Main says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 11:15 am

    But- But- But- its not the Muslims, its the evil Koran and Jihadists.
    All the REAL MUSLIMS are peace loving, moderates who love their non- Muslim neighbours and don´t read, believe or follow the messages and instructions given to them in the Koran.
    That’s incontrovertible proof that there are two different Korans that Allah gave to Mohammed. A good Koran for all the peace loving, innocent Muslims and another evil Koran for all the Jihadists.

  4. tpellow says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 11:32 am

    Supplementary.

    “British wife is being held in Iranian prison after being arrested for writing on Facebook that the country ‘was too Islamic’ during trip to visit family.

    “Roya Saberi Negad Nobakht was arrested in Shiraz after getting off plane.
    “The 47-year-old has been accused of being a spy her husband said.
    “Mrs Nobakht is being detained at Evin – a prison in the capital Tehran.
    “Arrested on suspicion of plotting to commit crimes against security.”
    By TARA BRADY

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2594981/British-wife-held-Iranian-prison-arrested-writing-Facebook-country-Islamic-trip-visit-family.html#ixzz2xvqCr0cp

  5. tpellow says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 11:40 am

    Let’s see if Islamified U.K Government brings any effective political action into play against the Islamic Republic of Iran:-

    “Ministers act on pleas to help student ‘arrested in Iran'”

    http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/roya-saberi-negad-nobakht-iran-6920506

    And what are Obama and Clinton doing on this?

  6. mariam rove says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 12:13 pm

    OT: here is another muslim on muslim destruction. Sunni VS. Shia.

    The Bahrain government bulldozes a Shia church claiming it is too close to the highway….

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/world/2014/04/140404_an_bahrain_razed_mosque_divided_country.shtml

    • mariam rove says

      Apr 4, 2014 at 12:46 pm

      Oh no! Shia Church!!!!!!!!!!!! I mean mosque… so sorry. M

  7. pdxnag says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 12:19 pm

    That reads like the argument section of a legal brief. Someone would have to be quite a blockhead to oppose the logic.

  8. mortimer says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 1:10 pm

    It is cogent to the UK situation to note that England has an establishment of religion (not Islam) and, therefore it is NOT illegal to rip up the Koran in England. IT IS QUITE LEGAL to rip up a Koran in England as well as criticize a demonic Death Cult whose greatest aim is to destroy the Church of England.

  9. eib says

    Apr 4, 2014 at 6:48 pm

    Free Roya!
    Free her now!
    She is INNOCENT.

  10. bill says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 12:07 pm

    People are always asking why the decent peaceful muslims do not speak out against violence and jihad. Some actually do. Here is your answer. It is like asking Germans why nobody spoke out against the Nazis. They did and mostly met a gruesome end. Let this be a warning to all ‘good muslims’ do not put your thoughts in the social media where they can be read by the Iranian govt. and other Islamic regimes. If you do, make sure not to visit those countries, your British passport does not protect you. The Islamists will dream up any stupid charge to arrest you. It is also likely that as in Nazi Germany you will get a show trial and a quick execution.

    • Bernadette de Wit says

      Apr 5, 2014 at 8:01 pm

      @Bill: it’s even worse. The pro-Allied Germans were ignored because Roosevelt’s military people got orders from communist pro-Stalin infiltrators in the Usa to do so (Harry Hopkins). They were all executed. Read ‘American Betrayal’ by Diana West. Nowadays the so-called friends of islam are the new traitors, doing the same to brave muslims who want to leave islam or who have already left this criminal death cult. Who is today’s Harry Hopkins in the UK?

  11. Jerry says

    Apr 6, 2014 at 3:23 am

    Mohammed was never Sunny
    Just a lump of Shite!

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