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CAIR Convinces Texas Library to Remove Book Critical of Al-Qaeda

Nov 8, 2018 12:21 pm By Andrew Harrod

The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Dallas-Fort Worth chapter (CAIR-DFW) recently “applauded a decision by the Plano Library to resolve an issue related to anti-Muslim material in its catalog.” CAIR claims to have convinced this Texas library to remove the book Holy Terror by renowned graphic-novel author Frank Miller, a disturbing act of censorship and a flagrant violation of longstanding library standards.

This author asked the Plano Library Director Libby Holtmann about the book’s removal. She stated that the library “did not remove the subject item from its collection from a request by anyone including CAIRDFW,” but rather “was alerted by a comment sent through social media.” Examination of Holy Terror revealed “that it did not have any professional reviews,” which she claimed is a “necessary component for maintaining an item.” She also cited library records showing little reader interest in Holy Terror.

In fact, dozens of reviews of the comic book have been published, including by prominent newspapers and peer-reviewed journals. Plano library’s dubious response leaves several troubling questions. What was this social media comment that led to an immediate “evaluation” of Holy Terror? Why does Plano Library appear to be kowtowing to CAIR? Does the very controversy itself surrounding Holy Terror raised by groups such as CAIR not justify keeping a copy for the sake of healthy public debate?

CAIR’s opposition to Holy Terror, a story of comic superheroes battling Al Qaeda in New York City, goes back to when it first appeared in 2011. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad had condemned Holy Terror as a “shameful” example of how “Islamophobia is becoming mainstream.” That same year, journalist Spencer Ackerman wrote that “Holy Terror is a screed against Islam.”

Accordingly, CAIR-DFW Executive Director John Janney asked the Plano library about “standards, policies or code of ethics that the publicly funded library followed when faced with publications that dehumanize or marginalize minorities.” This applied, he claimed, “especially when those publications are targeted at children” (which the adult graphic novel Holy Terror is in fact not). Although paying lip service to First-Amendment free speech guarantees, CAIR-DFW’s argued that “imposing hate literature on a captive audience of children is not appropriate” for a library’s mass holdings.

CAIR-DFW also claimed that Miller had in 2018 “expressed regret for the book” — implying that Miller would support the censorship of Holy Terror. Yet he actually stated, in a Guardian interview, that he did not “want to go back and start erasing books I did.” Importantly, he described Holy Terror in a 2011 interview as a specific “screed against Al Qaeda,” not Islam. “The issue here is a method of killing. It’s not a religion,” he explained. “I can tell you squat about Islam,” but “I know a goddamn lot about Al Qaeda and I want them all to burn in Hell.”

Ironically, CAIR-DFW’s announcement appeared during the annual Banned Books Week of the American Library Association (ALA), the “oldest and largest library association in the world,” founded in 1876. During Banned Book Week, ALA promotes a “Stand for the Banned Read-Out” for people to “declare your literary freedoms by reading from a banned book or discussing censorship issues on camera.” Since the Week’s 1982 beginnings, “libraries and bookstores throughout the country have staged local read-outs, continuous readings of banned and challenged books.”

Similarly, ALA’s Library Bill of Rights “affirms that all libraries… should challenge censorship” and provide “information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues.” “Toleration is meaningless without tolerance for what some may consider detestable,” ALA elaborates, concluding that “partisan or doctrinal disapproval” should not restrict library material. Purportedly, the ALA even “opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, materials, and facilities based on the age of library users.”

The ALA has thus throughout the years monitored “challenges to library, school and university materials” in its “Top Ten Most Challenged Books” lists. Motives for book removal have included “racism, violence… anti-ethnic… occult/satanic… sexually explicit… offensive language… unsuited to age group.” The ALA defends the right for libraries to offer even these “offensive” books.

Correspondingly, Plano libraries hold a wide variety of materials, such as Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and a DVD of the 1915 American white supremacist film Birth of a Nation. Plano’s holdings also include the anti-Israel screed The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. And while CAIR-DFW professes concern over Miller’s influence upon children, Plano library continues to hold over 20 other Miller titles.

CAIR-DFW’s claimed censorship success raises troubling questions over what might be next on the Islamist book banning index. The seriousness of issues involving Islam in the modern world should demand more speech about Islam, not less. But CAIR and its allies have argued precisely the opposite. Journalist Spencer Ackerman in particular played a central role in the 2011 federal government purge of government training materials covering vital Islamist doctrines such as jihad, something he dismissed as irrelevant following the military debilitation of Al Qaeda.

CAIR certainly seems to show little respect for constitutional free speech rights, as CAIR’s attempted suppression of critical inquiry into Islam has extended well beyond Plano. In 2014, for example, CAIR chapters tried to stop anti-Islamist events in a Chicago-area public library and a Knoxville, Tennessee public high school.

Americans concerned about free speech should stand up to CAIR and contact the Plano library for a return of Holy Terror to the catalog, a book that many may want to examine following CAIR’s public opposition. Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes has labeled censorship of speech about Islam as “Rushdie Rules.” Such suppression should have no place in a public library. Readers should form their own opinions about Holy Terror, Islam, and Islamism without any de facto fatwa from CAIR.

Andrew Harrod is a writer for Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

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Filed Under: CAIR, free speech, Islamic supremacism Tagged With: Frank Miller, Holy Terror, Plano, Plano Library, texas


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Comments

  1. Ann Marie says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 12:29 pm

    Here we go again. Victimhood: one of the main attributes of Islam..

    Obviously CAIR doesn’t like the truth staring them in the face.

    And how many times do Muslims go to the library, except to ban books?

    Wait and see, the next ones they’ll want banned are ones about Christianity and Judaism because they’re anti-muslim and don’t want their people infected by them.

    This is just the first step

    • Mike says

      Nov 9, 2018 at 9:17 am

      Deep down things like this is why this guy went after the kids at the bar in California. We are turning over America one law, one amendment, one right at a time to the Muslims in the name of Sheria law. We are bowing down to them in the name of FREEDOM of Religion. Europe is doing it and Canada’s done it. Speak of it and then you go to jail for hate speech.
      Thank you OBAMA and the UN

      • jimbo says

        Nov 9, 2018 at 12:08 pm

        All of what Marie, Graham, and Mike say above are valid. And why should not the Plano library also remove the Koran using the same rational: that it contains equally hateful material and is taught to Muslim children, in most instances their having to memorize it front to back. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this one book is likely the source of the 30,000 plus instances of terrorism and cruel death in the world since 9/11, not to mention the carnage inflicted by this misdirected faith over the past 1400 years. Would the Coptic Christians have been murdered on that bus in Egypt recently had not this one book continued to exist?

  2. mortimer says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 1:19 pm

    Muslims react mainly to books with pictures or cartoons.

    Muslims are PICTUR-O-PHOBIC.

    • James Lincoln says

      Nov 8, 2018 at 4:36 pm

      Also because of the fact that many Muslims are illiterate.

  3. mortimer says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 1:24 pm

    Author Frank Miller says, ““I know a ####### lot about Al Qaeda and I want them all to burn in Hell.”

    Well, Frank, where do you think Al Qaeda gets their ideas from? Not from the funny pages in the weekend paper.

    Trying reading, Frank. Try READING the primary, Islamic source texts. That’s what Al Qaeda and ISIS are reading.

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 8, 2018 at 6:22 pm

      I don’t think that Frank Miller ever really connected the dots. But at least he came out strongly against violent Jihad–which is more than a lot of people have ever done.

  4. livingengine says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 2:12 pm

    CAIR defames a sitting judge to influence a legal decision, and then . . . they do it again!

    • Brian hoff says

      Nov 8, 2018 at 9:09 pm

      I have a complaint against a judge inn el paso I show up at court as my brother son was faceing criminal charge I was wear my t shirt of the el paco Islam mosque and my muslim hat my brother who is diable ask me to go down. P
      It happen 5 year ago when she threw me out of court room.

      • gravenimage says

        Nov 8, 2018 at 9:19 pm

        Is “DefenderofIslam” claiming that he was thrown out of court because he’s a Muslim? Nice try…of course, this is obviously absurd.

        Not surprised that there are criminal charges in the family, though…

  5. livingengine says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 2:41 pm

    Is CAIR a religious organization or a political organization?

  6. eduardo odraude says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 2:42 pm

    Sharia influence aided by dhimmi tendencies, political correctness, and terror.

  7. eduardo odraude says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 2:42 pm

    Sharia influence aided by dhimmi tendencies, political correctness, and terror.

  8. FYI says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 2:53 pm

    In that case the ‘holy’ koran should be removed for..inciting violence,antisemitic and antichristian teachings,promoting immorality{polygamy,child bride}..

  9. wm1 says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 3:11 pm

    When public libraries begin censoring books which critique or are, in any way, critical of Islam or its violent and barbaric adherents (ie., Islamic terrorist groups) then you know the nation is in deep trouble.

    Not only are we in grave danger of succumbing to Sharia law but, very soon, we’ll look just like Europe-suppressing free thought and banning free speech to protect a single religion: Islam.

    We don’t ‘ban’ books in America.

    We don’t censor literary scholarship in order to appease and placate a particular religious or political segment of our society.

    And the person, or persons, who does so should be held accountable-especially if they’re a so-called ‘librarian.’

    Inundate her office with calls of outrage.

    Perhaps, then, she might rethink her unacceptable posture of appeasement toward Islamists who seek noting less than our complete submission to the will of Allah (Satan).

  10. gravenimage says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 6:26 pm

    CAIR Convinces Texas Library to Remove Book Critical of Al-Qaeda
    ……………………

    So now even being *against Al-Qaeda* is considered “Islamophobic”? Insanity.

    And this happened in Plano, Texas–where one would hope for more sanity.

  11. infidel says

    Nov 8, 2018 at 10:31 pm

    The sooner Trump goes all out in shutting down this sick Trojan called CAIR, the better for the USA and its future gens. Else, America will be done in terribly from the inside by this parasite.

  12. Obbop says

    Nov 9, 2018 at 10:41 am

    Beware the evil that is CAIR. Patriots. Beware the enemy that has infiltrated and infested the USA. Who are THOSE INVADERS of the USA to ORDER libraries to remove a book placing their evil CULT in a bad light? The Founders would fight battles before submitting to that barbarian horde!!!

    Patriots… I am spreading this horrible story of submission to that evil cult to every place on the Web where I can post a link and a comment. Please do your part. This horror MUST be spread across the USA.

    CAIR and Islam have declared WAR against the USA. Me MUST NOT LOSE THIS BATTLE or a New Dark Age descends upon Western civilization!!!

  13. Vicky says

    Nov 9, 2018 at 1:08 pm

    AHAH! Muslims demanding sharia law in Texas, and getting it! TEXAS! The biggest baddest cowboy patriotic conservative state in the union, cowering to islam!!
    Stupid Godless liberals, progressives, socialists, communists, black supremacists and fascists are speeding up the takeover!!
    Americans are laying down for it!!
    Convert or die will be the nightmare of either your children, or your children’s children.

  14. Anne Smith says

    Nov 9, 2018 at 1:41 pm

    Oh dear, it seems 9/11 has been pretty well forgotten.

  15. Jennifer V says

    Nov 13, 2018 at 9:19 pm

    From the November 7, 2018, American Spectator

    “Islamists Bowdlerize Plano Library”

    Another disturbing act of censorship goes unremarked.
    The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Dallas-Fort Worth chapter (CAIR-DFW) recently “applauded a decision by the Plano Library to resolve an issue related to anti-Muslim material in its catalog.” CAIR claims to have convinced this Texas library to remove the book Holy Terror by renowned graphic-novel author Frank Miller, a disturbing act of censorship and a flagrant violation of longstanding library standards.
    This author asked the Plano Library Director Libby Holtmann about the book’s removal. She stated that the library “did not remove the subject item from its collection from a request by anyone including CAIRDFW,” but rather “was alerted by a comment sent through social media.” Examination of Holy Terror revealed “that it did not have any professional reviews,” which she claimed is a “necessary component for maintaining an item.” She also cited library records showing little reader interest in Holy Terror.
    In fact, dozens of reviews of the comic book have been published, including by prominent newspapers and peer-reviewed journals. Plano library’s dubious response leaves several troubling questions. What was this social media comment that led to an immediate “evaluation” of Holy Terror? Why does Plano Library appear to be kowtowing to CAIR? Does the very controversy itself surrounding Holy Terror raised by groups such as CAIR not justify keeping a copy for the sake of healthy public debate?
    CAIR’s opposition to Holy Terror, a story of comic superheroes battling Al Qaeda in New York City, goes back to when it first appeared in 2011. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad had condemned Holy Terror as a “shameful” example of how “Islamophobia is becoming mainstream.” That same year, journalist Spencer Ackerman wrote that “Holy Terror is a screed against Islam.”
    Accordingly, CAIR-DFW Executive Director John Janney asked the Plano library about “standards, policies or code of ethics that the publicly funded library followed when faced with publications that dehumanize or marginalize minorities.” This applied, he claimed, “especially when those publications are targeted at children” (which the adult graphic novel Holy Terror is in fact not). Although paying lip service to First-Amendment free speech guarantees, CAIR-DFW’s argued that “imposing hate literature on a captive audience of children is not appropriate” for a library’s mass holdings.
    CAIR-DFW also claimed that Miller had in 2018 “expressed regret for the book” — implying that Miller would support the censorship of Holy Terror. Yet he actually stated, in a Guardian interview, that he did not “want to go back and start erasing books I did.” Importantly, he described Holy Terror in a 2011 interview as a specific “screed against Al Qaeda,” not Islam. “The issue here is a method of killing. It’s not a religion,” he explained. “I can tell you squat about Islam,” but “I know a goddamn lot about Al Qaeda and I want them all to burn in Hell.”
    Ironically, CAIR-DFW’s announcement appeared during the annual Banned Books Week of the American Library Association (ALA), the “oldest and largest library association in the world,” founded in 1876. During Banned Book Week, ALA promotes a “Stand for the Banned Read-Out” for people to “declare your literary freedoms by reading from a banned book or discussing censorship issues on camera.” Since the Week’s 1982 beginnings, “libraries and bookstores throughout the country have staged local read-outs, continuous readings of banned and challenged books.”
    Similarly, ALA’s Library Bill of Rights “affirms that all libraries… should challenge censorship” and provide “information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues.” “Toleration is meaningless without tolerance for what some may consider detestable,” ALA elaborates, concluding that “partisan or doctrinal disapproval” should not restrict library material. Purportedly, the ALA even “opposes all attempts to restrict access to library services, materials, and facilities based on the age of library users.”
    The ALA has thus throughout the years monitored “challenges to library, school and university materials” in its “Top Ten Most Challenged Books” lists. Motives for book removal have included “racism, violence… anti-ethnic… occult/satanic… sexually explicit… offensive language… unsuited to age group.” The ALA defends the right for libraries to offer even these “offensive” books.
    Correspondingly, Plano libraries hold a wide variety of materials, such as Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and a DVD of the 1915 American white supremacist film Birth of a Nation. Plano’s holdings also include the anti-Israel screed The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. And while CAIR-DFW professes concern over Miller’s influence upon children, Plano library continues to hold over 20 other Miller titles.
    CAIR-DFW’s claimed censorship success raises troubling questions over what might be next on the Islamist book banning index. The seriousness of issues involving Islam in the modern world should demand more speech about Islam, not less. But CAIR and its allies have argued precisely the opposite. Journalist Spencer Ackerman in particular played a central role in the 2011 federal government purge of government training materials covering vital Islamist doctrines such as jihad, something he dismissed as irrelevant following the military debilitation of Al Qaeda.
    CAIR certainly seems to show little respect for constitutional free speech rights, as CAIR’s attempted suppression of critical inquiry into Islam has extended well beyond Plano. In 2014, for example, CAIR chapters tried to stop anti-Islamist events in a Chicago-area public library and a Knoxville, Tennessee public high school.
    Americans concerned about free speech should stand up to CAIR and contact the Plano library for a return of Holy Terror to the catalog, a book that many may want to examine following CAIR’s public opposition. Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes has labeled censorship of speech about Islam as “Rushdie Rules.” Such suppression should have no place in a public library. Readers should form their own opinions about Holy Terror, Islam, and Islamism without any de facto fatwa from CAIR.

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 13, 2018 at 10:05 pm

      +1

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