Recently in free speech Category

The dhimmitude and self-censorship on Facebook's part, however, may not be a given in this case. The creator of the site says he is redesigning it and that it will be back. We'll see. Free Speech Death Watch Update: "'Allah is'... angering Muslims?," by Rachelle Kliger for The Media Line News Agency, March 17:

Thousands of Muslim Facebook users have pushed to remove an Arabic-language Facebook page created by a user taking on the identity of Allah, or God.

The user claimed he/she was an atheist and believed in no God but him/herself, saying that Muslim prophets would be able to connect with users through the site and answer their questions, according to news reports.

The page, displaying warped Koranic verses and making fun of Islam, soon garnered a 600,000 strong following and drew thousands of responses to its status updates, many of them scolding the creator.

Campaigners who said it was an insult to Islam and to God demanded Facebook remove the page and some even urged users to boycott Facebook altogether.

While campaigners are viewing the removal of the page on Tuesday as an indication of their success, the creator of the controversial profile page said she (or he) removed it to create a new look.

Olivier Bassile, chief executive of Reporters Without Borders to the European Union and head of the organization's Belgian office, said censorship of the material was the wrong strategy by Facebook, if Facebook did indeed remove the page under pressure.

"It's related to freedom of expression," he told The Media Line new agency. "It was only logical that one day Facebook and other social media would face this pressure because the traditional media is already suffering from this pressure."...

Dr. Abeer Najjar, a media researcher at the American University of Sharjah, said she would not consider the response by Facebook of removing the page as indication that freedom of speech was under threat, as long as the request came from the public, but she warned that such calls are often used by governments to legitimize censorship.

"The problem is that when the public asks for it, it encourages the authorities and gives them legitimacy to censor other things," she told The Media Line. "The fundamental problem is that it empowers the governments and gives them a green light for more censorship."

Uh, yeah.

The United Arab Emirates' Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) went as far as to instruct all Internet service providers in the UAE to block the offensive page, following numerous calls and complaints from Internet users who were angry about the site.

Counter campaigns to the Allah page drew more than 100,000 people, including the "20 million campaign to close down the group of the heretic who claims he's God" that drew more than 52,000 and other campaigns that called on Muslim users to boycott the popular website....

Trying to put an end to the courtroom jihad against free speech. "Denmark wants Brussels to stop UK Mohammed cartoon lawsuit," by Leigh Phillips for the EUObserver, March 16 (thanks to John):

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The Danish minister of justice has called on the European Commission to put a stop to a lawsuit by a Saudi lawyer who is using the UK's famously libel-happy courts to go after Danish newspapers for their publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

"It's fundamentally reasonable that judgments in the EU can often be exercised across borders," the minister, Lars Barfoed, said according to the Berlingske Tidende newspaper.

"But it would be taking it to the extreme if a UK court could rule against the Danish media and then require compensation and court costs to be paid." [...]

And there is that small matter of free speech:

The British government for its part recognises there is a problem.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "The government is concerned about any potential chilling effect that our libel laws are having on freedom of speech. In response to the concerns that have been expressed, the justice secretary has set up a working group to examine a range of issues around the substantive law on libel."

In addition, three weeks ago the country's Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee published the report of its inquiry into libel, which criticised the current situation.

"The government is considering this report and the recommendations that it makes very carefully," the spokesperson said.

Worth murdering for, they thought

The jihad against free speech, free expression, and free thought continues. "2 charged in 'plot to kill Swedish cartoonist,'" from CNN, March 16:

(CNN) -- Irish authorities said Tuesday they have charged two men who were reportedly part of an international plot to kill a controversial Swedish cartoonist.

The two men appeared in Waterford District Court on Monday night, the Courts Service of Ireland said. While the service refused to confirm whether their case is related to the alleged plot, Irish and British media outlets including The Irish Times reported the connection.

The first man, Ali Charaf Damache, was charged with making a menacing call to an individual.

The other man, Abdul Salem Monsour Khalil al Jahani, was charged with failure to produce a valid passport or other valid document to establish his identity, contrary to the Immigration Act 2004....

An American woman who called herself "Jihad Jane," Colleen LaRose, was indicted in the United States earlier this month for allegedly conspiring to support terrorists and kill a person in a foreign country, namely a resident of Sweden. The U.S. official identified the target to CNN as Lars Vilks, a cartoonist who outraged some with a drawing of the prophet Mohammed.

The indictment against LaRose says she worked with at least five co-conspirators. The U.S. official said the people arrested in Ireland were directly related to the same plot to which LaRose was allegedly connected....

Exactly. Here is a dead-on assessment of "illiberal liberalism," and its role in attempts to suppress criticism of Islam. "Ian McEwan: Criticising Islam is not racist," by Stephen Adams for the Telegraph, March 13 (thanks to Twostellas):

Ian McEwan has insisted that criticising Islam is not racist and blamed left-leaning thinkers for "closing down the debate".

It's not McEwan's first rodeo, either.

The Booker Prize winner said those who claimed judging Muslims was "de facto" racism were playing a "poisonous argument".

McEwan, 61, the best-selling author of novels including Amsterdam, Atonement and Saturday, thought many in the left wrongly took this position because they had an anti-Americanism shared with Islamists.

In an interview with today's Telegraph Magazine, McEwan said: "Chunks of left-of-centre opinion have tried to close down the debate by saying that if you were to criticise Islam as a thought system you are a de facto racist. That is a poisonous argument.

"They do it on the basis that they see an ally in their particular forms of anti-Americanism," he said.

"So these radical Muslims are the shock-troops for the armchair Left who don't want to examine too closely the rest of the package - the homophobia, the misogyny and so on."...

And they'll likely still be looking for dawah opportunities in jail, unless they are prevented from doing so. "Arrested Muslims had prayer group plan," by Cormac O'Keeffe for the Irish Examiner, March 12 (thanks to Twostellas):

Some of the seven Muslims arrested as part of an international probe into an alleged plot to murder Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks had planned to set up an extremist prayer group in Waterford to radicalise other Muslims, gardaí believe.

Investigators are understood to be increasingly hopeful of bringing charges against a number of those arrested, either at the end of their detention period or in the months ahead.

Four computer specialists from the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation are working around the clock in Waterford city examining computers and other items seized from the homes of those arrested.

Gardaí said the results of this examination should be known in a number of days and that this will largely determine whether charges can be brought and when.

The seven - four men and three women - were arrested by armed gardaí on Tuesday in Waterford and Cork following a lengthy Garda investigation based on information provided by US intelligence agencies.

Five of the seven suspects - three Algerians, one Libyan and one Palestinian - had their periods of custody extended on Wednesday night on application to the courts for a further three days.

Two others - a Croat and a US citizen - had their detention periods extended for three days yesterday morning.

They can all be detained for up to seven days under the Criminal Justice Act 2007. Officers are expected to go to the courts on Sunday for a further two days' extension.

All seven were brought to court under tight security for secret hearings.

Reporters and photographers were barred.

Gardaí had the suspects and associates under surveillance for four months.

Investigators suspect that three of those arrested - an Algerian, Croatian and Libyan - were at "similar levels" in the group.

They believe the group's main players were trying to set up their own prayer room in Waterford city to "try and bring in others". Detectives believe the suspects did not consider the local mosque to be radical enough.

Garda sources have confirmed the arrests are linked to the prosecution of American woman Colleen LaRose over an alleged plot to murder Mr Vilks. The woman, who went by the online name of "Jihad Jane", visited Ireland last September for two weeks when she met some of those arrested.

Gardaí are examining if the suspects intended to provide logistical support and false documentation for the alleged plot. Gardaí are also investigating possible involvement in the murder itself, but are not sure yet.

The computer experts are examining internet downloads on the computer and other documentation seized. Much of this is in Arabic and gardaí have contracted a company that provides interpretation services to the Gardaí to assist.

Detectives are receiving a "level of co-operation" from the suspects, but sources said they are "no fools".

Two aspects of this story regarding Microsoft's Bing search engine are of interest. One is the self-imposed double standard: would Microsoft disallow searches on "rude" words for any other place on the planet? The other is the political and ethical precedent it sets: if they self-censor on this, what else will they censor, especially if they are that inclined to cater to Sharia-minded countries? Microsoft does call Bing a "decision engine," but this is not likely the meaning the ad campaign was going for.

Or, as was the case with Google, will this be papered over as some kind of "bug?"

"Microsoft's Bing filters 'rude' keywords in Arabic countries," from France 24, March 11:

Microsoft's search engine "Bing" filters out sexually explicit keywords in Arab countries, the Open Net Initiative (ONI) has claimed in a report.

The American research organisation said in a report published at the beginning of March that out of a hundred words with sexual connotations, 20 were blocked.

The inquiry was carried out in four Arabic countries - Algeria, Libya, Jordan and the UAE - leading the report's authors to conclude that the filtering applied to "Middle Eastern countries in general". [...]

Click the link to the article if you're curious about which words were blocked. Some are anatomical, some are bawdy, some are rather innocent: evidently you can't search on "kiss."

The blocks only apply when users in Arab countries search on the Arabic version of the "Bing" site.

By navigating to the US version in English, for example, users in Arabic countries can look up "rude" words with impunity.

'Safe search'

Microsoft has not clarified whether the filtering was on the initiative of the company itself, or because of requests from Arabic governments.

But the ONI suggested it was highly unlikely the filters were driven by individual Arab countries' laws.

"It is interesting that Microsoft's implementation of this type of wholesale social content censorship for the entire 'Arabian countries' region is in fact not being practiced by many of the Arab governments," the report said.

Google as well as other search engines including Yahoo! and Ask.com that are available in the Arab world do not impose any such censorship.

Will the West ever stand up for the freedom of speech? Or will it just roll over and play dead? "Seven held over 'cartoonist plot,'" from the UKPA, March 9 (thanks to Twostellas):

Seven Muslims have been arrested over an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog, police said.

Al Qaida put a $100,000 bounty on the head of cartoonist Lars Vilks after a newspaper published his cartoon....

From his press conference after his screening of Fitna at the House of Lords today. (Thanks to all who sent this in.)

Who is the racist? Who is the fascist? Who is trying to shut down debate and dissent by force -- attacking police and pro-Wilders demonstrators, and prosecuting Wilders in his own country -- and who is standing for free speech and human rights?

"Dutch anti-Islam politician creates stir in UK," by Raphael G. Satter and Arthur Max for AP, March 5 (thanks to Nelson):

LONDON (AP) - Dutch anti-Islam maverick Geert Wilders took his cinematic assault on the Quran to Britain's House of Lords on Friday, sparking heated debate inside the building and angry protests outside....

Wilders screened his 15-minute film "Fitna" to about 60 people, including a half-dozen peers, in a wood-paneled committee room in Parliament. The film associates the Quran with terrorism, homophobia and repression of women.

No. As the film itself makes clear, it is Islamic clerics who associate the Qur'an with "terrorism, homophobia and repression of women." Wilders merely reports on how they do so.

Outside, about 200 protesters jeered and chanted "Fascist thugs off our streets." Police scuffled with several demonstrators who tried to block a street to prevent a demonstration of pro-Wilders activists from the English Defense League from approaching Parliament....

Nota bene: The police scuffled with the people shouting, "Fascists thugs off our streets," not with the putative fascists themselves. The ones trying to shut down their opposition with violence were the self-proclaimed anti-fascists. Huey Long is supposed to have said: "When fascism comes to America it will be called anti-fascism." And it looks as if it is already happening that way in London.

The English Defense League - a newly formed, self-described "counter-jihad" movement with reported links to the U.K. far-right - has mimicked Wielder's relentless focus on Islam....

Outside the British Parliament, protesters calling themselves antifascists denounced Wilders and his backers of the English League as racists.

Jack Kavanagh, one of the people wrestled out of the crowd by police, expressed scorn for Wilders, calling his movie "racist tripe."

Across the way, 70-year-old retiree Ian Birchall said the English League was composed of "a particularly unpleasant bunch of racists" intent on setting Britons against the country's approximately 2 million strong Muslim community....

Since everyone who stands up for human rights and freedom against Islamic supremacism and violence is branded a racist nowadays, it's useful to look at the evidence. Here is a group that is so racist that it has featured a Sikh speaker, has a youth group that bears the slogan, "Black, White and Brown Unite," and says: "We welcome members from all over the political spectrum, and with varying views on foreign policy, united against Islamic extremism and its influence on British life. Everyone from those whose ancestral roots are in pre-Roman Britain to immigrants just arrived yesterday will be welcomed into the EDL with open arms as long as they are willing to stand up with us for English values and against Islamist hate."

Many people conflate the EDL with the genuinely racist and antisemitic BNP, which I repudiate utterly, but there seems to be a good deal of evidence to suggest that the EDL is not itself racist, white supremacist, antisemitic, neo-fascist, etc. At very least, they bear watching. In any case, these charges are invariably and inevitably trotted out by Leftists and their jihadist allies whenever anyone stands up against the Islamic supremacism that would deny our freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and equality of rights before the law. After awhile, the wolf-crying becomes obvious.

Geert Wilders
Speech House of Lords, London
Friday the 5th of March 2010

Thank you. It is great to be back in London. And it is great that this time, I got to see more of this wonderful city than just the detention centre at Heathrow Airport.

Today I stand before you, in this extraordinary place. Indeed, this is a sacred place. This is, as Malcolm always says, the mother of all Parliaments, I am deeply humbled to have the opportunity to speak before you.

Thank you Lord Pearson and Lady Cox for your invitation and showing my film 'Fitna'. Thank you my friends for inviting me.

I first have great news. Last Wednesday city council elections were held in the Netherlands. And for the first time my party, the Freedom Party, took part in these local elections. We participated in two cities. In Almere, one of the largest Dutch cities. And in The Hague, the third largest city; home of the government, the parliament and the queen. And, we did great! In one fell swoop my party became the largest party in Almere and the second largest party in The Hague. Great news for the Freedom Party and even better news for the people of these two beautiful cities.

And I have more good news. Two weeks ago the Dutch government collapsed. In June we will have parliamentary elections. And the future for the Freedom Party looks great. According to some polls we will become the largest party in the Netherlands. I want to be modest, but who knows, I might even be Prime Minister in a few months time!

Ladies and gentlemen, not far from here stands a statue of the greatest Prime Minister your country ever had. And I would like to quote him here today: "Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. No stronger retrograde force exists in the World. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step (...) the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome." These words are from none other than Winston Churchill wrote this in his book 'The River War' from 1899.

Churchill was right.

Ladies and gentlemen, I don't have a problem and my party does not have a problem with Muslims as such. There are many moderate Muslims. The majority of Muslims are law-abiding citizens and want to live a peaceful life as you and I do. I know that. That is why I always make a clear distinction between the people, the Muslims, and the ideology, between Islam and Muslims. There are many moderate Muslims, but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.

Islam strives for world domination. The Quran commands Muslims to exercise jihad. The Quran commands Muslims to establish shariah law. The Quran commands Muslims to impose Islam on the entire world.

As former Turkish Prime Minister Erbakan said: "The whole of Europe will become Islamic. We will conquer Rome". End of quote.

Libyan dictator Gaddafi said: "There are tens of millions of Muslims in the European continent today and their number is on the increase. This is the clear indication that the European continent will be converted into Islam. Europe will one day soon be a Muslim continent". End of quote. Indeed, for once in his life, Gaddafi was telling the truth. Because, remember: mass immigration and demographics is destiny!

Islam is merely not a religion, it is mainly a totalitarian ideology. Islam wants to dominate all aspects of life, from the cradle to the grave. Shariah law is a law that controls every detail of life in a Islamic society. From civic- and family law to criminal law. It determines how one should eat, dress and even use the toilet. Oppression of women is good, drinking alcohol is bad.

I believe that Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life. Islam is a threat to Western values. The equality of men and women, the equality of homosexuals and heterosexuals, the separation of church and state, freedom of speech, they are all under pressure because of islamization. Ladies and gentlemen: Islam and freedom, Islam and democracy are not compatible. It are opposite values.

No wonder that Winston Churchill called Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' "the new Quran of faith and war, turgid, verbose, shapeless, bur pregnant with its message". As you know, Churchill made this comparison, between the Koran and Mein Kampf, in his book 'The Second World War', a master piece, for which, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Churchill's comparison of the Quran and 'Mein Kampf' is absolutely spot on. The core of the Quran is the call to jihad. Jihad means a lot of things and is Arabic for battle. Kampf is German for battle. Jihad and kampf mean exactly the same.

Islam means submission, there cannot be any mistake about its goal. That's a given. The question is whether we in Europe and you in Britain, with your glorious past, will submit or stand firm for your heritage.

We see Islam taking off in the West at an incredible pace. Europe is Islamizing rapidly. A lot of European cities have enormous Islamic concentrations. Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Berlin are just a few examples. In some parts of these cities, Islamic regulations are already being enforced. Women's rights are being destroyed. Burqa's, headscarves, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honour-killings. Women have to go to separate swimming-classes, don't get a handshake. In many European cities there is already apartheid. Jews, in an increasing number, are leaving Europe.

As you undoubtedly all know, better then I do, also in your country the mass immigration and islamization has rapidly increased. This has put an enormous pressure on your British society. Look what is happening in for example Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford and here in London. British politicians who have forgotten about Winston Churchill have now taken the path of least resistance. They have given up. They have given in.

Last year, my party has requested the Dutch government to make a cost-benefit analysis of the mass immigration. But the government refused to give us an answer. Why? Because it is afraid of the truth. The signs are not good. A Dutch weekly magazine - Elsevier - calculated costs to exceed 200 billion Euros. Last year alone, they came with an amount of 13 billion Euros. More calculations have been made in Europe: According to the Danish national bank, every Danish immigrant from an Islamic country is costing the Danish state more than 300 thousand Euros. You see the same in Norway and France. The conclusion that can be drawn from this: Europe is getting more impoverished by the day. More impoverished thanks to mass immigration. More impoverished thanks to demographics. And the leftists are thrilled.

I don't know whether it is true, but in several British newspapers I read that Labour opened the door to mass immigration in a deliberate policy to change the social structures of the UK. Andrew Neather, a former government advisor and speech writer for Tony Blair and Jack Straw, said the aim of Labour's immigration strategy was, and I quote, to "rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date". If this is true, this is symptomatic of the Left.

Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake: The left is facilitating islamization. Leftists, liberals, are cheering for every new shariah bank being created, for every new shariah mortgage, for every new islamic school, for every new shariah court. Leftists consider Islam as being equal to our own culture. Shariah law or democracy? Islam or freedom? It doesn't really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire leftist elite is guilty of practising cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties.

Why I ask myself, why have the Leftists and liberals stopped to fight for them? Once the Leftists stood on the barricades for women's rights. But where are they today? Where are they in 2010? They are looking the other way. Because they are addicted to cultural relativism and dependent on the Muslim vote. They are dependent on mass-immigration.

Thank heavens Jacqui Smith isn't in office anymore. It was a victory for free speech that a UK judge brushed aside her decision to refuse me entry to your country last year. I hope that the judges in my home country are at least as wise and will acquit me of all charges, later this year in the Netherlands.

Unfortunately, so far they have not done so well. For they do not want to hear the truth about Islam, nor are they interested to hear the opinion of top class legal experts in the field of freedom of expression. Last month in a preliminary session the Court refused fifteen of the eighteen expert-witnesses I had requested to be summoned.

Only three expert witnesses are allowed to be heard. Fortunately, my dear friend and heroic American psychiatrist dr. Wafa Sultan is one of them. But their testimony will be heard behind closed doors. Apparently the truth about Islam must not be told in public, the truth about Islam must remain secret.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm being prosecuted for my political beliefs. We know political prosecution to exist in countries in the Middle East, like Iran and Saudi-Arabia, but never in Europe, never in the Netherlands.

I'm being prosecuted for comparing the Quran to 'Mein Kampf'. Ridiculous. I wonder if Britain will ever put the beliefs of Winston Churchill on trial... Ladies and gentlemen, the political trial that is held against me has to stop.

But it is not all about me, not about Geert Wilders. Free speech is under attack. Let me give you a few other examples. As you perhaps know, one of my heroes, the Italian author Oriana Fallaci had to live in fear of extradition to Switzerland because of her anti-Islam book 'The Rage and the Pride'. The Dutch cartoonist Nekschot was arrested in his home in Amsterdam by 10 police men because of his anti-Islam drawings. Here in Britain, the American author Rachel Ehrenfeld was sued by a Saudi businessman for defamation. In the Netherlands Ayaan Hirsi Ali and in Australia two Christian pastors were sued. I could go on and on. Ladies and gentlemen, all throughout the West freedom loving people are facing this ongoing 'legal jihad'. This is Islamic 'lawfare'. And, ladies and gentlemen, not long ago the Danish cartoonist Westergaard was almost assassinated for his cartoons.

Ladies and gentlemen, we should defend the right to freedom of speech. With all our strength. With all our might. Free speech is the most important of our many liberties. Free speech is the cornerstone of our modern societies. Freedom of speech is the breath of our democracy, without freedom of speech our way of life our freedom will be gone.

I believe it is our obligation to preserve the inheritance of the brave young soldiers that stormed the beaches of Normandy. That liberated Europe from tyranny. These heroes cannot have died for nothing. It is our obligation to defend freedom of speech. As George Orwell said: "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear".

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe in another policy, it is time for change. We must make haste. We can't wait any longer. Time is running out. If I may quote one of my favourite American presidents: Ronald Reagan once said: "We need to act today, to preserve tomorrow". That is why I propose the following measures, I only mention a few, in order to preserve our freedom:

First, we will have to defend freedom of speech. It is the most important of our liberties. In Europe and certainly in the Netherlands, we need something like the American First Amendment.

Second, we will have to end and get rid of cultural relativism. To the cultural relativists, the shariah socialists, I proudly say: Our Western culture is far superior to the Islamic culture. Don't be affraid to say it. You are not a racist when you say that our own culture is better.

Third, we will have to stop mass immigration from Islamic countries. Because more Islam means less freedom.

Fourth, we will have to expel criminal immigrants and, following denaturalisation, we will have to expel criminals with a dual nationality. And there are many of them in my country.

Fifth, we will have to forbid the construction of new mosques. There is enough Islam in Europe. Especially since Christians in Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia are mistreated, there should be a mosque building-stop in the West.

And last but not least, we will have to get rid of all those so-called leaders. I said it before: Fewer Chamberlains, more Churchills. Let's elect real leaders.

Ladies and gentlemen. To the previous generation, that of my parents, the word 'London' is synonymous with hope and freedom. When my country was occupied by the national-socialists the BBC offered a daily glimpse of hope in my country, in the darkness of Nazi tyranny. Millions of my fellow country men listened to it, underground. The words 'This is London' were a symbol for a better world coming soon.

What will be broadcasted forty years from now? Will it still be "This is London"? Or will it be "This is Londonistan"? Will it bring us hope? Or will it signal the values of Mecca and Medina? Will Britain offer submission or perseverance? Freedom or slavery? The choice is yours. And in the Netherlands the choice is ours.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will never apologize for being free. We will and should never give in. And, indeed, as one of your former leaders said: We will never surrender.

Freedom must prevail, and freedom will prevail.

Thank you very much.

And above, he debates Islam on Dutch TV (video thanks to Pamela). One wonders if, given the stifling politically correct straitjacket that is the British public debate, if the Lords will be able to recognize the truth of his message.

"Geert Wilders to show anti-Koran film in Lords," by David Charter for The Times, March 5 (thanks to Twostellas):

The Dutch anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders arrives in Britain today on the crest of an electoral triumph that could mean him entering government in a matter of months.

Mr Wilders's Freedom Party made big gains in Dutch local elections this week, widely regarded as a dress rehearsal for the national poll on June 9.

He has been invited to the House of Lords by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, the UKIP leader, to show his controversial film Fitna. This has already provoked widespread anger for its crude juxtaposition of extremist atrocities, such as beheadings and the 9/11 attacks, with verses from the Koran.

The Freedom Party, founded by Mr Wilders in 2005, won in the town of Almere, near Amsterdam, and came second in The Hague, the only two places in which it fielded a candidate out of 394 cities and towns, aiming for maximum impact with minimum campaigning.

Opinion polls show Mr Wilders vying for the national lead with the Christian Democrats, whose coalition Government collapsed last month after the Labour Party walked out in a row over keeping Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

"Today Almere and The Hague, tomorrow the whole of the Netherlands. This is our springboard for success in parliamentary elections," said Mr Wilders, who campaigned in Almere for a ban on the wearing of headscarves in public. "We are going to take the Netherlands back from the leftist elite that comforts criminals and supports Islamisation."...

No apology from me

Several years ago I was speaking somewhere and someone in the audience challenged me for having the notorious caricature of Muhammad with his bomb in his turban, above, on the sidebar of this website. He said that while he opposed the advancing jihad and Islamic supremacism, he wanted to conduct his opposition respectfully, and not do anything that offended Muslims gratuitously.

What he failed to realize, of course, was that Islamic supremacist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood use the claim that they are offended precisely in order to cow and intimidate people like him. They label offensive any honest analysis of how jihadists use the texts and teachings of Islam to recruit Muslims into waging war against unbelievers, so as to stifle such analyses. Once the West starts acquiescing to Muslim calls for censorship in the name of avoiding giving offense, it is enabling the effort to render it mute and defenseless in the face of the jihad.

Hence the cartoon above. I will never apologize for publishing it here. Freedom of speech is the only bulwark against tyranny.

"Danish paper apologises to Muslims in cartoon row," from USA Today, February 26 (thanks to Joseph):

Danish daily Politiken on Friday apologised to Muslims for possibly offending them by reproducing cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in 2008, but said it did not regret publishing the drawings.

"We apologise to anyone who was offended by our decision to reprint the cartoon drawing," the newspaper said in a statement.

Politiken is the first Danish newspaper to formally apologise to those who may have resented the publication of the cartoons.

It published on Friday an agreement reached with eight organisations from Australia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian territories representing 94,923 descendants of the Muslim prophet.

What kind of agreement? What was agreed upon?

In the agreement Politiken said it regretted if it had insulted Muslims' faith, but that it did not regret publishing the drawings and that it did not renounce the right to publish the controversial drawings again.

The newspaper's editor-in-chief, Toeger Seindenfaden, said he was happy with the outcome.

"We deplore that Muslims were offended even if that was not our intention," he told AFP.

Friday's agreement emerged from an August 28 request made by a Saudi lawyer, Faisal Ahmed Zaki Yamani, to 11 Danish newspapers.

He had asked the newspapers to apologise, promise they would not republish the drawings, and remove the controversial cartoons from their websites.

Politiken's apology was widely condemned by Danish politicians, who charged that the paper had caved in to pressure and had sacrificed freedom of expression, which is considered a cornerstone of Danish democracy.

A number of other Danish newspapers also condemned the apology, but said they would not republish the cartoons.

Jyllands-Posten, which first published the 12 caricatures of Mohammed in September 2005, blasted Politiken's decision.

"It's a sad day for Danish media, it's sad for freedom of expression and it's sad for Politiken," Jyllands-Posten chief editor Joern Mikkelsen wrote....

Indeed.

Yes, but we're just claiming that there is any chill on free speech because of Islamic jihadist intolerance. "Anti-Islam book launch cancelled," from Radio Netherlands, February 16 (thanks to George):

A conference centre in The Hague has cancelled the launch of a book criticising Islam. The book launch was scheduled for Thursday at The World Forum, but was cancelled because the director of the venue does not believe he can guarantee the safety of his guests.

The book in question is Islamofobie? (Islamophobia?), written by Islam critic and PVV supporter Frans Groenendijk. The PVV, or Freedom Party is an anti-Islamic opposition party led by Geert Wilders.

Green Left party member Tofik Dibi, who was to receive the first book at the launch, says he regrets that the conference centre acted out of fear. The venue says it has not received any threats.

All right. And I do not think this event should have been canceled. It should have been guarded, and all the journalists in the country, if there are any real ones, should have written about the importance of defending free speech. But does anyone actually think that because they had not received any threats, that the organizers of this book launch acted precipitously? Of course their event was under a threat, even if not articulated in this instance. There are ample precedents.

Islamic Supremacist Chutzpah Alert: CAIR, the thuggish enemy of the freedom of speech, claims the freedom of speech as a defense for the Muslim thugs who disrupted a talk at UC-Irvine by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.

The freedom of speech is the freedom to state one's point of view without fear of government reprisal. The freedom of speech is not the freedom to bully, intimidate, shout someone down. These "students" could have asked Oren questions during the question period if they had wanted to exercise their freedom of speech, or staged their own event. All they really wanted to do was keep him from exercising his freedom of speech.

And parenthetically, the schoolmarmish professor who cries "Shame on you!" to these thugs is simply embarrassing. He doesn't even realize that these Islamic supremacists cannot be shamed by him. He doesn't even realize that they aren't even playing the game he thinks they're playing, and they certainly aren't playing the game he himself is playing.

"Islamic group defends student protest: District attorney should drop charges against 11 students because the incident took place on campus, says CAIR," by Tom Ragan for the Daily Pilot, February 16 (thanks to Twostellas):

A pro-Islamic group is urging UC Irvine to drop disciplinary actions against a group of students who were arrested after protesting the Israeli ambassador's presence on campus by intermittently interrupting him during a speech last week.

In all, 11 students, many of whom yelled and screamed in protest, were detained and cited by campus police for causing a ruckus during Ambassador Michael Oren's speech. Their tones at times reached fever pitch, according to scenes from the event that were captured in a video posted on YouTube.

Oren was trying to speak about diplomatic relations between Israel and the United States, but was interrupted so often that he had a hard time delivering his message, UCI officials said.

The matter has been forwarded to the Orange County district attorney for possible criminal prosecution, but a decision won't be made until later this week because the office has not yet received the complaint, said Susan Schroeder, spokeswoman for the D.A.'s office.

But the D.A.'s office should drop the charges because the incident occurred on campus, said the Anaheim office of a pro-Islamic group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

"We feel this is a campus event. It was noncriminal, nonviolent and nonthreatening," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR's Greater Los Angeles Area office. "Off-campus police should not be involved in such matters. The D.A.'s office shouldn't be involved in such matters. It was just a bunch of students who spoke out at a student event."

If the campus decides to pursue disciplinary action, then it would only be perceived as "selective enforcement," Ayloush said, adding that the campus probably does not want to be viewed in such a light.

"We strongly see the protest as a matter of free speech, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees," he said. "Students complain all the time, they interrupt all the time, or they boo people all the time. This is nothing new. People have yelled to me, 'Go home, you terrorist,' and I take it. I don't complain."...

Liar!

Rushdie didn't make them up

Most people associate Valentine's Day with romance, but for Salman Rushdie, I expect it has vastly different associations. On February 14, 1989, Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie for writing his book The Satanic Verses -- and this death sentence has been perpetually reaffirmed by Iranian leaders, though no assassin has yet carried it out.

It was the first salvo in what has become an all-out Islamic war against the freedom of speech.

Rushdie did not invent the "Satanic verses." The term actually refers to an incident, recorded in Islamic tradition and referred to in Sura 53, in which Satan, not Allah, spoke through Muhammad's mouth. The verses that the devil gave to the Prophet of Islam have been known thereafter as "the Satanic verses."

Of course, Obama has already shown that the OIC's war against free speech doesn't particularly bother him. "Obama Names Envoy to Islamic Group," from Reuters, February 13:

DOHA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Saturday he was naming a special envoy to a top Islamic body to further Washington's cooperation with the Muslim world.

Obama told a U.S.-Islamic World Forum in the Qatari capital Doha in a recorded video message that he was naming White House official Rashad Hussain as special envoy to the 56-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

"As an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff, Rashad has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo," Obama said....

"Since then, my administration has made a sustained effort to listen. We've held thousands of events and town halls ...in the United States and around the world ... And I look forward to continuing the dialogue during my visit to Indonesia next month," Obama said.

Obama told Muslims in his June 4 speech in Cairo that violent extremists had exploited tensions between Muslims and the West and that Islam was not part of the problem.

His speech was welcomed by many Muslims, though some said they wanted him to spell out specific actions to resolve long-running problems like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"And as a hafiz of the Koran, (Hussain) is a respected member of the American Muslim community, and I thank him for carrying forward this important work," Obama said in his message to the Doha meeting, using the term for someone who has mastered and memorised the Muslim holy book....

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) is a premier stealth jihad group in the United States today. Federal prosecutors in 2008 rejected claims that ISNA was unfairly named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas terror funding case.

ISNA has admitted ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood is waging, in its own words, "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

And now this thuggish, deceptive, unsavory group is, like so many Islamic groups in the West today, warring against the freedom of speech and trying to impose Sharia speech restrictions upon Infidels. ISNA is putting pressure on the Dallas Morning News, inundating the editor with emails attacking reporter Brooks Egerton, because of Egerton's article about ISNA's Louay Safi.

Ironically, Egerton's article doesn't even mention Louay Safi's approval of execution for apostates, as detailed in his book Peace and the Limits of War. The Dallas Morning News, if it had just wanted to make Safi look bad, could have done a much better job simply by quoting his own words.

Here's what the ISNA website says:

Action Requested

The negative article by Brooks Egerton was published on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Dallas Morning News. ISNA appeals to members of the Muslim community in general, and the Texas Muslim community in particular, to let the newspaper know about their feelings regarding this negative presentation. Please make sure that you speak respectfully but firmly on this issue.

Please contact Ms. Maud Beelman, the DMN News Editor, and Brooks Egerton, the article writer, at the Dallas Morning News and request that the newspaper issue a retraction and allow ISNA to publish rebuttal on the DMN op-ed page.
Maud Beelman, The DMN News Editor
Mbeelman@dallasnews.com
214-977-8456
Brooks Egerton, staff writer
begerton@dallasnews.com
214-977-7622

Note that ISNA, even when speaking to its own constituency, doesn't say the report is inaccurate -- just that it was a "negative presentation." Well, Louay, sometimes the truth hurts.

Please write to the same email addresses that ISNA published, expressing your gratitude for Egerton's accurate article and politely urging the Dallas Morning News not to apologize, retract, or bow to Islamic supremacist intimidation.

"It was a test for Norwegian society - whether this would be a peaceful protest or not." All right. But it is also an ongoing test as to whether or not the freedom of speech will survive in Norway and the West in general. And the jury is still out on that.

"2,500 protest Muhammad cartoon in Norway," from The Associated Press, February 12 (thanks to James):

OSLO -- About 2,500 people marched through downtown Oslo in a protest Friday against a Norwegian newspaper that printed a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.

The demonstrators chanted "God is great" in Arabic and waved placards calling for a boycott of the Dagbladet daily.

On Feb. 3, the newspaper published a photograph showing a man in front of a computer screen with a depiction of Muhammad as a pig. The picture accompanied an article that said users were posting offensive material about Muslims and Jews on the Facebook page of Norway's security police.

Dagbladet's acting editor-in-chief, Lars Helle, told The Associated Press that he doesn't regret printing the offending image and that he welcomed Friday's protest.

"It was a test for Norwegian society - whether this would be a peaceful protest or not," Helle said....

"We have done nothing to anybody. We want to live here in peace. Norway is our home. Our children live here. Why should they (Norwegian media) hurt us like this?" said Naradim Muhammad, a 43-year-old school teacher who helped organize the demonstration.

The demonstration was peaceful, except for a firecracker that was apparently thrown by a protester onto a restaurant patio. It caused burn damage to a patio sofa, but nobody was injured. After the blast, organizers ordered the crowd to disperse, encouraging them to go home or to a local mosque to pray.

Police spokesman Joern-Kristian Joergensen said the protest concluded without further incident. However, Oslo police, who maintained a low profile during the demonstration to avoid confrontation, would remain on alert throughout the evening, he said....

Oxford demonstration from Jewish Chronicle on Vimeo.
Oxford Union: Muslim thug shouts "slaughter the Jews" at talk by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon

How long is Islamic antisemitism going to stand unchallenged? The self-righteous anger of these student protesters is baseless -- the Palestinians are the ones with the imperative to genocide, and the targeting of civilians. And yet even the people who challenge them in these clips seem weak, schoolmarmish, and scolding, instead of telling them straight out that they have no case, that it is known that they have no case, and that their thuggish attempts to silence and intimidate dissenting voices is intolerable. Intolerable not just as an empty word -- it should be made clear by how these students are now dealt with that their behavior was intolerable in fact. Some of these students were arrested. They should all be expelled, and admitted to no other university. Behavior like this has no place -- especially in a university -- and should not be allowed to stand.

Details here and here.

See also here: the thugs who disrupted Oren's speech were members of the UC-Irvine Muslim Students Union, a Muslim Brotherhood group.

How Islamic supremacist groups like CAIR and others use the courts to intimidate and silence those who dare to speak the truth about the Islamic jihad. "The chilling effect of 'lawfare' litigation," by Alan Dershowitz and Elizabeth Samson in The Guardian, February 9:

[...] American courts are being utilised by radical Islamic groups to stifle writers through "lawfare" - the use of law as a weapon of warfare - a tactic that has had a "chilling effect" on free speech. In contrast to the British laws, American libel law favours defendants. However, plaintiffs in the US have learned to sue their critics for defamation, not with the intent to win the case, but with the hope of imposing an unaffordably high cost on criticism of their actions.

A recent case is most instructive: the American Civil Liberties Union sued the government-funded Tarek ibn Ziyad academy for allegedly promoting Islam - a violation of church-state separation. TIZA counter-sued for libel over the ACLU's statement that it is a "theocratic school". On 9 December 2009 the court dismissed TIZA's counterclaim because, as a public school, it is required to show that the ACLU's statement was false and that it was also made with actual malice or a reckless disregard for the truth, which it was unable to do.

How, in TIZA's estimation, would a libel lawsuit against the ACLU - one of the strongest defenders of Muslim civil liberties in the wake of 9/11 - have had any chance of succeeding? The fact is that this case is part of a pattern of defamation lawsuits brought to silence critics of controversial Islamic organisations due to increased scrutiny post-9/11. The strategy, which has included actions such as libel tourism in the UK, often works.

Though most defamation claims are deemed baseless by US courts, the enormous cost a lawsuit imposes and the smear of bigotry it achieves has stifled legitimate discussion of some suspect behaviour. Litigation - and the threat of litigation - has prevented concerned citizens from speaking freely and stopped the publication of important information.

In 2003, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the southern California office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, sued the National Review for publishing an allegedly defamatory statement relating to a CAIR-sponsored event. Though NR retracted the statement, Ayloush pursued the suit, aiming, in NR's view, to intimidate and punish the magazine. The court threw out the case for lack of merit, but NR still paid more than $50,000 in legal fees.

That is a fraction of what a libel defence can cost. In 2005, the Islamic Society of Boston sued the Boston Herald and nearly a dozen others for defamation. The ISB was building New England's largest Islamic centre and the defendants were raising legitimate questions about the ISB's connections to terrorist financing and hate speech. Though the ISB dropped the lawsuit - just weeks before some of their leaders were to give sworn testimony - the defendants incurred close to $2m in legal costs.

The ISB lawsuit had even more damaging consequences. Howie Carr, a columnist for the Boston Herald, said he "know[s] the ISB lawsuit has had a chilling effect on journalists in Boston". An analysis of the articles printed in the Herald from summer 2003 to winter 2007 supports Carr's statement. Between summer 2003 and winter 2005, the Herald published 19 articles mentioning the ISB's alleged connection with radical Islamic groups. After the lawsuit began in 2005 until winter 2007, the paper whitewashed its reporting and no longer mentioned radicalism in the 20 articles that covered the ISB's activities during that period.

Before 2001, there were five documented defamation cases relating to radical Islamic groups. After 2001, that number rose sharply. Though roughly 20 cases have been identified, the extent of the problem is difficult to determine since these cases are typically settled out of court. Often, the plaintiffs have substantial resources and the defendants cannot afford the legal costs....

Read it all.

In Human Events this morning I revisit the Wilders free speech death watch, showing that Geert Wilders has about as much chance of getting a fair trial as did Nikolai Bukharin:

During his State of the Union address, Barack Obama criticized the Supreme Court for overturning major portions of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act. But the Supreme Court was upholding the freedom of speech: when the high court struck down key McCain-Feingold provisions last month, its ruling declared that "if the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."

This was a key victory for defenders of the First Amendment. But now, from the Netherlands, comes a threat to the freedom of speech that is much more serious and destructive than anything John McCain and Russ Feingold ever contemplated: the trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

Wilders, the Dutch Parliamentarian who produced the film Fitna, went on trial January 20 for charges including having "intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion." Fitna is a film which compellingly links images of terrorist attacks with passages from the Koran which incite Muslims to jihad.

The idea that intentionally offending someone is a criminal offense should be a matter for Kafka or comic opera, but such is the advance of multiculturalism in the Netherlands today, and the rest of Europe is not all that far behind. The real purpose of the Wilders trial is twofold: first, the Dutch political establishment hopes to use it to stop the meteoric rise of the upstart Wilders, who challenges so many of the core assumptions upon which current Dutch and European Union policy are based. And since one of those policies is unrestricted immigration from Muslim countries, they hope to discredit Wilders's work in exposing how Islamic jihadists use violent passages of the Koran to justify violence and supremacism.

There's only one problem with this scenario: Islamic jihadists really do use the Koran to justify violence and supremacism, and as I show in my book The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, there is plenty in the Muslim holy book that they can use in this way. The multiculturalist Dutch authorities have a pliant media on their side, and they have much more money and much more political clout than Wilders could even dream of having. Yet for all their power, they cannot engage Wilders in honest debate and prove him wrong -- and so in order to silence him they have to resort to the legal thuggery of this show trial.

And a show trial is exactly what it is. This became clear last week, when the Amsterdam District Court disallowed fifteen of the eighteen witnesses Wilders had hoped to bring forward in his defense. "This Court is not interested in the truth," Wilders commented on the decision. "This Court doesn't want me to have a fair trial."

I was among the fifteen disallowed witnesses. Much more important was that Wilders was not allowed to call Mohammed Bouyeri, who murdered filmmaker Theo Van Gogh on an Amsterdam street on November 2, 2004 in revenge for Van Gogh's film Submission, which criticized the oppression of Muslim women....

Read it all.

In the lead story in FrontPage this morning I discuss how Geert Wilders is being denied a fair trial -- although of course the very fact that he is on trial at all indicates that it is not a fair trial.

The Stalinist-show-trial aspect of the Geert Wilders "hate speech" trial in the Netherlands was thrown into sharp relief last week when the Amsterdam District Court refused to allow Wilders to call fifteen of the eighteen witnesses he had hoped to bring forward in his defense. Wilders in response was characteristically direct: "This Court is not interested in the truth. This Court doesn't want me to have a fair trial. I can't have any respect for this. This Court would not be out of place in a dictatorship."

The three witnesses the court allowed Wilders are the Dutch Islamic scholars Hans Jansen and Simon Admiraal, along with the Wafa Sultan. Hans Jansen's work on Islam is superb and groundbreaking, and he will be an excellent witness, as will Admiraal and the exemplary freedom fighter Wafa Sultan.

Nonetheless, this decision indicates the hollowness of Dutch justice and the court's bias against Wilders. For some who would have been Wilders's most effective witnesses were disallowed. He had wanted to call Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of Theo Van Gogh.

Why Bouyeri? Wilders, in the bizarre inquisition that has replaced justice in the Dutch courts, is accused of offending Muslims by pointing out that Muslims invoke the Qur'an and Muhammad's example to justify violence. However, Bouyeri quoted the Qur'an in the note threatening Wilders and others that he stabbed into Van Gogh's body, and invoked the Qur'an repeatedly during his trial as well. "Kill them, and Allah will help you and guide your hand," he said. "There's no room there for doubt or interpretation there."...

Read it all.

Here is my entry in a National Review symposium today, "Western Civilization on Trial":

The Geert Wilders trial ought to be an international media event; seldom has any court case anywhere had such enormous implications for the future of the free world. The case against him, which has all the legitimacy of a Stalinist-era Moscow show trial, is a manifestation of the global assault on free speech sponsored chiefly at the U.N. by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). If Wilders loses, the freedom of speech will be threatened everywhere in the West.

Even if he wins, a dangerous precedent has been set by the fact of the trial itself: It is a sad day for the freedom of speech when a man can be put on trial for causing another man offense. If offending someone were really a crime warranting prosecution by the civil authorities, the legal system would be opened up to absurdities even greater than the Wilders trial.

But of course what Dutch authorities, Muslim groups in the Netherlands, and the OIC really want to accomplish is to silence Wilders's truth-telling about jihad and Islamic supremacism. The court's railroading of Wilders was clear from that fact that 15 of his 18 requested witnesses were disallowed, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the Koran-inspired murderer of Theo Van Gogh who would have proven Wilders's point immediately. As Wilders himself put it Wednesday: "This court is not interested in the truth. This court doesn't want me to have a fair trial." The darkness descending over Europe, as indicated by this trial, may ensure that there is no fair trial there again for a long, long time.

Other symposium participants include Bat Ye'or, Paul Marshall, Clifford D. May, Daniel Pipes, and Nina Shea. Read it all.

There is no indication in this article about what Morris actually said that was so offensive, or whether or not it was true. Actually, it probably was true: as in the Wilders trial, as Pat Condell has said, "Fear of free speech is the symptom of a profoundly neurotic and dishonest society." The jihadist thugs and their Leftist dupes only try to silence people who speak truths they would rather not be known.

Free Speech Death Watch Alert: "Benny Morris talk stirs uproar at Cambridge," by Jonny Paul in the Jerusalem Post, February 7 (thanks to all who sent this in):

LONDON - The Israel Society at Cambridge University has succumbed to pressure and canceled a talk by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev historian Benny Morris after protesters accused him of "Islamophobia" and "racism."

Morris was scheduled to speak to students at the university on Thursday, but following a campaign led by anti-Israel activist Ben White the Israel Society canceled the talk. Instead Morris was invited to speak at an event hosted by the university's Department of Political and International Studies.

White, who graduated from the university in 2005 and authored the book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginners Guide, set up a protest page on Facebook in which he claimed that "on different occasions, Morris has expressed Islamophobic and racist sentiments towards Arabs and Muslims."

He added: "We find it offensive and appalling that an official student society would want to invite such an individual."

Following the Facebook protest, a letter was sent to the student union by the university's Islamic Society, other students and two staff members from the English Department asking it to take a stand and show it is serious "in opposing bigotry and Islamophobia." The 15 signatories said Morris's views were "abhorrent and offensive.

"The issue is hate speech, and the impact of a visit by this individual on the campus' atmosphere for the student body's minority groups... His visit is insulting, threatening to Arab and Muslim students in particular and also goes against the spirit of the student union's stated anti-Islamophobia policy," the letter read.

Last year, Cambridge's Palestine Society hosted Abd al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper. In 2008, Atwan said the terrorist attack on Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav yeshiva, in which eight students were killed and 15 were wounded, was "justified" as the school was responsible for "hatching Israeli extremists and fundamentalists." [...]

Jake Witzenfeld, president of Cambridge University's Israel Society, canceled the Morris talk, apologizing for any "unintended offense."

"I decided to cancel for fear of the Israel Society being portrayed as a mouthpiece of Islamophobia," he said. "We understand that whilst Professor Benny Morris' contribution to history is highly respectable and significant, his personal views are, regrettably, deeply offensive to many."...

A Muslim group accused of publishing anti-Semitic material congratulated the Islamic Society for the cancelation [sic] of Morris's talk.

"Muslim Public Affairs Committee congratulated Cambridge's Islam Society on the success of their campaign and lobbying to stop the Islamophobe Benny Morris giving a speech at their university... A simple Facebook group and a well written letter is all that it takes to defend your religion," the group said.

The 2006 All-Party Parliamentary Report into Anti-Semitism alleged that the anti-Israel Muslim Public Affairs Committee has used material from Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi publications, uses the word "Zionist" as a replacement for "Jew" and engages in the spread of conspiracy theories about Jews. In 2006, it was discovered that MPAC founder Asghar Bukhari make a donation to convicted Holocaust denier David Irving....

A stupendous video from Pat Condell on the Wilders trial -- Dutch authorities have put Wilders is on trial "for the crime of embarrassing them with the truth."

"When the truth is against the law, there is something seriously wrong with the law."

Indonesia's blasphemy law is a case study in why such laws against insulting or defaming religions, as championed by the likes of the OIC, should be flatly rejected in the West.

On the surface, they may sound well-intended and even-handed: indeed, wouldn't the world be a swell place if everybody would just be nice? But, as always, the devil is in the details. One complication arises from the fact that blasphemy laws protect ideas, not people. How, exactly, can an idea suffer hurt feelings? Also, these laws become weapons in the hands of those who are in a position to leverage their having been "offended" to their benefit. Accordingly, such laws become a tool by which to suppress political dissent and free expression -- just ask Geert Wilders.

"Jakarta, the Constitutional Court will consider amendments to the blasphemy law," by Mathias Hariyadi for Asia News, February 5:

Jakarta (AsiaNews) - In the coming days, the Indonesian Constitutional Court will consider whether to include amendments to the law on blasphemy. The debate has already raised controversy among those who want to maintain the text and human rights activists representing various NGOs, who are demanding changes to ensure "full religious freedom." Even the moderate Muslim organizations have deployed in defence of the legislation, to preserve the precepts of faith - they explain - from "deviant interpretations."

In Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation in the world, only five religions are officially recognized: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Only in 2001 Confucianismwas added, after the battle brought by the former president - who died on December 30 - Adburrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid.

The blasphemy law, in particular, prohibits anyone from expressing - publicly and deliberately - feelings of hostility, hatred and contempt for religions. The sentences in cases of violation provide for up to five years in prison. It is used primarily to target the minority that do not comply with Islamic orthodoxy, including the Ahmadiyya sect, and labels the faithful of other not recognized religions as "heretics."

Human rights activists are seeking amendments to the law which they consider "discriminatory" and "contrary to the democratic spirit" of a country that - as under the Constitution of 1945 - protects religious freedom and equal rights for all citizens. Several members of peace and human rights organizations define the blasphemy law of 1965 as a serious obstacle to freedom of worship and the pluralistic spirit of the nation. That is why in November 2009, the advocacy group Alliance for Freedom of Religion, supported by NGOs and activists for Interreligious Dialogue, has filed a formal request to the Constitutional Court asking for the norm to be amended.

However, the initiative is opposed by activists of the fundamentalist fringe in Indonesia and organizations that promote a usually moderate vision Islam, such as the Muhammadiyah and the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). In a meeting with students in Jakarta, Kiai Hasyim Muzadi Hajj, president of Nu made clear he opposes "any initiative to amend the current law." He adds that it is necessary to "make a division between democracy and moral deviation". Last week, Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin, stressed that a change could "incite social disorder."

Suryadharma Ali, Minister for Religious Affairs, recalls that the law ensures social harmony among different (recognized) faiths in the country and stated: "Islam is open to various interpretations, but you can not touch the fundamental points of faith and doctrine. " A reference, not too implicit, to those which are branded as "deviant interpretations" promoted by some "heretical" sects such as the Ahmadis.

Douglas Murray points out some of the many, many absurdities of the Wilders free speech trial in the Netherlands. "The trial of Geert Wilders: why we won't be hearing about camel urine," by Douglas Murray in the Telegraph, February 4 (thanks to Pamela):

[...] When the trial opened a fortnight ago, Wilders asked for a rather sparky list of 18 expert witnesses. They included some noted experts on Islam and social cohesion. And also a few, ahem, practitioners of the same. They were to include Mohammed Bouyeri, who shot, stabbed and partly beheaded the film-maker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam in 2004. And also Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the jihadist cleric who was given the red-carpet treatment in London by former mayor Ken Livingstone a few years back.

Sadly the Dutch court haven't allowed these witnesses or most of the others, leaving the defence with only three witnesses. They are expert Simon Admiraal and leading Dutch scholar Hans Jansen (author of numerous scholarly books and the hilariously titled recent Islam for Pigs, Donkeys, Monkeys and Other Beasts). Most interestingly the court has allowed Wilders to call as an expert witness the brave and eloquent Wafa Sultan.

Sultan made her name - and garnered her first fatwas - for a blinding hit-the-ball-out-of-the-stadium interview on Al Jazeera a few years ago viewable here. It caused terrible convulsions across the Muslim world, and also apparently in Sheikh al-Qaradawi who described her home-truths session as consisting of "unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end."

I much look forward to seeing Wafa Sultan take the stand. Though I slightly pity the prosecution for having to attempt to cross-examine her.

But I can't help feeling disappointed that Qaradawi won't be appearing. Although he believes talking about the contents of the Koran is "unbearable, ghastly and makes his hair stand on end", I have always thought it interesting that he doesn't find at all hair-raising - in fact he has even been quoted on his own website as defending - certain forms of female circumcision....

Geert Wilders reacts to the Amsterdam's District Court's disallowing of all but three of his witnesses. "Reaction to the decision in the pre-trial review," from his new Geert Wilders Trial website, February 3:

Geert Wilders: No fair trial

The Amsterdam District Court apparently doesn't want to hear the truth about Islam. Nor is it interested to hear the opinion of top class legal experts in the field of freedom of expression. In one swift move, the Court brushed aside fifteen of the eighteen expert-witnesses the defence had requested to be summoned.

Only Hans Jansen, Simon Admiraal and Wafa Sultan were allowed to be heard as expert-witnesses. Their testimony will be heard in a session behind closed doors. Apparently the truth about Islam must remain a secret.

Geert Wilders: "This Court is not interested in the truth. This Court doesn't want me to have a fair trial. I can't have any respect for this. This Court would not be out of place in a dictatorship".

The Court also brushed aside the preliminary objections concerning its jurisdiction and the admissibility of the Public Prosecutor.

Nevertheless, Geert Wilders remains extremely motivated to seek justice: "I'm still counting on an acquittal".

This is a canny move, since Mohammed Bouyeri cited the Qur'an to justify his murder of Theo Van Gogh. How, then, can Geert Wilders be guilty of "hate speech" simply for pointing out that the words of the Qur'an have incited Muslims to commit acts of violence against unbelievers?

"Dutch Critic of Islam Wants Extremist Killer to Testify at His Trial," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, February 3:

(CNSNews.com) - As the trial of Dutch anti-Islamist lawmaker Geert Wilders resumes Wednesday, the crucial question will be whether the court agrees to his request to have a Muslim extremist and convicted murderer testify.

Wilders, who faces charges of discrimination and incitement to hatred over his claims linking the Koran to violence, wants the court to hear from an extremist who cited the Islamic text to justify his crime.

Mohammed Bouyeri is serving a life sentence for murdering Dutch film director Theo van Gogh, who had stoked controversy with a documentary about the treatment of women under Islam.

Van Gogh was stabbed and shot to death on a street in Amsterdam street in 2004. In a note left pinned to his body with a knife, Bouyeri threatened to kill another person reviled by extremist Muslims in Europe - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who worked with Van Gogh on his film.

The lengthy note, which also warned that America, Europe and the Netherlands would be destroyed, included numerous references to the Koran.

Bouyeri, a Dutchman of Moroccan origin, had earlier penned another open letter posted on a Dutch Web site, again quoting from the Koran, threatening Wilders this time and declaring, "May Allah destroy you."

During his 2005 trial, Bouyeri carried a copy of the Koran, told the court he had acted purely in the name of his religion, and displayed no regret for the murder.

By calling Bouyeri as a defense witness, Wilders aims to bolster his case that as extremist Muslims themselves use the Koran to justify their violent actions, he should not be prosecuted for essentially telling the truth.

Bouyeri is one of more than a dozen witnesses Wilders wants to call upon during his trial. Others include experts on Islam and legal scholars.[...]

A year ago an appeals court in Amsterdam instructed prosecutors to indict Wilders, who leads the Freedom Party, for "inciting hatred and discrimination."

The charges relate not just to Wilders' film but, in the words of the three-judge panel's ruling, to "comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs."

"The court also considers appropriate criminal prosecution for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by Wilders," the judges stated.

In 2007, Wilders wrote an open letter, published in a Dutch newspaper, in which he called the Koran a "fascist" text that should be outlawed in the Netherlands, in the same way as Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf is banned.

About that, see here.

If convicted, Wilders faces up to16 months in prison or a fine of about $14,000.

Unconscionable.

An announcement from the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV):

Dutch politician Geert Wilders launches websites on political trial

Wednesday February 3rd 2010 Dutch politician Geert Wilders launches two websites on the political trial against him and the freedom of speech. From now on both the Dutch (www.wildersproces.nl) and the international public (www.wildersontrial.com) are able to keep up with the trials' proceedings.

Both websites not only include the latest news on the trial but also provide background information on the trials' participants, the summons, the cause and the importance of this trial for freedom of speech in the Netherlands and -possibly- for the whole of Europe.

Geert Wilders: "This trial is not just about me. It is about the future of freedom of speech in the Netherlands. The outcome of this trial affects the freedom of all Dutch citizens. With these websites, I want to make it possible for people to follow the latest developments concerning the trial."

Links to both websites:

· www.wildersontrial.com (International version)

· www.wildersproces.nl (Dutch version)

What the West Needs to Understand About Islam
by Arslan Shaukat

How unfortunate it is that whenever someone attempts to show the facts of true Muhammadan Islam in unflattering manner in a public forum, he risks being tortured or killed by pious Muslims, even in the West. Alas!

The Muslim Ummah is utterly intolerant to criticisms of the Quran, Prophet Muhammad and Islam. Nonetheless, there are individuals who are brave enough to face the challenge of exercising their freedom of speech, their freedom of expression. Ibn Warraq, Ayan Hisri Ali, Wafa Sultan and Maryam Namazie are some of the courageous individuals who have chosen not to indulge in appeasing Muslims and political correctness. They have chosen to speak the historical, factual truth about Muhammadan Islam. And, unsurprisingly, they have been living under constant danger to their lives.

Another brave individual is the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. He drew the cartoons of Muhammad that appeared in a Danish newspaper in 2006 that hurled the entire Muslim world into violent frenzy. They started demonstrations and demanded death of the cartoonists and their publishers. On January 2, 2010, a Somali man, armed with an axe and knife, entered Westergaard's house and tried to kill him.

This incident prompted me to write this article.

The reason for the attempted murder of Westergaard is his comical depiction of Muhammad, produced here.

He has drawn other depictions of Muhammad as well. It's interesting to note that although the illustration may appear somewhat derogatory toward Muhammad, but it does make an accurate point in artistic form, i.e. the blood-soaked and war-filled life of Muhammad. That is exactly what the bomb depicts. I personally believe that it's not inflammatory at all; it just makes a true representation of Muhammad in pictorial form.

This incident entails a number of issues within the context of western nations and within the context of a truly democratic set-up, which I will address in this article.

First: Why criticize Islam? And why should non-Muslims/atheists etc. indulge in such criticisms and 'inflammatory actions' when it's already given that Muslim world will react violently.

Second: What is the use of such 'transgressions,' i.e. what good will come out of it?

WHY ISLAM SHOULD BE CRITICIZED:

1. Firstly: Islam is an unproven and unsubstantiated religious dogma. Islam is a truth claim. It's a claim; nothing more. There is no logical reason whatsoever as to why a claim about the basis of existence and morality should not be questioned and analyzed. In fact, reason tells us that such a monumental claim that affects humanity in a big way should be critically analyzed vigorously.

My friend Douglas Murray has a great piece in the Telegraph on the Wilders case: "Geert Wilders: on trial for telling the truth," January 28:

[...] The Dutch courts charge that Wilders 'on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion'.

I'm sorry? Whoa there, just a minute. The man's on trial because he 'offended a group of people'? I get offended by all sorts of people. I get offended by very fat people. I get offended by very thick people. I get offended by very sensitive people. I get offended by the crazy car-crash of vowels in Dutch verbs. But I don't try to press charges.

Yet, crazily, this is exactly what is going on now in a Dutch courtroom. If found guilty of this Alice-in-Wonderland accusation of 'offending a group of people', Wilders faces up to two years in prison. [...]

Parts of Fitna - which is a compilation of documentary footage - are very disturbing. And very offensive indeed. The clips of Muslim clerics calling for the murder of infidels. Very offensive. The clips of Muslims holding banners saying 'God bless Hitler'. Very offensive. The clip of a three-year-old Muslim girl indoctrinated and brain-washed to describe Jews as 'Apes and Pigs'. Very offensive. The passage of the Koran, Surah 47, verse 4: 'Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers in fight, smite at their necks; At length, when ye have thoroughly subdued them, bind a bond firmly on them.' Very offensive.

Just to confirm - I find all these things very offensive. But Wilders didn't say them. He is being tried for pointing out the fact that some - in some cases many - Muslims do. If there are to be prosecutions they should be of the clerics and leaders who advocate this nightmarish version of Islam. But not of Wilders....

Wilders is also being tried for saying things which some Muslims deem to be rude about the Koran. Another dangerous precedent. Will the Dutch courts now come after Ricky Gervais for the rude things he says about the Bible in his show Animals (on sale in Holland)? Why the special laws for hurt Muslim feelings? Just wait till the others get on the band-wagon! There won't be room in the courts to prosecute the murderers and muggers. They'll be too full up with the religious. Dutch Calvinist pastors madly petitioning for the extradition of Billy Connolly....

Read it all.

Oriana Fallaci also compared the Qur'an to Mein Kampf, as I wrote about in a 2005 article. The Wilders case could backfire badly on the smooth Islamic supremacist thugs of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and their Dutch dhimmi puppets. They are hoping to silence criticism of Islam, and yet the trial could show the world the contents of the Qur'an that encourage violence and supremacism -- exactly the portions that they are trying so hard to cover up.

"Stop the Trial of Geert Wilders: A Dutch court is forced to compare Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' and the Quran," by Leon De Winter in the Wall Street Journal, January 26 (thanks to all who sent this in):

[...] More importantly, Mr. Wilders's prosecution may in the end inadvertently create a crisis between the Netherlands and the Islamic world. On trial is not so much Geert Wilders, but the Holy Book of Islam. On Jan. 20, the first day of the case, Mr. Wilders's defense team presented the court with a list of expert witnesses. It is indicative of his strategy. The expert witnesses, a group of internationally renowned academics on the one hand and, on the other, radical Islamists (among them Mohammed Bouyeri, the killer of Theo van Gogh, and the influential Iranian Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, an outspoken anti-Semite and religious mentor of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad), are requested to testify about the Quran's message and Mr. Wilders's comparison of the Quran to "Mein Kampf." As Mr. Wilders stated on the first and, so far only, session in court, if his statements about the Quran and "Mein Kampf" are correct, he cannot be convicted for telling the truth. So Mr. Wilders's defense team will concentrate on the extreme and violent paragraphs in the Quran, and compare them to paragraphs in "Mein Kampf."

The prosecution did not object to calling the witnesses for the purpose of shedding light on the Quran and "Mein Kampf" and only objected to the high number of witnesses named (17). The court will thus most likely allow most witnesses on the list to testify. Without doubt, there are many anti-Jewish remarks in the Quran. According to some researchers, there may be more of these in the Quran than in "Mein Kampf." So it is quite conceivable that the court will judge that Geert Wilders was within his right to compare the Quran to "Mein Kampf." Anything is possible in this absurd trial....

Sisters In Islam has published a good deal of valuable information about the plight of women under Sharia. And now they have won an important free speech case. The Dutch persecutors prosecutors of Geert Wilders should take note. "Malaysian Court Ends Ban on Book," by Liz Gooch in the New York Times, January 25 (thanks to Not Yet):

KUALA LUMPUR -- Free speech advocates were rejoicing Monday after a Malaysian court quashed a government ban on a book about the challenges facing Muslim women.

In a country where human rights organizations say that government censorship pervades many parts of public life, the decision was hailed as a victory for freedom of expression.

"We were hoping, we were praying that this would mark a good day for all Malaysians," said Professor Norani Othman, the editor of the banned book, "Muslim Women and the Challenges of Islamic Extremism," a collection of essays by international scholars. "It's a good day for academic freedom."

In July 2008, the Ministry of Home Affairs banned the book, published in 2005 by Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian nongovernmental organization, on the grounds that it was "prejudicial to public order" and that it could confuse Muslims, particularly Muslim women.

The Printing Presses and Publications Act states that anyone who prints, publishes or distributes a banned publication can be fined up to 20,000 ringgit, or $5,900, jailed for up to three years, or both. Anyone found in possession of a banned publication without lawful excuse can be fined up to 5,000 ringgit....

That's not saying anything about Geert Wilders, who is one of the heroes of our age. It is saying something about the rest of us. The incomparable Kathy Shaidle spoke at a rally for Geert Wilders in Toronto last night, and called on all of us to become Geert Wilders.

Precisely. Kudos. Excelsior.

English translation:

Mister Speaker, judges of the court,

I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes.

Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.

I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.

I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.

I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but I am not any more out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.

Future generations will wonder to themselves how we in 2010, in this place, in this room, earned our most precious attainment. Whether there is freedom in this debate for both parties and thus also for the critics of Islam, or that only one side of the discussion may be heard in the Netherlands? Whether freedom of speech in the Netherlands applies to everyone or only to a few? The answer to this is at once the answer to the question whether freedom still has a home in this country.

Freedom was never the property of a small group, but was always the heritage of us all. We are all blessed by it.

Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but she has splendid hearing. I hope that she hears the following sentences, loud and clear:

It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.

In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.

This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth. Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable? This is why I urge you to not only submit to my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of freedom of speech. But I ask you explicitly to honour my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of Islam. I refer not only to Mister Jansen and Mister Admiraal, but also to the witness/experts from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Without these witnesses, I cannot defend myself properly and, in my opinion, this would not be an fair trial.

A report on the Wilders trial from Evelyn Markus in the Netherlands (thanks to Pamela):

Geert wants to bring in 17 witnesses, from Holland, UK, Israel, and US, among them Wafa Sultan, Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom, Afshin Ellian, Arabist Hans Jansen, Sheikh Al-Qaradawi (who put a fatwa on Wafa), Mohammed Bouyeri (who killed Theo van Gogh) and imam Fawaz from Holland, who put a fatwa on Ayaan. The public prosecutors asked the judges to downsize the list and to skip Andrew Bostom, Mohammed Bouyeri and some others.

The public prosecutors only want to bring in Geert Wilders as their witness, to which Geert's lawyer objected. Geert wants to make a statement in court, but doesn't want to be interviewed by the public prosecutors. He has the right to keep silent when they interview him.

The session has just ended. At the end of the session the judges gave Geert the opportunity for closing remarks. Geert spoke from the bottom of his heart and passionately asked the court to defend freedom in the Netherlands. He also stated: if expressions reflect the truth, how could they be criminal? So I ask this court to allow me to bring all my witnesses, so I will have the chance to prove I speak the truth in my expressions [about Islam].

The judges will get back with their decision on the number of witnesses, the timetable and the exact location of the trial in a public session on February 3.

A large crowd gathered outside the courthouse to support Wilders:

This checklist is no parody

Geert Akbar

Check out the photo that Al-Jazeera chose to accompany its article on the Wilders trial here (thanks to Elias).

Could it be that maybe Wilders is not unjustified in sounding the alarm about the Islamization of Europe when Muslims demonstrate against him holding signs saying things like "Islam will be superior," "Islam will dominate the world," and "Freedom can go to hell"?

Yep.

The Wilders trial is a showdown for free people, and for the free West. If he is convicted, the freedom of speech will not long endure in Europe, and America will be next. And the darkness of Islamic supremacism will continue to spread, and to subjugate women and non-Muslims, without it being possible to raise a voice against it.

"Filmmaker Geert Wilders faces hatred charges," from CNN, January 20:

(CNN) -- Controversial Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders appeared in court Wednesday on charges of inciting discrimination and hatred that relate in part to his much-criticized film about Islam.

Wednesday's session at the Court of Amsterdam was a pre-trial hearing and a full trial was due to begin later this year. A court spokesman said the hearing was expected to last one day but could stretch into Thursday.

Wilders, who heads the Dutch Party for Freedom, said he has done nothing wrong. "I will fight," he promised in a statement Tuesday on the party's Web site....

In addition to inciting discrimination and hatred, Wilders is also charged with offending a group of people, which relates to his comparison of Islam to Nazism.

"According to Wilders, the truth about Islam must be made known, even if it is painful and unpleasant for certain people," his statement on his party's site said....

Google's self-imposed dhimmitude is just one more outcropping of the same self-imposed dhimmitude that kept Western newspapers, formerly proud bastions of the freedom of speech and energetic warriors against censorship, from publishing the Muhammad cartoons, and that keeps mainstream media outlets, Left and Right, from speaking honestly about the jihad threat. That's why I am staying on this and will continue to stay on it after everyone else has forgotten it and Google is continuing on its merry jihad-friendly way.

It is now thirteen days since I first posted about how Google is censoring negative search suggestions on Islam, and seven days since the mighty Internet giant claimed that this was not dhimmi self-censorship, but a "bug," and would soon be corrected.

Thirteen days, and a week during which presumably the techie masterminds at Google have been on this case, and still Google can't seem to figure out how to wire their search box so that it pops up suggestions for "Islam is" that are comparable to the suggestions you get for "Buddhism is" or "Hinduism is" or "Christianity is." Try it for yourself. Search for "Christianity is" at Google and a host of negative recommendations pop up:

It's the same thing for "Buddhism is," "Hinduism is," etc. But when you search for "Islam is," no negative recommendations come up -- indeed, no recommendations at all:

The same "bug" appears at Google's YouTube.

What a coincidence that Google's "bug" would crop up in a way that shelters the world's most thin-skinned religion from criticism! The one religion shielded from adverse judgment at Google is also the only religion that has is currently engaged in an organized campaign to stifle honest discussion about its texts and teachings that inspire violence. In 2008 the Secretary General of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the largest voting bloc at the United Nations today, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, warned the West about "red lines that should not be crossed" regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. For years now the OIC has spearheaded an effort at the UN to compel member states to criminalize what it calls "defamation of religions," but by which it clearly means any honest discussion of the texts and teachings of Islam that jihadists invoke to justify violence and supremacism. Interestingly enough, the OIC stepped up this campaign in the wake of the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper that touched off worldwide Muslim riots. Google, at the time those riots were raging, was dutifully removing from YouTube videos that depicted the cartoons.

Thus when the OIC has Google, it doesn't need international edicts muzzling free speech. Like many on the Left, Google seems all too willing to carry water for the Islamic bloc's war against free speech and to oblige the OIC's totalitarian and thuggish influences, by voluntarily refraining from doing anything that might offend Muslims. While its restriction of the automated search suggestions may seem insignificant, its overall willingness to conform to notoriously fragile Islamic sensibilities and deep-six criticism of Islam is anything but trivial.