(American Thinker) - The right of Westerners to speak freely
regarding Islam-related topics -- radical Islam or Islamism, Islamist
terrorism, and Islamist terror funding -- is in jeopardy. Islamists and
their sympathizers try to silence any and all questions possibly
critical of Islam with a vicious, multi-pronged assault until a critic
is silenced, punished, or made an example of for others.
Islamists
seem to use at least three different methods: 1) the initiation of
legal proceedings, known as "lawfare" -- i.e., frivolous or malicious
lawsuits which often do not even hope to succeed in court and are
reluctant to reach discovery to avoid disclosing information, but which
therefore seem intended, on charges of hate speech or defamation, to
harass and financially crush the defendant; 2) threats of violence, or
violence itself; or 3) pressure applied based on political correctness,
as with attempts to smear reputations by alleging "racism,"
"Islamophobia," or other epithets. Sometimes the Islamists use only one
of these methods -- sometimes two, or all three. Regardless, the
assault is often successful.
The Danish cartoon controversy, for example, began in
September of 2005, after an author in Denmark stated that he could not
find an artist willing, under his own name, to illustrate a book about
the Islamic Prophet Mohammed's life. In Islam, it is considered blasphemous to
draw a picture of the prophet. In response, the Danish
newspaper Jyllands-Posten ran twelve cartoons by various artists
depicting Mohammed, with the editor explaining that
the project was an attempt defend the Danish right to exercise free
speech and to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and
self-censorship. The most controversial of these cartoons -- the "bomb
in the turban" picture of Mohammed -- was drawn by Kurt Westergaard. These cartoons were soon reprinted in magazines/newspapers in more than 50 other countries. However, the only major U.S. magazines/newspapers to reprint any of the cartoons were the conservative Weekly Standard, the atheist Free Inquiry, and the
Denver Rocky Mountain News. Many organizations cited their
unwillingness to publish them out of concern for the sensitivities of
Muslim readers. A fear of violence may also have been a significant
concern.
Soon after the cartoons were published,
Islamist, Islamic, or politically correct pressure groups swung into
action. In October of 2005, some ambassadors from Muslim countries sent
a letter requesting a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, stating that they wished to discuss the "on-going smearing campaign in Danish public circles and media against Islam and Muslims." They also hinted that the Danish government should legally prosecute the paper's editors.
At the same time, a nearly identical letter arrived in Copenhagen from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC -- now known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation), an intergovernmental organization of fifty-seven Muslim states, also protesting the publication of the cartoons. As noted here, "[t]he diplomatic protests aimed to use international disapproval to sanction the newspaper -- and the Danes -- for Islamophobia," an invented term patterned after the term "homophobia." Coinciding with the arrival of the letters, three thousand Danish Muslims demonstrated in Copenhagen and demanded an apology from the newspaper for insulting Muslims. continue reading
At the same time, a nearly identical letter arrived in Copenhagen from the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC -- now known as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation), an intergovernmental organization of fifty-seven Muslim states, also protesting the publication of the cartoons. As noted here, "[t]he diplomatic protests aimed to use international disapproval to sanction the newspaper -- and the Danes -- for Islamophobia," an invented term patterned after the term "homophobia." Coinciding with the arrival of the letters, three thousand Danish Muslims demonstrated in Copenhagen and demanded an apology from the newspaper for insulting Muslims. continue reading
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