What Freedom Of Speech Means To Muslims (The U.S. Edition)
By The Stiletto (bio)
Following the riots in Denmark over cartoons depicting Mohammed, death threats against Pope Benedict XVI – accompanied by a nun’s murder and firebombings of several churches – over an obscure reference in a lecture, and fears of violence that caused the Deutsche Oper in Berlin to cancel performances of Mozart’s Idomeneo, The Stiletto observed:
[W]hether Muslims are in the majority or minority, living in a Western nation or in the Middle East, governed under laws that are secular or Islamic, “moderate” or fundamentalist they are all too often hostile to free speech rights.
Battles over freedom of thought and expression are not just occurring in Europe, which woke up to the threat of “Sharia creep” too late. Muslims are now waging their global jihad against free speech in the U.S., using any means necessary to intimidate and silence people.
† Herndon, VA: CAIR Threatens Lawsuit Over Speech
Robert Spencer, who runs the JihadWatch.org Web site had been invited to give a speech on “The Truth about the Council on American-Islamic Relations” at the 29th National Conservative Student Conference, Young America’s Foundation. The day before his August 2nd speech, YAF president Ron Robinson received a fax from CAIR attorney Joseph E. Sandler threatening to sue if Spencer’s speech was not yanked from the program:
“You should be aware that Mr. Spencer, a well-known purveyor of hatred
and bigotry against Muslims, has a history of false and defamatory statements. Several of those statements have falsely accused CAIR of activity that would constitute a federal offense.” …
“For these reasons, we demand that YAF cancel the subject session (at which Spencer is speaking), or else take steps to ensure that false and defamatory statements are not disseminated at that session. Our clients have instructed us to pursue every available and appropriate legal remedy to redress any false and defamatory statements that are made at the session. Please let us know by the close of business today whether you intend to comply with these requests.”
Noting that the threatening letter does not cite even one “false and defamatory statement” by Spencer, investigative journalist Joel Mowbray points out that this is hardly the first time CAIR has sought to stifle free speech in America:
For years, CAIR has attempted to stifle debate and prevent inquiry into the domestic spread of radical Islam. Conservative columnist Cal Thomas was the latest target, when CAIR attempted to drum him out of his role as an official commentator at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C. The group was emboldened by its success in the same city two years earlier, when it got then-Disney-owned WMAL to can talk host Michael Graham. Similar such smear campaigns are legion. …
Political commentator and University of North Carolina (Wilmington) criminology professor Mike Adams writes:
This notion of preventing “offense” by forcing people to relinquish their First Amendment Rights is itself offensive. Certainly, when one of my Muslim friends offends me – by forcing his wife to leave the room without speaking as soon as I come over – I just let it go. But maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should start my own organization called CAIRS, The Council Against Islamic Repression and Sexism.
Adams urges people to join him “in the fight against Muslim censors (and the lawyers who love them)” by contacting Sandler (sandler@sandlerreiff.com; 202-479-1111) to “tell him to stop helping Muslim extremists wage a Jihad against the First Amendment in the United States of America.”
In case you’re wondering, Spencer spoke as scheduled. Says YAF spokesperson Jason Mattera, “CAIR picked the wrong group to bully and intimidate.”
† Oakland, CA: Newspaper Editor Gunned Down In The Street
In a scene eerily reminiscent of Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink’s assassination in broad daylight on an Istanbul street by a hate-filled teenage boy who got caught up in Turkey’s Nationalist movement, black journalist Chauncey Bailey was shot in broad daylight on an Oakland street by a hate-filled teenage boy who got caught up in the radical Black Muslim group.
In his confession, 19-year-old Devaughdre Broussard told detectives he considered himself “a good soldier” when he killed Chauncey Bailey for writing negative stories about Your Black Muslim Bakery, reports Inside Bay Area, adding:
Go to Stiletto for rest of story
ok, setting aside the rest of this piece… why should an “obscure” reference be less offensive than a straightforward one?
And if the author of this editorial can make a rational argument, why was the pope unable to think of anything better than “your religion sucks?”
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