islamists suppressing free speech by other means
- From: the auroran sunset <upm@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2006 19:09:20 +0200
one american magazine - 'free inquiry' - built up the nerve to print one of
the danish cartoons (only a somewhat silly covering article appears to be on
their website)...
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=rjhoffmann_26_3";
It is time for the West to live and embrace the secularism it espouses, not
to hide behind an outworn creed, a pagan pretense of religious magnanimity, a
nutty and defeasible [huh?] belief that religion is benign and thus should be
protected. Expression--instantiated as murder, arson, and riot--proves that
some religious views are toxic and cannot be tolerated. To be blunt, the same
violent religious "expression" expressed by Jews or Christians domestically
would land them in jail, not get them a slot on Oprah or a conversation with
Bill Moyers.
Do we really do Muslims a favor by forgiving the trespasses we have brought
into being through a century and a half of double dealing and political
hypocrisy? Do we really want one rule book for secularized Christians and
Jews (the vast majority), another for noisy, politically hyperactive,
born-again Christians, and a third for noisy and lethal Muslims?"
....so the borders group refused to stock this month's issue of the magazine
on the shelves of their 475 borders and 650 waldenbooks shops.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-
bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/03/29/national/a163611S00.DTL
at borders, it seems they have policy to uphold:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=19845_Borders_Appeases_Radical_I
slam&only
"I was shifting rows of books in our religion section and it happened to be
that all of our Koran books (a section on its own) ended up on the bottom
shelf. The next day I was informed by my General Manager that it is Borders
policy as a whole (not my particular store) that due to complaints in the
past from Muslim customers, we are not allowed to put our copies of the Koran
on any shelf other than the top."
of course at borders, "We absolutely respect our customers' right to choose
what they wish to read and buy and we support the First Amendment".
########
a canadian newspaper - 'the western standard' - also published the cartoons.
http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=home
now a canadian imam, syed soharwardy, having failed to make the police arrest
the editor of the paper for his unacceptable behaviour, now seems to have
obtained the cooperation of the alberta human rights commission, another
government agency.
the western standard is not taking it lying down:
http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2006/03/western_standar.html
"The hand-written scrawl and the spelling errors were what first disgusted me
with the suit; but the arguments were what really got me. The complainant,
Imam Syed Soharwardy, a former professor at an anti-Semitic university in
Saudi Arabia, doesn't just argue that we shouldn't have published the
cartoons. He argues that we shouldn't be able to defend our right to publish
the cartoons. The bulk of his complaint was that we dared to try to justify
it. He argues that advocating a free press should be a thought crime. [...]
Our lawyers tell me we'll likely win, but it could cost us up to $75,000 to
do so -- and the case against us is being prosecuted by government employees
using tax dollars. We're a small, independent magazine and we don't have deep
pockets to fight off nuisance suits, so please chip in if you can."
this is of course the whole point of such attacks. vexatious suits may not be
as spectacular as beheadings, but they are still an effective method of
stealing the time of those that will not bend to the will of an authority and
of silencing opponents.
this form of litigation - litigation with neither merit nor serious chance of
success if defended against - has become a way of life in the west. it is
used by governments to silence and waste the time of critics. it is used by
large companies to bully smaller companies, or simply as a negotiating
tactic. it is used by chancers to blackmail money out of the rich, too busy
to defend themselves against every petty suit. now the islamics are
attempting to use it to bully opponents into silence.
this tactic is legal and widespread, thus can not be considered as of the
same order as the violence, threatened and actual, used by islamics for the
same purposes... however, legality aside, i have a hard time describing the
tactic as 'legitimate'.
in a similar case up in denmark, another group of islamics have also failed
to get their government to prosecute and are now instead suing the
cartoon-originating jyllands-posten..
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=7430
"The lawsuit was filed Wednesday, two weeks after Denmark's top prosecutor
declined to press criminal charges, saying the drawings that sparked a
firestorm in the Muslim world did not violate laws against racism or
blasphemy. [...]
'We're seeking judgment for both the text and the drawings which were
gratuitously defamatory and injurious,' Havemann [the islamists' lawyer]
said."
who is being defamed? who is being injured? the only people with any serious
claim are islamic terrorists and their supporters, for it is they that are
lampooned... or perhaps a case could be made by some long-dead religious
leader, who was apparently more inclined to ignore such critics.
how many days is it now hakky? 57?
to infinity and beyond.
--
the auroran sunset / tithonus / fennel
personal website: http://www.aoiko.net/
party: http://www.emancipationparty.org/
work: http://www.abelard.org/
.
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