Why does Denmark prosecute truth tellers?

Jan. 19, 2011

Danish Ambassador to the U.S.


Sir —

I am extremely alarmed with the public prosecution of Lars Hedegaard, a leading Danish columnist, and MP and pastor Jesper Langballe, for alleged crimes of “hate speech.”

Apart from the assault these prosecutions represent against a basic human right included in your constitution and the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — to free speech — it is boldly hypocritical.

The Danish public prosecutor, so far as I am aware, has never even suggested prosecuting all the rabble rousers who incited actual riots within the borders of Denmark — and indeed, around the world — after Jyllands Posten courageously published a series of satirical political cartoons. Moreover, the same vile persons today continue to blast Jew-hatred and hatred of all non-Muslims throughout your country by every available means. And you do nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Dead silence that has already caused manifold murders and deaths.

In effect, we must conclude that Denmark now prosecutes truth-tellers, themselves victims of genuine hatemongers — namely the totalitarian Islamic radicals who daily, and with complete impunity, call for global imposition of sharia law.

Naturally if ever such a thing engulfs Europe, it would include Denmark and Scandinavia — at which time your government would fall to said radicals, and the very notion of human rights and free speech would die with your nation.

This is a very sad turn for a nation whose citizens once defended human rights at the risk of their own private lives to save virtually Denmark’s entire Jewish population during World War II.

I spent the summer of 1969 in your country. It was one of the happiest times of my life. Now, that memory and all my good feelings for Denmark are going up in flames — by the hand of your public prosecutor.

Please, sir, reverse this course of action. Do not prosecute people who courageously dare, in today’s poisonous and dangerous politically correct environment, to tell the truth of things. Rather, take control and begin prosecuting the hate mongers whose manifold incitements to riots and murder will otherwise bury you all alive.

Americans are watching, and are very much dismayed by the rotten current state of Denmark. Why should Denmark not instead again set an example of courage and fortitude for the entire free world?

Sincerely yours —
Alyssa A. Lappen
Investigative journalist and poet
https://www.alyssaalappen.org


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Though Europe Rots, We Must Defend the West

With free speech under attack, our civilization’s survival is at stake.

By Alyssa A. Lappen
Pajamas Media | Jan. 18, 2011

Defending the rights to free speech of editor, columnist and Danish and International Free Press Society president Lars Hedegaard — especially the right to criticize orthodox Islam as freely as one may Christianity or Judaism — now equals defending the right of Western civilization to survive. 1 Barring an effective international outcry — or a rare fever of Sudden Enlightenment Syndrome one morning soon awakening Denmark’s Public Prosecutor with common sense — Hedegaard will face trial on Danish racism charges and conviction alike on Jan. 24, 2011: 2 a veritable auto da fe.

In Dec. 2009, Hedegaard remarked in a taped interview upon certain domestic violence peculiar to Muslim families (“they” rape their own children). He was then charged as a common criminal. 3

In 1969, Denmark’s proud history of supporting freedom, whatever the cost, enticed me to live for a summer with a family of potters in Grena, Jutland. In the 1940s, Denmark saved virtually its entire Jewish population from a regime whose totalitarianism many Islamic leaders now hope to best. Since then, Denmark may have gone rotten. The state apparently deems it far less criminal for groups driven by ideological or religious belief to behave criminally, than for anyone to publicly observe their heinous deeds. All the more, as (in this case) said criminal behavior would in other situations scandalize civilized people. Should a modern Danish coven of warlocks and witches regularly rape and roast their teenage daughters, doubtless the public prosecutor would charge no one for saying as much.

Alas, Hedegaard challenges modern Danish liberalism too, as he did in a Jan. 2009 interview with me. 4

Denmarks’ Public Prosecutor charged Hedegaard with racism for allegedly violating article 266 b of its penal code, (aka “racism clause”). This allows a prosecutor to infer criminal offense in any statement that he believes threatens, demeans or ridicules anyone based on race, skin color, national or ethnic origin, religious faith or sexual orientation. In other words, the law gives the prosecutor endless latitude to levy criminal charges over a wide range of easily misconstrued statements by or about — well, almost anyone.5 This absurdity of law in effect lets Denmark’s public prosecutor lavish his taxpayer-funded time on perusing news and other taped records of public figures for factual statements on Islam or predominantly Muslim behaviors; and that is how he seems to cast his own prejudiced net.

In North America, free speech is presumed a fundamental right cemented into the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution — namely the first article in the Bill of Rights that Congress passed, the states ratified and U.S. law adopted on Dec. 15, 1791. It naturally includes the right to criticize almost anything, short of treason, charges for which the U.S. has not prosecuted in a very long while. Moreover, foreigners can no longer easily rebuke Americans via foreign lawsuits for taking full advantage of that enshrined U.S. freedom. 6

But in the early 1960s, orthodox Islamic believers calling themselves the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan, in Arabic) initiated global efforts to destroy the West and its values, free speech foremost among them. By their thinking, God alone can make laws, not man — the only just laws therefore being Islamic (sharia). All others, especially secular Western laws, must go, particularly those allowing what Islamic law considers blasphemy and a capitol offense — any criticism of Islam or Mohammed.

In 1982 and again in 1991, the Brothers set to paper their long-held plans to decimate Western societies and impose global Islamic law. They declared war on basic human rights — evolved from Judeao-Christian traditions codified in King Henry I’s 1100 C.E. Charter of Liberties, 7and expanded into various forms of due process 8 via Britain’s 1215 Magna Carta, 9 King Edward I’s 1305 writ of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum, 10 New York’s 1683 Charter of Liberties and Privileges, 11 William Penn’s 1701 Pennsylvania Charter of Privileges, 12 the U.S. 1791 Bill of Rights, article § 77 of the Danish Constitution (letting anyone publish without censorship or government consent) — and a host of like statutes in most Western nations. These culminated with the United Nation’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, affirming human rights to “enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want….” 13

Upon first hearing of MB plans, Westerners generally react with stupefied incredulity. Some furiously rage at the messenger. Yet global Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf Qaradawi concretely stipulated 14 these MB plans on Dec. 1, 1982 in “Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy (Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions),” 15 which Swiss officials discovered in Nov. 2001 at the villa of MB chief financial officer Yusuf Nada. 16 North American MB chief Mohamed Akram on May 22, 1991 created a similar “regional” outline in an “Explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal for the Group in North America,” 17 presented as evidence by U.S. prosecutors to help convict five Holy Land Foundation officials of 108 terror-financing related charges. 18

The realities behind this decades-long Muslim Brotherhood campaign have now slammed Europe. On Dec. 3, 2010, Denmark’s public prosecutor figuratively collected his first scalp for racism, that of pastor and Member of Parliament Jesper Langballe, 19 not surprisingly for defending Hedegaard. “Of course Lars Hedegaard should not have said that there are Muslim fathers who rape their daughters,” Langballe stated, “when the truth appears to be that they make due with killing their daughters (the so-called honor killings) and leave it to their uncles to rape them.”

Randers municipal court found MP Langballe (Danish People’s Party) guilty of hate speech under Denmark’s penal code, Article 266b after duly honoring Danish legal precedent to deny Langballe the right to prove his truthful allegation that Muslim families often sexually abuse and murder their daughters for family honor. In such cases, Danish law figures the truth immaterial. As if under Islamic libel law itself, 20 Denmark may nowadays convict a defendant solely upon the personal offense taken or perceived in his or her statement. No actual crime need have occurred.

At his kangaroo court trial, MP Langballe therefore concluded, “With this article in the penal code, I must be assumed convicted in advance. I have no intention of participating in this circus. Therefore I confess.” Denmark denied MP Langballe both freedom of speech and due process and may now fine or incarcerate him up to two years. 21

These are but the latest journalists, elected European officials and humanitarians charged for perceived defamations of Islam in their statements of fact and exact reiterations of Quranic and other Islamic sacred texts. Finland first stepped to the plate, in 2009 convicting its best known political blogger, Jussi Kristian Halla-aho, then 38. 22

However in May 2008, Gregorius Nekschot, a pseudonymous Dutch cartoonist was similarly arrested and charged with discriminatory speech. In Sept. 2010, Dutch prosecutors finally dropped charges against Nekschot, on the eve of Holland’s next travesty of justice. Despite a court order that he dismantle his personal website, Nekschot was victorious. “I can carry on making caricatures, perhaps even more controversial ones, because I have been allowed to keep my anonymity,” he said.23

Then came five charges of hate speech against Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Prosecutors initially ruled that Wilders’ statements might hurt Muslim feelings but weren’t crimes. But in Jan. 2009, Amsterdam’s Appeals Court reversed the finding and ordered prosecutors to proceed. 24 At trial, an empaneled judge snidely remarked on Wilders’ intent to remain silent. An immediate appeal to replace the biased panel was denied. 25 Dutch prosecutors then reiterated the legality of criticizing religion (Muslim feelings determine no “facts of the case”, but trial judges ignored their request to acquit on all five charges.26

After incontestable judicial bias surfaced, however, a new appeals court on Oct. 22 terminated the Wilders trial. At a private May 2010 dinner party, Islamic expert and defense witness Hans Jansen revealed, magistrate Tom Schalken (among the Amsterdam judges to order Wilders’ prosecution) had approached to explain why Wilders must be prosecuted. Schalken’s unlawfully expressed, extra-judicial comment to a defense witness forced the appeals justices to order a new Wilders trial.27

Next up was Austria’s Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, Pax Europa‘s Austrian representative and a former Organization for Security and Co-operation envoy in Europe. Pax Europa, focusing on sharia law incursions and simultaneous erosion of free speech in Europe, is Germany’s “foremost human rights organization,” she says. 28 In Sept. 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff learned she was accused of “defamation of religion” during a 2009 three-part seminar on “Islamization of Europe” for the Freedom Education Institute (FEI). She is not a member of FEI or any part of the late, controversial Joerg Haider‘s “far-right” Austrian Freedom Party. But even if Sabaditsch-Wolff did belong, it would not be criminal: the state gives public monies to the Austrian Freedom Party’s Institute.

Moreover, Sabaditsch-Wolff based her academic observations on experience gained, by choice, from living most of her adult life “in Arab and Muslim-majority countries.” Exactly which statements prompted Vienna’s prosecutor to indict her for hate speech, he did not see fit to specify. 29 She was “tried” in Vienna, if you can call it that, in Nov. 2010. No decision has yet been announced.

That same month, the European Union required member states to implement the “Framework decision on combating racism and xenophobia,” a measure adopted Nov. 28, 2008 to combat “certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.” This EU legal provision required all EU member states to comply fully by Nov. 28, 2010, Sabaditsch-Wolff asserts, and punish “intentional conduct” considered a pretext to target “a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin.” 30 Oblique or not, this means Muslims.

Who passed these measures, at whose proposal, without consulting Europe’s parliaments or populaces — and whether are they binding under national constitutions — should immediately arise as critical topics of debate in all EU member states. And Americans, lest we think ourselves immune, should steel the ramparts for the continuing onslaught upon our own treasured rights to free speech. Despite our new Free Speech protection measure, free speech remains under barrage assault.

NOTES:
1 In borrowing the title from the book of my friend and colleague, Ibn Warraq, I intend him the highest compliment for being, with Lars Hedegaard, among those at the vanguard of defending Western civilization.
2 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010,http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/12/the-scandal-of-danish-justice/ (first viewed 12/12/2010).
3 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
4 Alyssa A. Lappen, “The eternal Danish optimist,” Right Side News, Jan. 5, 2009, http://www.rightsidenews.com/200901043173/life-and-science/culture-wars/the-eternal-danish-optimist.html.
5 Ahmed Mohamud and Eva Agnete Selsing, “The lawsuit against Lars Hedegaard,” International Free Press Society, Sept. 27, 2010, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/4087/ (viewed 1/9/2011).
6 NY Assembly Rep. Rory I. Lanceman, “Author of New York State’s first-in-the-nation law against “libel tourism” applauds congressional passage of the “Speech Act” to protect Americans’ 1st Amendment rights,” N.Y. Assembly District 25, Jul. 25, 2010, http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=025&sh=story&story=39928; Alyssa A. Lappen, “America’s First Amendment lifeline,” Human Events, 1/25/2008, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24649; “Gov. Patterson signs legislation protecting New Yorkers against infringement of First Amendment rights by foreign libel judgment,” New York State press release, May 1, 2008, http://www.r8ny.com/node/16798; On May 1, 2008, New York State established the first libel terrorism protection act in the U.S.; I played a critical role obtaining necessary legislative support, without which I suspect it would have been impossible to achieve passage of a federal law along the same lines.
7 “Charter of Liberties,” Medieval Sourcebook, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/hcoronation.html (viewed 1/10/2011).
8 “Due process,” U.S Constitution, 5th Amendment, annotations, p. 11, reprinted at FindLaw, undated, http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment05/11.html; see also “Due process,” Cornell Univ. Law School, http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_process (both viewed 1/10/2011)
9 “Magna Carta,” Britannia History, http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/magna2.html
10 “A brief history of habeas corpus,” BBC, Mar. 9, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4329839.stm (viewed 1/10/2011).
11 Charter of Liberties & Privileges, NY, 1683, http://www.montauk.com/history/seeds/charter.htm (viewed 1/10/2011).
12 William Penn, “Charter of Privileges,” Oct. 28, 1701, http://www.constitution.org/bcp/penncharpriv.htm (1/10/2011).
13 “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” United Nations General Assembly, Dec. 10, 1948, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml; The document recognizes “the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people….” (emphasis added).
14 Lappen and Rachel Ehrenfeld, “Sharia financing and the coming ummah,” Chap. 28, Armed Groups: Studies in National Security, Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, ed. Jeffrey Norwitz, (U.S. Naval War College: 2008), pp. 389-404, https://www.alyssaalappen.org/wp-content/uploads/sharia-financing-and-the-coming-ummah-by-ehrenfeld-and-lappen.pdf.
15 Yusuf Qaradawi, “Towards a worldwide strategy for Islamic policy (Points of Departure, Elements, Procedures and Missions),” global Muslim Brotherhood, Dec. 1, 1982, as cited by Patrick Poole, “The Muslim Brotherhood Project,” Front Page Magazine, May 11, 2006, http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4475 and http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=4476 (first viewed 5/11/2006).
16 Olivier Guitta, “The Cartoon Jihad,” Weekly Standard, Feb. 20, 2006, http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/704xewyj.asp (viewed 2/22/2006).
17 Mohamed Akram, “Explanatory memorandum for the General Strategic goal for the Group in North America,” Muslim Brotherhood, global Muslim Brotherhood, North America, May 22, 1991, p. 15, http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategicGoal.pdf (first viewed 9/18/2007).
18 Jason Trahan and Tanya Eiserer, “Holy Land Foundation defendants guilty,” Dallas Morning News, Nov. 28, 2008, http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/112508dnmetholylandverdicts.1e5022504.html; see also “Ruling: humanitarian aid to Palestine a front for Hamas support,” Raw Story, Nov. 24, 2008, http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Largest_Muslim_charity_in_US_ruled_1124.html; “US-based Muslim charity guilty of funding terrorism,” Telegraph, Nov. 24, 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3515658/US-based-Muslim-charity-guilty-of-funding-terrorism.html; “Federal judge hands down sentences in Holy Land Foundation case,” Dept. of Justice, May 27, 2009, http://dallas.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel09/dl052709.htm (all viewed 12/2/2010).
19 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
20 Ahmad Ibn Lulu Ibn Al-Naqib (d. 1368), Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law Umdat, translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller, 1991 and 1994, Amana Publications (revised ed., 1994), p. 730, as noted in Lappen, “Does sharia law now apply in the U.S.” Pajamas Media, Jan. 2, 2008, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/sharia_libel_law_now_applies_i/.
21 “The scandal of Danish justice,” International Free Press Society, Dec. 12, 2010, ibid.
22 James Cohen, “23 minute interview with Jussi Halla-aho,” International Free Press Society, Sept. 17, 2009, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2009/09/23-minute-interview-with-jussi-halla-aho/ (viewed 1/10/2011); see also “Jussi Halla-aho,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussi_Halla-aho (viewed 1/10/2011).
23 Katrine Winkel Holm, “Prosecutor drops case against Dutch cartoonist,” International Free Speech Society, Sept. 25, 2010, http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/prosecutor-drops-case-against-dutch-cartoonist/ (viewed 9/30/2010).
24 Mike Corder, “Dutch court: prosecute anti-Islamic law-maker,” Associated Press, Jan. 21, 2009, as reprinted in http://sweetness-light.com/archive/court-prosecute-geert-wilders-for-hate-speech (viewed 1/10/2011).
25 Bruce Mutsvairo, “Wilders hate speech trial to resume,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 5, 2010, http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2010/1005/Geert-Wilders-hate-speech-trial-to-resume-in-Netherlands (10/6/2010).
26 “Dutch prosecutors sought anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders’ acquittal on five hate speech charges Friday, saying his criticism of the Muslim religion, though hurtful to some, was not criminal,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Oct. 15, 2010, http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/acquit-dutch-anti-islam-lawmaker-prosecutors (viewed 1/10/2011).
27 “Hans Jansen, scholar of Islam, and a witness for the defense in the Wilders trial, describes a curious dinner party,” and “Uproar: Dutch court orders retrial for Wilders,” New English Review, Oct. 22, 2010, http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_months.cfm/m/10/y/2010/sr/100 (both viewed 10/22/2010).
28 A. Millar, “Lawfare in Austria: Is truth illegal?” Hudson Organization, Oct. 11, 2010, http://www.hudson-ny.org/1596/sabaditsch-wolff-lawfare-austria (first viewed 10/12/2010).
29 A. Millar, “Lawfare in Austria: Is truth illegal?” Hudson Organization, Oct. 11, 2010, ibid.
30 “Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff: We are Being Systematically Silenced, This is our Time,” In Defense of Free Speech, Nov. 27, 2010, http://english.savefreespeech.org/?p=221 (viewed 1/10/2011).


All Articles, Poems & Commentaries Copyright © 1971-2021 Alyssa A. Lappen
All Rights Reserved.
Printing is allowed for personal use only | Commercial usage (For Profit) is a copyright violation and written permission must be granted first.

Organization of Islamic Conference’s Chicago Summit Flops

The recent Chicago meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) had low turnout, U.S. envoy Rashad Hussain failed to turn up, and only a tenth of the audience seats were filled.

by Alyssa A. Lappen

Family Security Matters | Oct. 8, 2010

The International Islamic News Agency suggests that Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) secretary general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of Turkey presented a moderate and modern portrait at Chicago’s late September American Islamic College (AIC) conference. He tried. The “second largest intergovernmental organization outside the United Nations” stands as a “strategic and crucial partner” to the U.N., Ihsangolu said and is “not a religious organization.” Sounding liberal was paramount. After all, Ihsangolu appeared here, the first time any OIC forum welcomed the U.S. general public.

The OIC, he said, had evolved into a

“unique institution with a very modern and up-to-date charter and a 10-year program of action propelled by the vision of moderation and modernization…. [that] voices the consensual views and attitudes of the Muslim world, defends its causes and coordinates … joint actions … political, economic, cultural or otherwise. [emphasis added]

“[It] reflects the true and real image of Islam, based on tolerance, peace, … and acknowledgment of diversity [to] dialogue with other[s] … [for] historic reconciliation between the Muslim world and the West. Contrary to the popular understanding, … [the Abrahamic tradition of faith,] Islam and points of reference is (sic) compatible with the finest manners of human nature. It … embraces the supreme virtues of peace, equality, justice, compassion, human rights. It respects nature and the environment…, not the preserve of any people, or religion or civilization…, [but] diversive (sic) values… all [must] internalize and uphold.”

OIC ambassador to the U.N. Ufuk Goken noted its condemnations of attacks on an active duty Jewish soldier in Israel and Christians in Mosul. The OIC also combats “Christianophobia,” he said, and is not:

  • full of jihadis
  • anti-American
  • antisemitic
  • an organization with double standards.

Former White House special OIC envoy Sada Cumber even faulted Islamic theocracies and seemed to criticize the OIC for failing to unify Islamic sects. The world’s real WMD, Cumber said, are “Weapons of Muslim Destruction” — Muslim governments “pushing their version of Islam” on the world. Not a single Muslim government anywhere offers its citizens the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness Muslims enjoy in the U.S., he said. “The day [my native] Pakistan can offer that, I will move there.”

Alas, the event flopped. Expected White House envoys were no-shows. Two distinct audience counts during Ihsangolu’s Sept. 29 keynote — delayed a half hour as planners prayer for more warm bodies — found the refurbished 1,000-seat AIC auditorium holding under 30 and 50 people, respectively.

Generously estimated, maybe 150 guests all told attended four Sept. 29 panel discussions. But the hall never simultaneously seated even 100 guests. By Oct. 6 AIC had posted no conference news or photos. A revised agenda and speakers’ list were hidden and shorter than AIC originally promised. A site search turned up only the May 2010 White House announcement of Rashad Hussain‘s appointment as special OIC envoy. Hussain called in last-second regrets, audibly enraging CAIR Chicago executive director Ahmed Rehab. He fumed at Hussain’s failure to reschedule his “conflict.” Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood Ikhwanophobia site claimed a “kitchen sink” of “hate smears” had caused the cancellation — “supremacist gathering,” “Muslim Brotherhood,” “Hamas,” “Shariah,” “Khilafah,” “yada yada.”

Advance marketing, though, belied the actual OIC charter content (strangely, no longer posted at the OIC). It and OIC’s 10-year plan unify members behind Islamic values, wrote Geneva-based Association for World Education NGO emissary David G. Littman in 2008. Their collective goal is to promote traditional Islamic values and world “pioneering.” Others citing native Muslim scholars, jurists and sacred texts, also correctly name it as conquest. Writes scholar of Islam Bat Ye’or,

“in contrast to to the European states “[OIC nations unify] to [defend] their national sovereignty and territorial integrity… support … Palestine with al-Quds Al Sharif, the Arabized name for Jerusalem, as its capital, and exhort each other to promote human rights, basic freedoms, the state of law (shari’a), and democracy according to their constitutional and legal system — in other words, compliance with shari’a.”

Sure enough, Ihsangolu stressed Muslim efforts to open “channels of communications with their host countries,” suggesting Muslims aren’t citizens of “their host counties,” but the Muslim ummah (nation). The Brotherhood espouses this foundational Islamic dogma, notably in its May 1991 strategic goals for North America by Mohamed Akram.1 Ihsangolu often cited the dread “Islamophobia,” thus embracing immutable sharia requirements that Muslims may deride other faiths, but must never tolerate critics or criticism of Islam, in any form. Like most other speakers, he also encouraged Muslims, “Join other groups in fighting injustice,” which “goes hand in hand” with Islamic teachings. By what definitions.

The OIC, projecting a false veil of moderation, should perhaps rejoice that the conference fizzled. Otherwise, intemperate comments might have gone viral. World Congress of Muslim Philanthropies president and Chicago physician Tariq Cheema, moderated “American Foreign Policy & the Muslim world.” A regular at events stacked with MB participants and organizations, this 2nd panel sought a big U.S. policy shift. Cheema asked U.S. Muslims to strengthen inter-continental “south-south” hemispheric relations, introducing others hoping to blunt U.S. preeminence and empower global Islam.

“Islam in the American context,” the 3rd panel, featured Gallup Center for Muslim Studies’ Magali Rheault. She outlined findings of a 2010 “religious perceptions” poll purported to show anti-Muslim bias, Muslim depression, unhappiness and poor economic status relative to other U.S. religious groups. But Gallup failed to ask why any disliked specific doctrines. If it confirmed participants as U.S. citizens, the report doesn’t say. Glaringly absent were queries on U.S. allegiance, or if participants:

  • Accept the US Constitution as the land’s supreme law, superseding any civil or criminal laws espoused in your religious texts?
  • Accept the equality of all religions?
  • Favor separation of religion and state?
  • Would serve U.S. armed forces faithfully and fight if necessary against their co-religionists?

While subject to U.S. laws, Muslim disregard for them did not concern two other 3rd panel speakers. Chicago Malcom X College social scientist Misbahudeen Ahmed-Rufai, a Ghana native, discussed largely silent African Muslims in the U.S. He cited, but did not question, the huge percentages of African Muslims who arrived or remain in the U.S. illegally.

“If you burn a Koran it is a hate crime,” asserted Loyola Univ. Islamic studies director Marcia Hermansen. She thereby ignored the outrageous May 2009 U.S. military incineration of Bibles sent unsolicited to U.S. troops in Afghanistan — and more importantly, the First Amendment that consciously and actively lets citizens speak freely — and burn U.S. flags, Bibles or Korans if they like.

Perhaps most revealing were some comments during the day’s 4th and final “Imagining our future” panel. Gambling State Univ. mathematical professor Abdulalim Shabbaz claimed that Europeans invented racism — he specified it as “white supremacism” — to justify enslaving Africans. He ignored the ongoing Islamic slaving tradition. And Shabbaz first quoted Koran 49:13, acknowledging human diversity, while enjoining Muslims to assert their “most honored” status, another kind of supremacism:

“O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).” [emphasis added]

Convert S. (“Sherman”) Abd al-Hakim Jackson, a speaker at the Muslim Brotherhood Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM), and Muslim Alliance of North America (MANA) seemed to envision a Muslim revolution. He worried that U.S. Muslims try too hard to prove what they are not — “intolerant,” “terrorists,” or “trying to impose our way of life.” He feared a “domesticated” U.S. Islam not making “principled” social contributions. He wanted Muslims to be “America’s moral conscience,” challenging the U.S. “state” and “dominant culture” and teaching Americans they’re “not infallible.” That would require more power. He cited the grandson of MB founder Hasan al-Banna, Tariq Ramadan: those impious at night can’t “expect to change society by day.” U.S. Muslims should use their “perceived threat,” or risk losing relevance, he said. Minority medieval Muslims had conquered the mid east and made unIslamic institutions Islamic. Hint hint.

Convert Aminah McCloud, a self-described early acolyte of Muslim Brotherhood International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) founder Ismail Faruqi, offered the biggest shockers. Introduced by MB mainstay ISNA secretary general Safaa Zarzour as his mentor, teacher and friend, McCloud said Muslim leaders “represent us as a passive people, a patient and docent (sic) in the face of oppression.” That insures U.S. Muslims will “have no future,” she said. She questions Muslim involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center attack.

“We [Muslims] did not perform our own investigations. We took the side of those against us and declared that any [groups] involved were not of us, praying that we would not be called on to do anything more than acquiesce…”

Regarding Muslim responses to the genocidal 9/11 attacks, she said,

“the thing that alarmed me the most was when I watched Muslims who were supposed to represent me claim that Islam just meant peace. I would have never transitioned to a religious tradition that just meant peace, that stood for nothing.”

Meanwhile, McCloud viewed fellow Americans as oppressive, genocidal maniacs, “who pray for [Muslim] extinction.”

“…America is a nation of cowboys, with little respect for those who don’t fight for what they believe in. …America, for better or worse, again, is a nation of cowboys. From the stories of its first genocide against the people of this land, everyone knows what Americans are liable to do if you extend an unprotected hand.”

Cumber too, openly embraced sharia, whose purest form, he said would provide Muslims rule of law, access to justice, higher education, soft and hard infrastructure, gender equality, accountability and transparency. Hardly a vision of sharia shared by the Muslim Brotherhood, OIC’s parent and watchdog.

Ihsanogulu wanted to sway novices to Islam with a ceremonial facade identical to that of an Oct. 2009 Helsinki “Islam in Europe” conference. “We are not anti-Christian, we are not anti-Semitic, we are not anti-anybody,” he said then. The “moderate and modern” 2008 OIC renaissance (strangely labeled “jihad of peace“) claimed all the same purportedly liberal values Ihsangolu paraded in Chicago.

The Saudi-founded and petrodollar-flush OIC spent a fair sum to that end. It presumably underwrote air tickets and rooms for key OIC and Muslim leaders and funded dinner and soft drinks for maybe 75 guests on Sept. 28, to welcome Ihsanoglu and celebrate the opening of AIC, albeit as-yet unaccredited. On Sept. 29, the OIC plied another 75 or so Muslim leaders and guests from the general public with coffee, tea, and a four course sit down luncheon of hummus and pita; salad; halal chicken, vegetables, potatoes; and rice pudding. Hosts distributed party favors too — dated, embossed OIC brief cases holding patented, OIC coffee mugs, OIC stainless travel mugs and retractable ball-point pens.

But the AIC itself pled poverty, soliciting Sept. 29 attendees for $1,000, $4,000. $5,000, $30,000, $600,000 or $700,000 donations for brass name plates of choice on chairs, classrooms, dorm rooms, conference rooms, the auditorium or the dormitory building, respectively.

Nevertheless, Americans should remain vigilant. Constitutional protections of free speech and religious practice do not outlaw criticism of faith that would infringe on the rights of others. The OIC-hosted Muslim speakers often invoked U.S. Constitutional rights, but conveniently ignored them in cases that others had bruised their sentiments. They labeled all critics of Islam hate mongers and bigots.

Americans should recognize this strategy as a dangerous attempt to introduce a key sharia law component — prohibiting any criticism of Islam — to the detriment of everyone, especially Muslims. To achieve true renaissance presuppose questions.

Notes:
1 Mohamed Akram, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, 5/22/1991,” www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/HLF/Akram_GeneralStrategicGoal.pdf (viewed 9/18/2007); “Attachment A,” In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Dallas Division, USA vs. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, http://www.pipelinenews.org/images/2007-05-29-US v HLF-ListCoConspirators.pdf (first viewed 6/1/2007).


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‘Is it Fair to Say Islam is Setting the Rules?’

By Andrew Bostom and Alyssa A. Lappen
American Thinker | Oct. 6, 2010

Lars Vilks, Lars Hedegaard, and Rabbi Jon Hausman were interviewed yesterday (Monday, 10/5/2010) by Helen Glover of WHJJ 920 AM, Providence, about the sorry state of free speech in the West as we capitulate to Islamic intimidation over the Medieval dictates of Sharia-based “blasphemy” law.

Rabbi Hausman’s matter-of-fact description of the security measures that Mr. Vilk’s brief visit to the Boston area entailed, are particularly chilling.

Lars Vilks is the Swedish artist whose Muhammad sketch triggered both Al-Qaeda death fatwas and a thwarted assassination plan by American convert to Islam, “Jihad Jane”. Lars Hedegaard is a Danish journalist and writer who founded the Danish Free Press Society.

Link to the [WHJJ AM] interviews, [are no longer available online]:


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No Islamic Mea Culpas

At first-ever conference on the topic, experts explore the history and potential threat of Muslim anti-Semitism.

by Steve Lipman
Jewish Week | Oct. 5, 2010

Rabbi Richard Rubenstein

In the shadow of the controversial planned Islamic center near Ground Zero and a State Department alert about suspected Al- Qaeda attacks in Europe, several dozen experts on the threat to national security posed by contemporary Muslims met here Sunday — and a 48-year-old turning point in Roman Catholic history became an unofficial theme.

Several speakers at the first Conference on Muslim Antisemitism, held at the Metropolitan Doubletree Hotel on the East Side and sponsored by the two-year-old Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, invoked the memory of the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, which was held in Rome from 1962 to 1965. Vatican II, which introduced innovations in the Church’s liturgy, improved relations with the Jewish community by admitting Christianity’s fault for implicating Jews in the death of Jesus.

A similar interfaith effort is needed — but unlikely to happen — in Islam, which has become the chief instigator of anti-Semitism in recent decades, participants in the conference said Sunday.

A Vatican II form of “self-reflection” by prominent Islamic leaders is required in order to reduce tensions between Jews and Muslims, said Rabbi Richard Rubenstein, keynote speaker and author of the newly published “Jihad and Genocide” (Rowman & Littlefield). “I do not see this in Islam.”

Instead, said Rabbi Rubenstein and other speakers, Islam — little distinction was made at the conference between Islam itself and so-called Islamists who represent the extremist, terrorist wing — has become more assertive in preaching anti-Semitic aspects of the Koran and other Islamic texts, and Muslim leaders who engage in dialogue activities with non-Muslims often make less conciliatory statements to Arabic-speaking audiences.

In his keynote address, Rabbi Rubenstein said he finds dialogue with Muslims to be unproductive.

“I don’t engage in dialogue” with Muslim representatives,” he said. “I think it’s a waste of time. It gives them a legitimacy in the United States that they do not deserve.”

On the other hand, said Rabbi Rubenstein, president emeritus of the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Conn., dialogue with Christians is “a realistic possibility. I’ve spent 50 years in a fruitful dialogue with Christians.”

The rabbi’s remarks about dialoging with Muslims drew a mixed reaction from the conference participants, some five dozen of the leading experts — most of them Jewish — on Islamic politics and theology. Some of the other speakers said they enthusiastically take part in Jewish-Muslim dialogue. Many said they shared Rabbi Rubenstein’s feelings.

Many Jewish participants in Jewish-Muslim dialogue have been “burned many times” by Muslim participants who later made radical statements, said Sam Edelman, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He said he, and other potential Jewish dialogue partners, have grown suspicious of participating in such dialogues. “Without trust, dialogue is difficult.”

Though some dissenting views about the militancy of most Muslims were expressed at the conference, the participants, mostly scholars and activists who spend their time monitoring Islamic activities, were largely in agreement that Islam is a threat to Jews and that few Muslims would qualify as worthy dialogue partners. This would appear not to represent the diversity of thought in the Jewish community on this issue and put the sentiments of conference participants at odds with many mainstream Jewish organizations in the U.S. who continue to support an outreach to “moderate” Muslims while criticizing Muslim excesses.

Sunday’s conference was convened, said Neal Rosenberg, co-editor of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, because “there’s an ideological war going on.” The subject, he said, “is topical right now. Anti-Semitism on a worldwide basis is growing.”

A score of books on anti-Semitism are being published this year in the U.S., he said.

Rosenberg said he was disappointed that few members of the general public attended the conference. “It’s a problem of America,” he said. Most Jews in this country, he said, consider widespread attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions to be something that happens overseas, in Europe. American Jews “don’t feel threatened.”

Conference participants browsed at tables that exhibited such books, in English and German, as “Muslim Anti-Semitism in Christian Europe,” “Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom” and “ Hatred of the Jew in the 21st Century,” and they viewed posters of anti-Semitic rallies in England.

Speakers at the conference described Muslims’ attempts to deJudaize Jewish scriptures and biblical sites in Israel, to deny the Jewish roots of Islam, to blame Jews for “slaying Allah’s prophets” and to equate Israeli actions with Nazi crimes.

Muslim anti-Semitism, they said, predates the modern Zionist movement, Nazi-style anti-Semitism and the establishment of the State of Israel, but can be traced to Koranic statements that call Jews “apes and pigs” and relegate Jews to an inferior status. They cited centuries of forced conversions, pogroms and expulsions at the hands of Muslims.

“There’s nothing new about this,” said freelance journalist Alyssa Lappen, who writes frequently for the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism.

Other conference participants shared their personal stories of experiencing Muslim-generated anti-Semitism, and they offered suggestions for countering Muslim anti-Semitism. Among the suggestions: make coalitions with non-Jews, especially with members of the Islamic community who are open to admitting the problems in their faith; work to have anti-Semitic references removed from texts used by Palestinian children and expose “left-wing” activists who abet Muslim anti-Semitism.

Islam has replaced Christianity as the main source of international anti-Semitism, several speakers said.

“Today we take for granted that it is a global phenomenon. We’re in a new era of anti-Semitism … you can find it at any moment and anywhere,” said Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, author of the best-selling 1996 book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” who is at work on a book about anti-Semitism. “The Internet makes it available. It’s a click away.”

A Muslim version of Vatican II, a first step to reducing Islamic anti-Semitism, is unlikely, several speakers agreed.

“Vatican II was based on some form of mea culpa,” a Catholic admission of guilt in fomenting anti-Semitism, said Andrew Bostom, editor of “Legacy of Jihad and Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism” (Prometheus, 2008). “Mea culpa is not on the [Islamic] radar screen.”

“There is,” added Steven Baum, co-editor of the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, “no mea culpa in Islam.”

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Another local take on the ‘Ground Zero Mega Mosque’

By Bill Grimmell
Special to the Oak Ridger
Posted Sep 17, 2010 @ 08:31 AM

PARIS, Tenn. — Carolyn Dipboye (The Oak Ridger “Guest Column,” Sept. 6), suggested that those who object to the construction of a 13- to 15-story “Ground Zero Mega Mosque” are either stampeding public opinion for selfish purposes or thoughtlessly being so stampeded.

She stated, rightly in my opinion, that we should not view all Muslims as terrorists, though I haven’t heard anyone suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists, only that most terrorists are Muslims. However, she implies that all of us who object to the mosque are one with that miniscule minority of Americans who would burn Qurans or vandalize mosques (the Dove World Outreach Center’s Rev. Terry Jones, who has threatened to burn Qurans, leads a group of about 50 people).

Most of us who object to the mosque see it as a structure that could easily be interpreted as a monument to a radical Islam victory in killing nearly 3,000 U.S. residents and bringing down the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. As such, it may well be a powerful tool for recruiting Muslims to the cause of radical Islam since it was in the name of Islam that the 9/11 acts of terror were carried out. The proposed location of the mega mosque is 600 feet from the World Trade Center’s ground zero at a site where a building was severely damaged by an engine from one plane flown into the Center’s Twin Towers. I, along with others, believe the mega mosque’s location belies its sponsors’ claim that it will be built to foster tolerance and interfaith understanding.

As Mark Helprin (in an Aug. 30 Wall Street Journal op-ed) wrote: “Building close to ground zero disregards the passion, grief and preferences not only of most of the families of Sept. 11th but, because we are all families of Sept. 11th, those of the American people as well, if even not the whole of the American people. If the project is to promote moderate Islam, why have its sponsors so relentlessly, without the slightest compromise insisted upon such a sensitive and inflammatory setting? That is not moderate. It is aggressively militant.

“Disregarding pleas to build it at a sufficient remove so as not to be linked to an abomination committed, widely praised, and throughout the world seldom condemned in the name of Islam, the militant proponents of the World Trade Center mosque are guilty of a poorly concealed provocation. They dare Americans to appear anti-Islamic and intolerant or just to roll over.”

Supporting Helprin’s description of the uncompromising approach of the mega mosque sponsors is the sponsors’ refusal to meet with New York Gov. David Patterson to discuss the possibility of another location. Even now, in an otherwise moderate sounding op-ed, Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, the apparent leader of the mosque development, affirms his determination to build the Mega Mosque at the designated site (New York Times, Sept. 7).

As noted in a petition currently on the Human Events website (and pointed out in part by Helprin and others):

“Throughout Islamic history, the placement of mosques has been an expression of conquest and superiority over non-Muslims. Muslims built the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem to assert Islam’s superiority over Judaism. Similarly, the Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople was converted into a mosque to assert the superiority of Islam over Christianity. An estimated 2,000 mosques in India were built on the sites of Hindu temples for the same reason. Even the proposed name of the ground zero mosque, ‘Cordoba House’, is a clear historical reference to the Spanish city where a church was converted into a mosque after the city was conquered by a Muslim army.”

Knowing the Human Events-cited history lends weight to a belief that the mosque will be viewed by many, particularly radical Muslims, as a monument to a radical Islam triumph and a symbol of Islamic superiority. Further, Cordoba also was the headquarters city of the Caliphate that resulted from the Muslim conquest of most of Spain. Possibly the publicizing of the significance of Cordoba has led to the name change of the proposed mosque from Cordoba House to Park 51. (Imam Rauf claims the name Cordoba “was inspired by the city in Spain where Muslims, Christians and Jews co-existed in the Middle Ages during a period of great cultural enrichment created by Muslims.” Others have pointed out that that coexistence was actually a Muslim dominance that at times had a brutal character. According to Alyssa Lappen, as documented in her May 14, Pajama[s] Media website article, “Muslim rule in Spain never remotely approached the mythic level of beneficence that Rauf pretends.”)

The Rev. Dipboye would have us believe that the U.S. government’s embrace of Imam Rauf and his wife, Daisey Khan, should lead us all to believe that they are the benevolent, admirable folks that they portray themselves to be. Yet the federal government’s judgment of Muslim organizations and individuals has been far from consistently on the mark. The Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations embraced the Council on American Islamic Relations as the civil rights organization that it claims to be. Nihad Awad, representing CAIR, served on the civil rights advisory board of Vice President Gore’s commission on airline safety. (Awad, a founder of CAIR, was the only member of that advisory board representing a religious-based organization.) President Bush’s administration and the FBI during his administration consulted with CAIR, despite private individuals pointing to evidence that CAIR might be funneling funds to a Mideast terrorist organization (an illegal act in the U.S.). The FBI essentially severed its relationship with CAIR in 2008 after finding sufficient evidence in 2007 to name it an unindicted co-conspirator with the Holy Land Foundation and five officials of that foundation. The foundation and the officials were indicted and subsequently convicted for providing financial support to a terrorist organization, i.e., Hamas.

Also, there is U.S. Army Major Nadil Malik Hasan, who despite evidence of his unfitness to remain in the Army, was not removed from service. He went on to slaughter 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. While the actions of CAIR and Major Hassan should in no way be seen as an indictment of other American Muslims, they do belie the idea that the U.S. government’s embrace of someone assures his or her benevolence.

Rev. Dipboye, in my opinion, views the moderate writings of Imam Rauf and his supporters with insufficient skepticism. Rauf’s associations, e.g., with the anti-Semitic and virulently anti-Isr[ae]l former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato Mahathir bin Muhamad, his use of a gathering of a radical Muslim organization to promote a book (Hizb ut Tahrir in Kuala Lumpur, Maylasia, in 2007) and the manner in which he promotes that book outside the U.S. provide part of the grounds for some skepticism. Could it be that Alyssa Lappen‘s suspicion is correct, that Imam Rauf is engaging in the practice of deception that is accepted in some Muslim circles? (Rev. Dipboye approvingly mentioned Rauf’s book that in the U.S. is titled, “What’s Right with Islam is What’s Right with the United States.” She didn’t mention that it was originally published in Malaysia, titled, “A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawah in the Heart of America Post-9/11” and that Dawah is “inviting non-Muslims to accept the truth of Islam,” i.e., it is proselytizing.)

Rev. Dipboye also brushes aside some of what Christopher Hitchen refers to as “shady and creepy things” said by Imam Rauf (Slate, Aug. 9, 2010), and Hitchens is not an avowed opponent of the mega mosque. Yes, in one of those “shady and creepy” statements the Iman did say that the U.S. through its policies was an accessory to the 9/11 acts of terror (”60 Minutes” interview, Sept. 30, 2001). He did refuse to acknowledge that Hamas was a terrorist organization (June 18, 2010, WABC radio interview with Aaron Klein), he did support the Iranian revolution after Ayatollah Khomeini had declared Iran to be governed by the harsh Islamic Sharia law (Rauf’s New York Times letter to the editor, Feb. 27, 1979) and among other things, he said Islamic terrorism would not stop until the U.S. president issued a “America Culpa” statement (i.e., a statement that America is to blame) for ills that have befallen the Muslim world (Sydney Sun Herald, March 24, 2004). It may be true that the context in which the Imam made some of his statements might soften them, but they still by design or inadvertence have an inflammatory character for many if not most Americans.

At the beginning of this year, Christian churches in Malaysia were firebombed apparently by Muslims (two Muslim brothers have been convicted in the worst of these attacks). This was a reaction to a Malaysian legal decision that allowed a Catholic paper to use the name Allah to refer to the Christian God. The Imam Rauf, who maintains a “Cordoba Initiative” presence in Malaysia, advised Christian Malaysians as follows (Malaysia Star, Jan. 13, editorial):

“My message to the Christian community in Malaysia is that using the word Allah to mean the Christian God may be theologically and legally correct, but in the context of Malaysia, it is socially provocative. If you want to have influence with people in Malaysia, you must find a way to convey your message without provoking this kind of response.”

If Imam Rauf applies his advice analogously to his proposed mosque, then he should recognize that in the context of a United States that has been attacked in the name of Islam, it is provocative to go forward with the mosque construction at the designated site. Polls indicate that 70 percent of the American people are against construction of a ground zero mega mosque. I suspect that the best thing that the Imam could do to build bridges between Muslims and non-Muslims in this country is to build his mega mosque outside of the World Trade Center neighborhood.

William McGurn (Wall Street Journal, Aug. 3) noted that Pope John Paul II in another dispute recognized “that having the right to do something doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.” Certainly, the Rev. Terry Jones has the right to burn Qurans (if he isn’t violating any burning ordinances, covenants or regulatory restrictions in so doing). However, I don’t think such burning is the right thing to do. Similarly, the ground zero mega mosque sponsors have the right to build and operate their mosque (if they aren’t violating any laws, covenants or regulations while so doing). However, I and apparently the great majority of the American people, including numbers of American Muslims, don’t think it is the right thing to do.

Bill Grimmell is an Oak Ridge resident.


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