Category Archives: Kurt Westergaard

RIP Kurt Westergaard

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Mr. Westergaard was a talented artist, a good natured man and a great admirer of the arts all around. His contribution to the Jlands Posten cartoon challenge, along with the staggeringly dishonest and violent response from the Islamic world, woke up pretty much anyone not totally deaf to alarms, as to the nature of Islam, and what a threat it was to Western individualism and freedoms.

That should read, anyone who was able to be awakened and had not been awakened by the events of 911.

Kurt came to Toronto for a few days in 2009 and did a small media tour and gave signed copies of his most famous cartoon, which is here in this post, to a few personalities in media at that time.

What struck me the most about Kurt, was how he had not asked for, nor desired the fame and pressure that came with the success of his drawings. But still managed to wear the mantle of it with calm and good humoured dignity. He did not want to be a hero of the free speech issue. But once that spot was focused on him, he handled it deftly.

I hope those people who managed to get one of those limited editions, treasure them and keep them safe during the dark totalitarian period that is rapidly settling in across the world, for posterity and a future that will need to know some people did resist.

RIP Kurt. And thank you for all you did while you were among us.

 

Terror suspects guilty in planned Jyllands-Posten attack

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CPH Post:

H/T Snaphanen.Dk

Ray Weaver
June 4, 2012 – 15:41
Four terrorists sentenced to 12 years in prison for plotting strike against newspaper office
Defense attorney Kaare Traberg Schmidt leaving the Glostrup courtroom following a guilty verdict against his clients (Photo:Scanpix)

A jury in Glostrup ruled today that the four men charged with terrorism for planning an assault on the Copenhagen offices of Jyllands-Posten newspaper are guilty.

Found guilty were Swedish citizens Munir Awad, Omar Abdalla Aboelazm and Sahbi Ben Mohamed Zalouti, and Mounir Ben Mohamed Dhahri, a Tunisian national. All four were arrested in December 2010 after joint surveillance by Danish and Swedish security services uncovered the plot in which the men vowed to “kill as many people as possible” during a planned attack on the 2010 Årets Fund, a high-profile sports awards ceremony that is held in the Jyllands-Posten building. Jyllands-Posten has been the target of Islamic-inspired terror ever since it published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2005, drawing the ire of Muslims around the world.

Awad, Aboelazm and Dhahri were arrested at a flat in the Copenhagen suburb of Herlev on 29 December 2010.They had travelled to Denmark by car the night before. Zalouti was arrested at his apartment in Stockholm and later extradited to Denmark.

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Newsflash! PRO NRW Can Show Mohammed Caricatures in Cologne, Too!

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Thanks to the website: Politically Incorrect, we see that there is another victory for reason and freedom in Germany today. H/T Fjordman

From P.I. News:

A tenth-round victory for NRW Interior Minister Ralf Jäger against PRO NRW: According to a quick decision by the Cologne district court today, the Mohammed caricatures by Kurt Westergaard can be shown at the PRO NRW meeting in front of the mosque construction site in Ehrenfeld. Markus Beisicht: “That is a great achievement again for us and for freedom of speech.”

The following was communicated in a press release from PRO NRW:

Cologne district court likewise lifts “caricature ban” by NRW Interior Minister

PRO NRW also wins the last round in the “war of trials” against them started by the Interior Minister.

The Cologne district court, with today’s decision (Az.: 290 L 590/12), lifted the “caricature ban” decreed in an edict by NRW Interior Minister Jäger for Cologne as well. The PRO NRW Citizens’ Movement will be able right away to exhibit the caricatures from Kurt Westergaard even at the last rally by the nation wide “Freedom instead of Islam” election tour.

“This is a beautiful day for free speech and for the rule of law, which was profoundly confirmed by the district courts of the state of NRW in a ‘trial war’ that has been going on for almost two weeks,” PRO NRW president and top candidate for his party, Markus Beisicht, commented of the achievement by his party in court.

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Danish court puts four men on trial on terror charges

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DW.De:

The offices of the Jullands-Posten in Copenhagen

Justice

Danish court puts four men on trial on terror charges

Four men have been put on trial in Copenhagen for allegedly trying to attack the offices of a newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. The 2005 cartoons sparked outrage in the Muslim world.

Four men have pleaded not guilty of charges of plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper that published controversial caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad have gone on trial in Denmark.

If convicted, the three Swedish citizens and one Tunisian resident of Sweden could face a maximum of 16 years in prison.

All four men were arrested in December of 2010. At the time of their arrest, three of the suspects were allegedly on their way to the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in downtown Copenhagen, where police said they planned to “kill as many people as possible.”

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Norwegian Muslim jailed for bomb plot

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Scotsman.com

Published on Tuesday 31 January 2012 00:00

 

A NORWEGIAN of Chinese Muslim origin with alleged links to al-Qaeda has been convicted of plotting to blow up a Danish newspaper that had printed cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

He was sentenced to seven years in prison despite prosecutors calling for an 11-year term. It was Norway’s first terrorism case with alleged international links.

DANISH-INTERNATIONAL FREE SPEECH SOCIETY OFFERING TURBAN BOMB MO-MUGS IN SUPPORT OF KURT WESTERGAARD

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Buy em’ by the crate! KGS

The surplus for the sale goes to Kurt Westergaard and the Free Press Society.

The mug costing 50Kr. (excluding postage) can be ordered by writing to tr**********@tr**********.dk and provide name, address and the number of cups you want.

On the back of mug reads: www.Trykkefrihed.dk and www. International Free Press Society.org.

Right now it is being produced, so you must expect a delivery time of approx. two weeks. DFPS.

H/T: Henrik R.Clausen

Missing: The Face of the Age

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(I feel it should be mentioned, both Ezra Levant and Michael Coren on Canada’s SUN TV have shown the cartoons more than once, and in fact, whenever it was relevant)

From Diana West:

Written by: Diana West
Friday, September 16, 2011 4:27 AM

This week’s syndicated column:

Having passed the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I can now say with certainty that something major was missing from all of the ceremonies, the symbolism and the media coverage. It was something that not only captures the meaning of the attacks themselves, but better defines our response to them than any other single thing. It is the face of the age itself, and it is not Osama bin Laden’s.

I refer to the most familiar of the 12 Danish Muhammad cartoons, the one by Kurt Westergaard. I always think of this world-famous drawing as “Bomb-head Muhammad,” for the lit bomb that serves as Muhammad’s turban. (This is no fantastical image, as we learned last month when Afghan President Hamid Karzai prevailed upon local imams to implore their flocks to stop putting bombs in their turbans after three separate assassinations via turban bombs took place.)

I say “world-famous drawing,” but have you ever actually seen this cartoon printed in a newspaper, or shown on a news broadcast? No. With exceptions to be counted on one hand, this ultra-potent image has never received mainstream media display, despite its almost continual newsworthiness.

Yes, the media have covered the most violent eruptions of jihad that Muslims still wage against Denmark for having a free press with the temerity to function in dereliction of Islamic law. These have ranged from Islamic rioting that killed more than 100 people, to Islamic attacks on Danish interests, to Islamic boycotts of Danish products, to Islamic plots against the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, to this week’s Islamic security threat against Westergaard that sent him home early from a trip to Norway.

Please click through to Diana West.net for the rest

Kurt Westergaard could be handed to Jordan for blasphemy trial

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For real. Here is a Fjordman translation of the article from Ekstrabladet

This Danish newspaper article claims that if cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who currently lives virtually as a prisoner in his own home where he has earlier been attacked with an axe by a Muslim man, can potentially be handed over to Jordan if he loses the blasphemy case against him there a few days from now. This is because of the European Arrest Warrant, which we warned against at the Gates of Vienna blog nearly 3 years ago. According to this Arrest Warrant, which very few Europeans have even heard of, a citizen of one European country can be handed over to another country if he is involved in a “serious crime” like racism. This was originally intended as an internal EU thing, but as Bat Ye’or keeps reminding us, these regulations are often expanded to include the EU’s Mediterranean “partners,” that is, the Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa, Jordan included:

STRATFOR: The Mohammed Cartoon Dust Has Not Settled

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Whatever any of you may get from this report, what I get from it is something everyone used to know not too too long ago, and precious few do now. That the second most important thing for a free people, is the second amendment of the US constitution. The right to personal self defence. Without that, we are subject to whatever foaming hate filled nut bag that wants to force his values on us.

From the geopolitical think-tank STRATFOR:

January 6, 2011

By Scott Stewart

When one considers all of the people and places in the West targeted by transnational jihadists over the past few years, iconic targets such as New York’s Times Square, the London Metro and the Eiffel Tower come to mind. There are also certain target sets such as airlines and subways that jihadists focus on more than others. Upon careful reflection, however, it is hard to find any target set that has been more of a magnet for transnational jihadist ire over the past year than the small group of cartoonists and newspapers involved in the Mohammed cartoon controversy.

Every year STRATFOR publishes a forecast of the jihadist movement for the coming year. As we were working on that project for this year, we were struck by the number of plots in 2010 that involved the cartoon controversy — and by the number of those plots that had transnational dimensions, rather than plots that involved only local grassroots operatives. (The 2011 jihadist forecast will be available to STRATFOR members in the coming weeks.)

Groups such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) have gone to great lengths to keep the topic of the Mohammed cartoons burning in the consciousness of radical Islamists, whether they are lone wolves or part of an organized jihadist group, and those efforts are obviously bearing fruit. Because of this, we anticipate that plots against cartoon-related targets will continue into the foreseeable future.

A Recent Plot
On Dec. 29, 2010, authorities in Denmark and Sweden arrested five men they say were involved in planning an armed assault on the offices of Jyllands-Posten in Copenhagen. Jyllands-Posten is the newspaper that first published the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in September 2005. According to the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (known by its Danish acronym PET), three of the arrested men, a 29-year-old Swedish citizen born in Lebanon, a 44-year-old Tunisian and a 30-year-old Swedish citizen, lived in Sweden and had traveled to Denmark to participate in the plot. The other two individuals arrested were a 37-year-old Swedish citizen born in Tunisia who was detained in a Stockholm suburb and a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker who was arrested in a Copenhagen suburb. The Iraqi has been released from Danish custody.

According to the PET, one of the three men who had traveled to Copenhagen, 29-year-old Swedish citizen Munir Awad, had been arrested in Somalia in 2007 and in Pakistan in 2009 on suspicion of participating in terrorist activity. When arrested in Pakistan, Awad was allegedly traveling in the company of Mehdi Ghezali, a Swedish citizen who had been released in 2004 after being held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. Given Awad’s background, it is almost certain that he had been placed under intensive surveillance by Swedish authorities and it is likely this surveillance resulted in the unraveling of the plot. Continue Reading →

Another Cartoonist in Hiding After Death Threats

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From The New York Times:

By BRIAN STELTER
Published: September 16, 2010

A cartoonist in Seattle who promoted an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” last spring is now in hiding after her life was threatened by Islamic extremists.

The cartoonist, Molly Norris, has changed her name and has stopped producing work for a local alternative newspaper, Seattle Weekly, according to the newspaper’s editor, Mark D. Fefer.

Mr. Fefer declined an interview request Thursday, citing “the sensitivity of the situation.” But in a letter to readers about Ms. Norris on Wednesday, he said that “on the insistence of top security specialists at the F.B.I., she is, as they put it, ‘going ghost’: moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity.”

The F.B.I. declined to comment on the case.

Ms. Norris attracted attention after she published a poster on the Internet in April satirically proposing that people draw figures of the Prophet Muhammad on May 20.

She indicated that the proposal was a protest of censorship by Comedy Central, which edited out references to Muhammad from an episode of “South Park” that month. That episode also triggered threats from extremists. Islam forbids depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

In 2005, a Dutch cartoonist named Kurt Westergaard published a depiction of Muhammad that led to multiple death threats and alleged assassination attempts. He was presented an award this month for freedom of speech by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany. Continue Reading →

Copenhagen: Blast in hotel, police suspect terrorism target, Jyllands-Posten

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From Islam in Europe with thanks

Copenhagen: Jyllands-Posten possible target of terror attack (UPDATED)

(photo)

The suspect is described as ‘North-African-looking’ and speaks French. In court he claimed he could not remember his name, though according to Danish newspaper Ekstrabladet’s sources, he comes from Luxembourg.

The man is being placed in isolation, which probably means the police suspect he has accomplices. According to the charges, the man intended to set off the bomb elsewhere, and it went off at the hotel by accident. (DA, DA)

Via AP:

Danish officials said this week’s small explosion at a Copenhagen hotel could be terror related, as the French-speaking suspect proclaimed his innocence in court Saturday while being ordered held in custody.

The blast on Friday — a day before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States — caused only minor damage to a hotel bathroom and prompted Danish authorities to “slightly” raise the country’s terror alert. But officials insisted Danes should not be afraid of an imminent attack.

No one was hurt except for the suspect, who was slightly wounded.

(more)

Update:
The suspect had a map on which the offices of Jyllands-Posten in Viby, Aarhus, were circled (DA). Sources close to the investigation say that the newspaper offices were probably the target, and that the police were already sure of that on Friday. Security in the area was immediately increased.