Category Archives: Freedoms

OIC gears up to get denigration of religions criminalized

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Saudi Gazette:

Last Updated : Monday, February 18, 2013 12:17 PM
Rizwan Saeed Sheikh

Hassan Cheruppa
Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Getting the go-ahead from the Cairo Islamic Summit, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has been actively trying to get the denigration of religions recognized as a criminal offense, according to a top official.

“Next session of the Istanbul Process on Islamophobia will be held in the first half of this year, and the session will squarely focus on the issue of criminalizing denigration of religions,” said Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, director of cultural affairs at the OIC general secretariat and spokesman for the OIC secretary general.

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The video below taken last year will give an idea of how slippery the OIC is, especially when you compare what is below, with what is above.

 

Saudi to fund mosque construction in Maldives

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The best line is the last one. Freedom of religion in Islam. Just in case anyone in the world still thinks that Islamic supremacism is rare and not indicative of the whole.

H/T Martin

Construction Week Online:

Saudi Arabia has agreed to finance the construction of mosque's in the Maldives.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to finance the construction of mosque’s in the Maldives.

RELATED ARTICLES: Abu Dhabi begins mosque landscaping scheme | Sheikh Khalifa initiates $68m mosque for RAK city | King urges faster pace on Prophet’s Mosque project

Saudi Arabia has signed an agreement for $1.7m in free aid for the development of mosques in the Maldives, according to a statement from the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.

The signing, which took place at the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Sri Lanka was attended by the Maldives Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Hussain Shihab as well as Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the Maldives, Abdul Azeez Jammaz.

The Ministry also stated that they will be announcing the location of the proposed mosques in the near future. The Maldives, which is spread over 1,200 islands, officially declared itself as an Islamic state in 1997 and holds a strict position on freedom of religion, banning all faiths other than Islam.

The new dark age: Across Europe, free speech and democracy face their biggest threat since the Thirties

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Mail Online:

By Dominic Sandbrook

PUBLISHED: 18:45 EST, 2 November 2012 | UPDATED: 18:45 EST, 2 November 2012

After a week dominated by the terrible effects of Superstorm Sandy, the increasingly bitter struggle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and the continuing fallout from the Jimmy Savile scandal, it was easy to overlook a little story about an obscure Greek journalist called Kostas Vaxevanis.

In its way, though, the ordeal of Mr Vaxevanis, the editor of an Athens magazine, who narrowly escaped prison for publishing the names of suspected tax evaders, is the biggest story of all.

Its themes — the freedom of the Press, the corruption of the establishment, the arrogance of the elite and the terrifying storm engulfing the economies of Europe — go to the heart of a crisis that threatens to tear the Continent apart.

An assault on free speech: Greek magazine editor Kostas Vaxevanis was arrested for naming over 2,000 individuals evading taxAssault on free speech: Greek editor Kostas Vaxevanis was arrested for naming individuals evading tax

But the Vaxevanis scandal is merely the tip of the iceberg.

From the Leveson Inquiry in London to the attempted comeback of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, and from the salons of Paris to the committee rooms of Brussels, there are disturbing signs of a backlash against democracy, free speech and the will of the people — a counter-revolution that could sweep away many of the liberties we take for granted.

For more than half a century after World War II, most of us assumed that life in Europe would always get better. And when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it seemed that the tide of freedom was irresistible.

Democratic? Greece has had more in common with a dictatorship since a new government was 'imposed' by Brussels

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Muslim leaders say call for global ban on anti-Islam ‘hate speech’ is not attack on free speech

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The OIC and The Muslim Brotherhood play their next card at last. I hope its as transparent to everyone else as it is to anyone reading this site.

We as a people are our values and our freedoms are utterly dependent on the fear-free (at least from our own leaders and institutions of state) ability to mock, insult, criticize and limit authority and religious authority and irrational religious authority most of all.

As a people, this must be our red line.

Eeyore

h/t Grace

From The National Post:

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters

Eduardo Munoz/Reuters Algeria’s Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Sept. 29, 2012. “Why is it when Muslims are stigmatized and defamed, it is defended as ’freedom of expression’?,” he asked.

Algeria demanded new efforts Saturday to limit freedom of expression to prevent denigrating attacks on Islam, appealing to the United Nations to take a lead as nations engaged in new debate on the tensions between free speech and religious tolerance.

In an address to the General Assembly, Algeria’s foreign minister Mourad Medelci called for global action under the auspices of the United Nations to respond to violent demonstrations provoked by a U.S.-produced video that mocks Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad.

While Medelci didn’t offer precise details of how he believed the UN could intervene, his call follows similar demands at the General Assembly from scores of leaders in the Muslim world who want new laws to ban insults against Islam.

 

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Stephen Coughlin predicted all of this:

Please note this paragraph from the Post article:

On the sidelines of the annual forum, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, in an interview with The Associated Press Saturday, called for a global ban on offending the character of the Prophet Muhammad, saying that it should be equated with hate speech.

OBAMA WOULD HAVE APOLOGIZED TO HITLER

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And the Europeans were filled to the brim with the same minded appeasing grovel as well.

As the old saying goes: “there is nothing new under the sun”.

Folks, looking at the few posts I’ve done on this issue, the groveling, apologizing and bending over backwards of heads of states over the supposed ”abuse of free speech”, take a look at this. Vlad published a video not to long ago along the very same theme, and I was floored by the piece of film that he found, now this…..

The spineless merchants of grovel don’t derserve to live in this age where freedom of speech in fact exists. If you do not stand up and be counted, you will lose it to spineless bastards like the Obama admin, Helsingin Sanomat’s Mikael Pentikäinen, the EU’s laughing stock of a parliament and chair, Martin Schultz ….and the rest.

NOTE: This piece by Billingsly is the coupe de grace to the mealy mouthed apologizers to Islam over Western free speech rights, be damned the lot of you.

 

“Let me make it perfectly clear that the United States government had nothing whatsoever to do with this film,” Hull said in a statement. “The United States government regrets that some individuals have abused their right to free speech by showing disrespect for other nations, governments and leaders with which the United States is at peace and wishes to remain at peace.”

The German-American Bund and similar groups in other countries have been protesting the “The Great Dictator,” a film produced, written and directed by comedian Charlie Chaplin.

In the film Chaplin plays Adenoid Hynkel, ruthless dictator of Tomania, who believes in a pure Aryan state, the decimation of the Jews, and world domination. Tomania first invades neighboring Osterlich, an obvious reference to Osterreich or Austria, which Germany annexed two years ago in the March 1938 Anschluss.

“Austria has always been German,” said Fritz Kuhn of the German-American Bund, a group promoting friendship and trade between the United States and Germany. “And Germany’s leader deserves better than to be portrayed as a buffoon by the Hollywood clown Chaplin, who is only trying to drag American boys into war.”

More here.

FRENCH POLICE GUARDING SATIRIST CHARLIE HEBDO BUILDING IN WAKE OF MOHAMED CARTOON RELEASE

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Folks, there is no easy way out of this.

As long as it’s necessary for police to safeguard a building from being firebombed do to irate Muslims, then the mocking of their religious figures, as distasteful as it is, is paramount and needs to continue and be defended. No one group can be allowed to intimidate others through violence from expressing an opinion. You let it slip here, then free speech is doomed for good.

UPDATE: Charlie Hebdo’s website hacked, via Blazing Cat Fur:

Offices of French magazine that published cartoons mocking Prophet Mohammed guarded by riot police as it plans to release new satirical image

  • Charlie Hedbo’s Paris HQ was firebombed last year after it published an issue it claimed had been guest-edited by Mohammed

By PETER ALLEN

PUBLISHED: 00:23 GMT, 19 September 2012 | UPDATED: 12:00 GMT, 19 September 2012

Riot police were guarding the offices of a satirical magazine in Paris last night as it prepared to publish cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed.

Charlie Hedbo’s HQ in the French capital was firebombed last year after it published an issue it claimed had been guest-edited by Mohammed.

Despite the attack, it has now decided to print further drawings, including one of the Prophet in a wheelchair being pushed by a Jewish Rabbi.

Read more:

Iranian intelligence agents target, arrest Christian converts

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Daily Caller:

FILE – In this Monday, Nov. 26, 2007 file photo, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bottom center, reviews troops at a gathering of Basij militia forces, in Tehran, Iran, as Revolutionary Guards commander Mohammad Ali Jafari salutes, at right, and army commander Ataollah Salehi salutes, at left. (AP Photo, File)

Iran’s ayatollahs are showing frustration with Iranians leaving Islam for Christianity in large numbers despite the threat of execution for apostasy.

A former intelligence officer in the Guards, who has now defected to Europe, told The Daily Caller that the country’s regime has ordered the domestic intelligence apparatus to use drastic measures to stop them — including imprisonment, torture and the mass-burning of Bibles.

According to a report by Mohammad Reza Modaber, the chief editor of the Christian Farsi language Mohabat News, two Christian converts in their mid 20s were arrested in April after intelligence agents entered their home in Tehran without warrants.

One agent, responding to the mother of the arrested who asked where they were taking her children and why, responded mockingly, “Tell Jesus to come and rescue them.”

TheDC’s source who was formerly an Iranian intelligence officer indicated that in the city of Shiraz alone, with a population of over one million, there were 30,000 files at the intelligence headquarters on individuals who had converted to Christianity.

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OIC to launch broadcast watchdog in 57 Muslim states

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And another bunch of lights are snuffed out in the world, and new organizations form to snuff them out and keep them out.

H/T Holger

 

Today’s Zaman

19 April 2012 / ABDULLAH BOZKURT , LIBREVILLE

A Turkish proposal to establish a broadcasting watchdog agency among 57 Muslim countries was officially approved on Thursday at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference in Gabon’s capital, Libreville. The decision effectively empowers the OIC with new tools to promote broadcasting of a positive image of the Muslim world on member countries’ television channels. The OIC was established in 1969 to protect and promote the interests of Muslims worldwide.

Officially named “The OIC Broadcast Regulatory Authorities Forum,” the platform can be used by Turkey to limit broadcasts by banned Kurdish Roj-TV, which is affiliated with the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in case the PKK in the future decides to use one of the OIC members’ local channels to broadcast terror propaganda.

Turkey submitted the proposal to establish the OIC Broadcast Regulatory Authorities Forum in an OIC meeting in Dakar, Senegal, held from Oct. 11-13, 2010. The proposal was welcomed and approved for further exploration. The forum held its inaugural meeting in ?stanbul on Nov. 17-18, 2011. It was officially approved at the Ninth Session of the Islamic Conference of Information Ministers of the member states of the OIC in Gabon this week. Saudi Arabia will host the forum’s second meeting later in 2012.

The OIC describes the forum as a platform “intended to promote coordination, communication and cooperation among the authorities in charge of regulating broadcasting in member states, as well as to enhance the exchange of information, ideas and expertise on issues of common interest in the areas related to the services of the audiovisual media sector.”

Turkey, which has adopted progressive laws regulating the national broadcast industry in line with EU directives and Council of Europe resolutions, used its experience to establish a similar platform within the framework of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). The proposal was worked out by Turkey’s national media watchdog agency, the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTUK) and was approved by 11 of the 12 member BSEC countries in the BSEC Information and Communication Technologies Working Group meeting held in Kiev, Ukraine on Dec. 4-5, 2007.

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Christians have no right to wear cross at work, says Government

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The Telegraph:

 Christians do not have a right to wear a cross or crucifix openly at work, the Government is to argue in a landmark court case.

Christians have no right to wear cross at work, says Government

The Government has refused to say that Christians have a right to display the symbol of their faith at work Photo: PA

By , Home Affairs Correspondent

9:00PM GMT 10 Mar 2012

In a highly significant move, ministers will fight a case at the European Court of Human Rights in which two British women will seek to establish their right to display the cross.

It is the first time that the Government has been forced to state whether it backs the right of Christians to wear the symbol at work.

A document seen by The Sunday Telegraph discloses that ministers will argue that because it is not a “requirement” of the Christian faith, employers can ban the wearing of the cross and sack workers who insist on doing so.

The Government’s position received an angry response last night from prominent figures including Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury.

He accused ministers and the courts of “dictating” to Christians and said it was another example of Christianity becoming sidelined in official life.

The Government’s refusal to say that Christians have a right to display the symbol of their faith at work emerged after its plans to legalise same-sex marriages were attacked by the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain.

A poll commissioned by The Sunday Telegraph shows that the country is split on the issue.

Overall, 45 per cent of voters support moves to allow gay marriage, with 36 per cent against, while 19 per cent say they do not know.

However, the Prime Minister is out of step with his own party.

Exactly half of Conservative voters oppose same-sex marriage in principle and only 35 per cent back it.

There is no public appetite to change the law urgently, with more than three quarters of people polled saying it was wrong to fast-track the plan before 2015 and only 14 per cent saying it was right.

The Strasbourg case hinges on whether human rights laws protect the right to wear a cross or crucifix at work under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

It states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”

The Christian women bringing the case, Nadia Eweida and Shirley Chaplin, claim that they were discriminated against when their employers barred them from wearing the symbols.

They want the European Court to rule that this breached their human right to manifest their religion. Continue Reading →

OIC to hold conference in Brussels to protect ‘beliefs’ “beyond mere rhetoric”

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This is interesting. And endorsed by Hillary Clinton who I thought was a lot smarter than this.

Here are a few gems from this article:

“The workshop will represent a quantum leap in media action, as it discusses, beyond rhetoric, the practical steps to address the phenomenon of Islamophobia,” the OIC said.

and…

 

Resolution 16/18 aims to combat intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatisation of discrimination, incitement to violence, and violence against persons based on religion or belief.

Well of course this is preposterous. The idea that one cannot discriminate based on belief. In essence this means that Islam and only Islam will have the right to preach genocide, war, discrimination and apartheid as it is central dogma to the belief system, while any attempt to point this out will result in a criminal charge at best. A visit from the local sharia-brownshirts at worst.

The second quote is by necessity self contradicting. Clearly the Muslim belief that only Muslims may enter Mecca or Yathrib (Medina) will be sacrosanct while say, someone else’s belief that no Muslims should work, visit or live somewhere will be illegal.

So no, it will not be a protection for persons based on religion or belief. It will be a shield for Muslims to commit any discriminatory act they wish, say whatever they wish, force complicity for whatever policy they wish while anyone else will be criminalized for having their own views. This will be the practical outcome. One only needs look at any nation where Islam has over 10% of the population and is anywhere close to “the whip hand” (as  Enoch Powell is noted for reading from a constituent’s letter.)

In other words, it is highly unlikely that my firm belief in freedom of speech. In the right, no; the responsibility to mock, chastise, and criticize both anonymously (as is my right by law as a central tenet of democracy) and openly totalitarian and authoritarian and indeed, ultra conservative systems like Islam and other theocracies which remove my individual rights will not be protected under this new bill. If it did, it would be redundant by U.N standards itself according to Eleanor Roosevelt’s charter.

In fact, the Muslim nations are so very far out of bounds of this charter that it utterly boggles the mind that any UN or official from any civilized nation would entertain any sort of ‘rights’ law suggested by a Muslim nation and perhaps least of all Saudi Arabia. (although that would be highly debatable) It is critical to remember that people have rights. Beliefs do not. This should be said as a mantra by all and daily. One cannot give rights to a political system, a belief system or an alternative physics. People can have rights so long as we are prepared to fight for them. Belief systems are to be promoted or opposed as people see fit and in their own enlightened interests.

I hope all people carefully asses the risk-benifit equation of freedom and liberty vs. what they think they might lose by opposing the rapid encroachment of Islam and it’s barbarous and horrific laws on all of us.

And so for those who will defend freedom of speech, and also for those who believe in a totalitarian theocracy, I dedicate this video:

 

 

 

Iran Shut Down Gmail , Google , Yahoo and sites using “Https” Protocol

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Iran Shut Down Gmail , Google , Yahoo and sites using “Https” Protocol

February 10, 2012
Iran Shut Down Gmail , Google , Yahoo and sites using "Https" ProtocolBase on reports received from Iran , governments has blocked access to the major sites plus websites using certain “Https” protocol .

At the same time nobody can even use banking websites in Iran because all of them using “Https” to encode the sensetive data .

Most of Internet providers companies applied this restriction on their users from yesterday . We received reports from many major cities including but not limited to Mash’had , Rasht , Tehran , Bushehr , Karaj , Shiraz and Isfahan .

Gmail , Google(all the associated services) and Yahoo are affected by this limitation . Also BMI.ir , BPI.ir and Parsian-Bank.com serving online banking services can not be used at this situation . Online gateways are affected too .

People estimate this condition will be continue until Esfand(next month in Persian calender) after the 33rd anniversary of the Islamic Revolution .

Iran begins blocking access to Gmail, other sites

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WAPO:

When Thomas Erdbrink, The Washington Post’s correspondent in Tehran, logs on to the Internet in Iran, he never knows whether Gmail and Google Reader, The Post or Facebook will open for him. Increasingly, this is the error message he sees instead of the page he was trying to reach:


(Thomas Erdbrink)

Translation: “According to computer crime regulations, access to this Web site is denied.”

Iranian bloggers have long used a workaround, by connecting to the Internet and then switching to a special connection that bypasses the country’s extremely effective firewall. But Erdbrink reports Thursday that the software recently has stopped working.

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Spam comments

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I downloaded and installed a new plug-in that, I hope, will greatly reduce the amount of time I spend every day deleting absurd spam comments from those who would like to interfere with those of us who hold the opinions we do.

I have no idea how it works really. So I would appreciate an email from anyone who has a problem with it, or find that it does work well for them and doesn’t prevent an actual person from commenting on a post, while actually stopping bot-registration and spam comments.

 

Anyway I hope it doesn’t prevent any of our fine readers from commenting on any article they want.

 

Eeyore

 

India orders google to scrub religious or politically ‘offensive’ material from the available internet.

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I can’t think of too much worse than this.

Perhaps one doesn’t know one is in paradise or in a golden-age until one is thrown out or it ends. It sure feels that way at the moment as the world slides into barbarism, totalitarianism, theocracies and primitive oppression.

Filip Dewinter (and his stunning daughter An-Sofie) sure know how to campaign!

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The leader of the Beligian Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party already has a well-deserved reputation for being a brave man.

He has been been prosecuted on preposterous trumped up charges, for doing nothing more than pointing out the extent of Islamisation in his country, and manhandled and thrown to the floor by police for just holding legitimate democratic protests.

But now it seems that Dewinter’s courage runs in the family, as does an eye for campaigning strategies that cut right to the heart of modern European political issues.

(Though the Mail really should be thoroughly ashamed of itself for repeating the utterly spurious ‘Far-Right’ slur. Their readers agree, as evidenced by this comment: “That poster is not extremist. Extremist is covering women from head to foot and claiming that you own them.”)

from the Daily Mail

Belgian politician risks Muslim backlash after using teenage daughter dressed in burka and bikini for campaign against Islam

A Belgian politician has risked causing uproar among Muslims after starting a ‘Women Against Islamization’ campaign featuring his 19-year-old daughter wearing a burka and a bikini.

Filip Dewinter, leader of the far-right Vlaams Belang party, uses a shot of his daughter An-Sofie Dewinter in the dark blue bikini for the political campaign. The glamorous teenager dons a burka that covers her head and face, while the rest of the Muslim garment is draped over her back.

Cover up: Politician's daughter An-Sofie Dewinter poses in a burka and bikini in a campaign against Islamic extremists

The provocative image is likely to inflame tensions among Islamic groups and nationalists in the racially-divided country.

The poster shows the words ‘Freedom or Islam?’ written on a red bar across Ms Dewinter’s breasts. Further down the poster a black panel with the words ‘You choose!’ is seen covering the teenager’s crotch.

The extremist [b*llshit! Ed] Vlaams Belang party claims that it wants to convince women to take a stand against Islam. Ms Dewinter told the Belgian press she does not feel used by the party. She said: ‘I’ve suggested (the poster) myself, I have learned to live with it but I have had everything up to death threats made at me.’ She said that she ‘wanted to make this statement.’

She added: ‘What is the greatest contrast with a niqab? Nude. ‘The campaign fits in perfectly with how I feel about the whole issue . As women, we must choose: freedom or Islam.’ The teenager claimed that she had been threatened by Muslim groups She added: ‘Death threats and criticism no longer scare me off.’

Her father, the party’s leader, said: ‘Women are always the first victims of Islam. We want to make clear that they have a choice.’

Please click through for the rest…

And incidentally here’s an idea of the beauty that the Islamists would rather cover up.