Category Archives: war on the arts

Michael Coren show with Kurt Westergaard and Lars Hedigaard

Posted on by

First time on television in Canada, Kurt Westigaard, creator of the iconic ‘Moetoon’ bomb turban drawing associated with the riots of 2005 speaks. Along with Lars Hedigaard, creator and president of the International Free Press Society, this is an exciting and interesting hour of TV. Sadly, it is also a brave hour of TV. Salutations to Michael Coren for having the raw courage to have this guest as well as giving him a very fair interview. Once not so long ago, it took no courage to interview cartoonists. Now one has to have special security in place.

(As an aside, I made a mistake in the movie editor when I set up this clip so the tops of heads my seem chopped off. This was a technical error on my part and not some kind of prophesy or dark humour.)

Link: Michael Coren Kurt W

A cartoonist at Yale; police, sniffer dogs & heavy security

Posted on by

From: 06520 The News Blog of the Yale Alumni Magazine.

” I am so old that I have experienced Nazism, Fascism, Communism and now, Islamism…” Kurt Westergaard.

A cartoonist under police protection

Posted by Kathrin Day Lassila ’81 at 3:20 pm Friday, October 2, 2009

“This is the first time we’ve ever held a master’s tea that required such extensive security,” said Branford College master Steven Smith before introducing his Thursday afternoon guest. The standing-room-only audience of more than a hundred had had to abandon their backpacks, purses, and cellphones at Smith’s house. They had needed IDs and preapproved tickets to get on the Yale buses, guarded by several police officers, that would take them direct to the Greenberg Center on Prospect Street. Once in the buses they had to sit still, holding their IDs and tickets up for inspection, while a small black dog led by a plainclothes officer walked the length of the aisle and then back, sniffing eagerly at the floor.

Smith’s guest at the heavily guarded tea was Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist who drew the most controversial of the group of cartoons published by a Danish newspaper in 2005 under the headline “The Face of Muhammad.” In an editorial, the newspaper said the cartoons were its response to a “sickly oversensitivity” among Danish Muslim leaders. (There had been a series of complaints by Christian Danes that Muslims were unwilling to take criticisms or jokes. Much more seriously, in 2004 a non-Muslim university lecturer had been beaten by a group of Muslim men for reciting from the Koran in a class.) The cartoons later became the focus of violent demonstrations by Muslims in the Middle East and Africa, in which, according to one estimate, some 250 people died. Continue Reading →

Interview with Kurt Westergaard, Toronto Canada

Posted on by

From IFPS

I had the opportunity to spend the day yesterday with several extraordinary men, one of whom, was Kurt Westergaard, the creator of the infamous ‘Moetoon’.

In this interview, I speak at a private house, which is why there is a fair amount of background noise as we prepared dinner after a day of interviews in Toronto, with Kurt, as well as Lars Hedegaard, the creator and president of the Danish Free Press Society, now the International Free Press Society.

Kurt I must say, is a man who history has handed a tough role, and a role which he did not ask for, but accepts with grace, dignity, and a rare humility. I do not get the impression that it was Mr. Westergaards ambition to become a martyr for free speech and to live in a bunker as he does now, or in hiding as he did for years. But he has unflinchingly defended free speech and has not once turned away from his values for the illusion of safety.

Below, is a conversation with Kurt and Lars and their views on freedom of speech, and their recent experience at Yale, a once great institution of western education.

Link: Interview james kurt Lars4-desktop

Kurt Westergaard: ‘The most hated man in Mecca’

Posted on by

From The National Post.

The most hated man in Mecca

Meet the Danish cartoonist who set the world on fire

Adrian Humphreys, National Post Published: Saturday, October 03, 2009

In Pakistan, tens of thousands of protestors torched cinemas, music stores, fast food outlets and other perceived symbols of Western influence in response to the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in Denmark. Arif Ali, AFP, Getty Images In Pakistan, tens of thousands of protestors torched cinemas, music stores, fast food outlets and other perceived symbols of Western influence in response to the publication of cartoons depicting the …

Despite a grey beard and heavy cane making him look every bit his 74 years, Kurt Westergaard dresses like a teenager: bright red cargo pants strapped up by a studded black belt and red suspenders over a black top, capped by a flowing red scarf and black Stetson.

His duo-chromatic clothing is perhaps the least shocking part of his appearance, however.

As the Danish man who drew the notorious cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammad with a lit bomb wrapped in his turban — considered the most inflammatory of 12 cartoons published four years ago this week that ignited a deadly furor — it is the absence of security and the carefree way he stands outside smoking that is most striking.

Beside him, a friend casually carries a large framed reproduction of the cartoon, as if to dispel any mystery about who the flamboyantly dressed man might be. “It is very relaxing,” Mr. Westergaard says about being in Canada for the first time as a spattering of raindrops, rather than concerns over security, drives him indoors. “At home I live under police surveillance, protected by the Danish secret service. We lived in 10 different safe houses and drove 10 different cars.

“I live in a house now which is really a fortress, with steel doors, a panic room, reinforced glass in the windows, surveillance cameras and so on.”

That is the life of a man under threat, with a lucrative bounty on his head. With his fear now transformed into anger, Mr. Westergaard has emerged from his protective cocoon.

Rather than work to mitigate the offence he and fellow Danish artists caused to some fundamentalist Muslims, however, he remains unrepentant and unabashed.

“I don’t regret anything,” he says. Continue Reading →

International Blasphemy Day

Posted on by

From The Telegraph U.K.

International Blasphemy Day: from Danish cartoons to Jerry Springer – The Opera

It’s International Blasphemy Day. We take a look at some of the key moments in the history of the profane.

By Tom Chivers
Published: 3:29PM BST 30 Sep 2009

Muslims protest in London against the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. International blasphemy day from Danish cartoons to Jerry Springer - The Opera

Muslims protest in London against the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed Photo: EPA

International Blasphemy Day, 30 September, is intended “to remind the world that religion should never again be beyond open and honest discussion”.

It marks the anniversary of the 2005 publication of the 12 Danish cartoons that depicted Mohammed and led to worldwide riots. Its founders want to “dismantle the wall which exists between religion and criticism”.

It has, of course, met with criticism – prominent US Catholic Bill Donohue accuses the movement of picking on Christianity: “The stated purpose of Blasphemy Day has nothing to do with any religion but Islam. So who have they chosen to mock? You guessed it – Christians.”

However, not all religious people take offence. “The Lord Jesus Christ was and is despised and rejected of men,” says Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are not commanded to defend his honor, but to be willing to share in the scorn directed to him.”

Here is a brief look at some of the recent history of blasphemy.

• Blasphemy in the UK
The last successful prosecution for blasphemy under British law was surprisingly recent – 1977.

The publisher of the magazine Gay News was given a suspended sentence when he printed a poem, The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name, telling the story of a gay Roman centurion’s love for Jesus.

The prosecution had been brought privately by the morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse.

• Jerry Springer – The Opera
In 2005, the BBC broadcast the musical Jerry Springer: The Opera on national television. In 2007, the campaign group Christian Voice tried to bring a prosecution under blasphemy laws, which outlaw anything which insults, offends or vilifies the Deity, Christ or the Christian religion.

Stephen Green, the director of Christian Voice, said: “Christ is shown apparently wearing a nappy, swearing, saying that he’s a ‘little bit gay’, while God is portrayed as an ineffectual old fool.”

The courts rejected the prosecution.

• UK blasphemy laws are lifted
After the failure of the Jerry Springer prosecution, the human rights organisation Liberty moved to have the laws changed, saying that they “should be shelved in dusty archives, not used as a tool to bring mischievous prosecutions against the arts.”

Within a year they had achieved their goal. MPs voted to abolish the laws in May 2008, after a campaign supported by the author Philip Pullman and the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.

Edward Leigh, a Conservative MP, said the move would encourage more people to make fun of Christianity. He said: “Getting rid of the blasphemy law sends a message that that is OK, but it is insulting to many Christians.”

In the United States, laws against blasphemy were declared unconstitutional in 1952, as the First Amendment of the Constitution demands the separation of church and state. Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Wyoming and Pennsylvania have blasphemy laws on their statutes nevertheless, but no-one has ever been prosecuted under them.

• Irish blasphemy laws
As Britain has moved away from criminalising being rude to deities, across the Irish Sea the opposite has happened. In July 2009, the Dáil – the Irish Parliament – voted to make “publishing or uttering blasphemous material” a crime punishable with a fine of up to 25,000 euros.

Prof Dawkins described the move as “a wretched, backward, uncivilised regression to the middle ages,” while Father Ted creator Graham Linehan said that it might have made his sitcom illegal.

The Irish Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, said he was surprised at the “hysterical and incorrect reaction” to the proposals, adding that he believed one of his critics “to have a brain the size of a pea.”

• Mohammed the teddy bear
A British schoolteacher was arrested in Sudan and sentenced to 15 days in prison for insulting the Prophet, after letting her class of seven-year-olds name a teddy bear Mohammed.

Following an international outcry she was released after eight days, despite calls from some Islamic hardliners in the country for her to be publicly flogged or even put to death.

British Muslim peers Lord Ahmed and Baroness Warsi had flown to Sudan to negotiate her release.

• Muslims march over cartoons of the Prophet
The snowflake that started an avalanche. In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten performed an experiment testing “the limits of freedom of speech”. Its results were spectacular.

It printed 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. It is blasphemous in Islam to create images of the Prophet – especially when he appears to have a bomb in his turban.

Thousands of Muslims took to the streets around the world. Danish embassies were firebombed, and over 100 deaths were recorded worldwide (some caused when police opened fire on rioting crowds).

A photograph apparently showing a protestor holding a sign saying “Behead those who say Islam is violent” did the internet rounds for a while, but was eventually shown to be doctored.

International Blasphemy Day was founded in response to the outcry.

• Wafer kidnap angers Catholics
In July 2008, a student at a Florida university attended a Catholic Mass. Having received the Communion wafer, he didn’t swallow it, but instead tried to return to his seat to show it to a friend. He was then allegedly accosted by members of the congregation who tried physically to retrieve the Body of Christ.

The local priest described it as “kidnap”, and the abovementioned Bill Donohue called it “beyond hate speech”. The student received emails condemning him to hell, as well as threats to break into his dorm room to steal the cracker back. He then returned the wafer at the following mass, while armed university police officers stood guard.

Atheist blogger PZ Myers, in a post entitled ‘It’s a goddamned cracker!’, defended the student and asked his readers to get hold of a Communion wafer that he could hold hostage himself. He said that he received four death threats in response to the post, including one that “says I should be fired, that the author would like to kill me, and that I only criticize because Catholics are so gentle and kind.”

September 30 is International Free Press Day

Posted on by

Four years ago on September 30, 2005,  Jyllands-Posten published twelve drawings of Islam’s prophet Muhammed. To demonstrate that prohibition of any depiction of the prophet, as stipulated by sharia law would not trump Denmark’s freedom of the press, twelve cartoonists had their entries published.

Here they are:

File:Jyllands-Posten-pg3-article-in-Sept-30-2005-edition-of-KulturWeekend-entitled-Muhammeds-ansigt.png
Size of this preview: 424 × 599 pixels

Muslims around the world rioted in response. At least one hundred deaths were reported. The Danish embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran were torched. European buildings were stormed and the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, and German flags were desecrated in Gaza City. Mahmoud al-Zahar of Hamas issued death threats. Critics of the cartoons described them as Islamophobic and racist, arguing they were blasphemous to Muslims and a manifestation of western imperialism. In 2008, slightly after two years of the initial publication, the cartoons were re-published. More riots ensued, complete with shouts of ” death to the cartoonist!”.

Meanwhile, thousands of illustrations of Muhammed have appeared in books by and for Muslims.

mohammedteaches
Persian or central Asian illustration showing Muhammed teaching.

mohammedgabriel
mohammedatmedina
Fourteenth-century Persian miniature
showing the Angel Gabriel speaking
to Muhammed.
Muhammed at Medina, from an
Arab or central Asian medieval-era
manuscript.
mohammedinmosque babymohammed

The Prophet Muhammed in a Mosque. Turkish, 16th Century, painting on paper. The artist depicted Muhammed in very long sleeves so as to avoid showing his hands, though his neck and hints of his features are visible. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Newly born Muhammad in his mother’s arms being shown to his grandfather and citizens of Mecca. From Turkish book painting (date unknown). University of California, San Diego.

——–

James Cohen, vice president of the Canadian desk, IFPS writes thoughtfully and succinctly on the declaration of September 30 as International Free Press Day:

“To further advance the cause of freedom of the press, the International Free Press Society takes the occasion of this first International Free Press Day to salute Kurt Westergaard, and to call, once again, for the repeal all blasphemy and hate speech laws that currently inhibit and restrict vital exchange and debate”.




French art exhibit shut down by offended Quakers. Belgium

Posted on by

I had to make it Quakers. I am so freaking tired of Muslims and all things Islamic. I thought for freaking ONCE couldn’t it be someone else who demands that the rest of the world change everything about itself to conform to it’s barbaric and savage standards. So I decided to pretend this particular example of religious nonsense and obscene submission to irrational authority backed by thuggery be perpetrated by Quakers and you know what? Chances are, not one of the Quakers will actually be offended by this.

The following most excellent reportage by Gates of Vienna. Never start your day without it.

Muslims Provoked by Art

by Baron Bodissey

Lahlou-Georges 1
Oh, no! It’s happening again: the Islamic world is grievously insulted by a work of art produced by an infidel! More specifically, a French artist has showed disrespect for Muslim prayer mats.

This reminds me of an old joke:

A man is sent to prison for the first time. At night, the lights in the cell block are turned off, and his cellmate goes over to the bars and yells, “Number twelve!” The whole cell block breaks out laughing. A few minutes later, somebody else in the cell block yells, “Number four!” Again, the whole cell block breaks out laughing.

The new guy asks his cellmate what’s going on. “Well,” says the older prisoner, “we’ve all been in this here prison for so long, we all know the same jokes. So we just yell out the number instead of saying the whole joke.”

So the new guy walks up to the bars and yells, “Number six!” There was dead silence in the cell block. He asks the older prisoner, “What’s wrong? Why didn’t I get any laughs?”

“Well,” said the older man, “sometimes it’s not the joke, but how you tell it.”

I suppose I could save our readers a lot of time and say, “Number forty-one!” But just for the heck of it, here’s the whole story, as reported by our Flemish correspondent VH.

First, from Brussel Nieuws:

Artist’s gallery closes down after angry reactions from Muslims

Lahlou-Georges 2Brussels — A young French artist has prematurely closed his gallery in the Charles Rogier Passage, near the train station Brussels North. He had exhibited a work of art that was considered a provocation by some Muslims.

The cause of the fuss was a pair of bright red high heels under a spotlight, surrounded by men’s shoes, all on Muslim prayer mats.

The artwork is exhibited in a gallery whose windows have been sealed since Wednesday to avoid hostile reactions from passers-by. The artist has been threatened before, and the gallery damaged. “They attempted to shatter the window with stones before; that caused a crack in it,” the artist Mehdi Lahlou-Georges says. “And it is a very thick piece of glass; they must have thrown the stone with a lot of force.”

Lahlou-Georges 4The angry reactions came from certain Muslims who view the high heeled shoes as a provocation to their faith.

TV-Brussels approached a random passerby and asked for his response. He did not had no hostile reaction, but the woman’s shoes should not be there, the man said: “Those red high heels bring misfortune. Men and women are always separated during prayers.”

With the woman’s shoes, the artist wanted to point at himself, as a transvestite. The artwork was to remain in the gallery until October 5.

For additional information, see the report by Mark d’Aviano at Het Vrije Volk:
– – – – – – – – –

Lahlou-Georges 3It seems that the stone-throwers have not been arrested and punished, instead they are rewarded because the artwork now has to go. Fortunately we still have some photos. And a few videos.

Eating a banana while balancing a Qur’an on his head: (Mehdi-Georges Lahlou — Stupidité contrôlée II [Stupidity under control]).

Praying with high heels: (Mehdi-Georges Lahlou — The Prayer — Al Fatiha).

There are more videos here.

VH reminds us of a few previous Muslims-versus-Art incidents (these are reference numbers 18, 23, 30, 43, 57, 67, 81, and 86, in case you want to skip them):

Continue Reading →

Hate cleric Choudary demands British novelist Sebastian Faulks be tried under sharia

Posted on by

From The Daily Express/U.K.

MUSLIM CLERIC: SEBASTIAN FAULKS SHOULD FACE SHARIA JUSTICE

Story Image

Anjem Choudary
Thursday September 3,2009
By Ted Jeory for SundayExpress.co.uk

MUSLIM firebrand Anjem Choudary caused new outrage last night after demanding author Sebastian Faulks be tried before an Islamic court where the penalty could be possible execution.

He said the bestselling novelist should be hauled before a Sharia court to answer charges that he had insulted the Prophet Mohammed by describing the Koran as the “rantings of a schizophrenic”.

In the interview last week, Mr Faulks added that the English translation of the Koran was a “depressing read”.

Although the bestselling author has since apologised, Islam4UK a radical group associated with Choudary and his mentor, the banned cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, posted an article on its website entitled, “Sebastian Faulks on a Death Wish?”

The article goes on to say that “with other individuals having faced disturbing consequences over the last few years for similar rants, [Mr Faulks] cannot provide himself an excuse for not being aware of the repercussions of such careless comments, which is a great cause for concern”.

Author Sebastian Faulks

It concludes: “May Allah punish the oppressors and deal with the slanderers.” Continue Reading →

Bloody Cartoons. Excellent couragious documentary about the Danish Cartoons and the riots that followed.

Posted on by

Please pay close attention as you watch this. There is one scene that is horribly under emphasized. The scene where the ‘Grand Imam of Copenhagen’ actually commissioned his own cartoons to show the Arab League to increase any outrage and response.

Link: Bloody Cartoons.avi

What Islam Says about Music

Posted on by

From Islam-Watch: Big H/T to jdamn for this.

When non-Muslims, particularly Westerners, hear the news of Islamists burning/vandalizing music stores in Pakistan, they get struck with disbelief. How could this be possibly true a religion prohibit music? Here’s what Islam truly says about music…

Islam bans, prohibits, music
Star singer Cat Steven (Yusuf Islam) gave up music
after converting to Islam, but later realized it’s hard
being pure Muslim and returned to singing.

Is music forbidden in Islam? This article will consider this question.

It is often said that music is prohibited in Islam. Upon hearing this statement most people doubt that such an absurd claim could possibly be true.

If the religion of Islam actually does forbid music, even the majority of devout Muslims would probably find this to be very strange and a cause for concern. Why in the world would a religion prohibit Music? Do any other minor or major religions prohibit music? What did Muhammad have to say about this matter? This article will also consider the many benefits of music.

Let’s examine what the Islamic texts and traditions have to say about this subject. The first two hadiths that we will consider have been selected from Sahih Bukhari, what, Muslims believe, to be canonical text of Islam. Muslims believe them to be authentic utterances of the Islamic prophet and should therefore be obeyed.

Hadith: Sahih Bukhari: Volume 7, Book 69, Number 494v:

Narrated Abu ‘Amir or Abu Malik Al-Ash’ari:
that he heard the Prophet saying, “From among my followers there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk, the drinking of alcoholic drinks and the use of musical instruments, as lawful. And there will be some people who will stay near the side of a mountain and in the evening their shepherd will come to them with their sheep and ask them for something, but they will say to him, ‘Return to us tomorrow.’ Allah will destroy them during the night and will let the mountain fall on them, and He will transform the rest of them into monkeys and pigs and they will remain so till the Day of Resurrection.”

Hadith: Sunan Abu-Dawud: Book 41, Number 4909:

Narrated Abdullah ibn Mas’ud:

Salam ibn Miskin, quoting an old man who witnessed AbuWa’il in a wedding feast, said: They began to play, amuse and sing. He united the support of his hand round his knees that were drawn up, and said: I heard Abdullah (ibn Mas’ud) say: I heard the apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) say: Singing produces hypocrisy in the heart.

Hadith Qudsi 19:5:

“The Prophet said that Allah commanded him to destroy all the musical instruments, idols, crosses and all the trappings of ignorance.”

Muhammad also said:

  1. “Allah Mighty and Majestic sent me as a guidance and mercy to believers and commanded me to do away with musical instruments, flutes, strings, crucifixes, and the affair of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance.”
  2. “On the Day of Resurrection, Allah will pour molten lead into the ears of whoever sits listening to a songstress.”
  3. “Song makes hypocrisy grow in the heart as water does herbage.”
  4. “This community will experience the swallowing up of some people by the earth, metamorphosis of some into animals, and being rained upon with stones.” Someone asked, “When will this be, O Messenger of Allah?” and he said, “When songstresses and musical instruments appear and wine is held to be lawful.”
  5. “There will be peoples of my Community who will hold fornication, silk, wine, and musical instruments to be lawful ….” — ‘Umdat al-Salik r40.0 Continue Reading →

Yale University Press runs scared of Islamists

Posted on by

So let’s get this straight. A book about the Danish cartoons, with no pictures of the cartoons.

Yale University criticised over censorship of book on Danish cartoons row

Yale University has been accused of self-censorship after deciding to publish a book about controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed without including any of the images at the heart of the row.

from the Telegraph U.K.

Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 6:39AM BST 18 Aug 2009

The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Danish-born professor Jytte Klausen, set to be published in November, will examine the protest campaign against the caricatures first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005.

She told Fox News she was disappointed that Yale University Press had “rolled back our own principles” and questioned why it has consulted anonymous experts before making its decision.

“I regard the experts’ advice to the university as alarmist and misplaced,” she said.

“The images were published widely before protests gathered steam, orchestrated by a network of Islamist preachers and motivated by anti-Western sentiment.”

Sherry Jones, an author whose novel the Jewel of Medina was shelved by Random House because of fears of violent reprisals, said: “I decided to take a stand for free speech and publish my books in spite of threats and violence because I wanted to make a positive difference in the world,”

“Yale University Press’s decision, like that of the executives at Random House, does the opposite,” she said. “Self-censorship changes our world for the worse.”

The original cartoons, published in September 2005, where the result of a competition set by the newspaper.

One showed Mohammed with a ticking bomb in his turban and like others was regarded as blasphemous by many Muslims whose faith bans the depiction of the Prophet.

Cargo-bike imam. Music.

Posted on by

This is by far the creepiest one of the three I have subtitled so far. Is this Sasha Baron Cohen meets Andy Kaufman as a Moroccan Muslim? Or is this something much darker. Even if it is meant to lampoon Islam, those are real kids he is speaking to.

Cargo-bike-imam. Creepy Dutch TV

Posted on by

The Dutch broadcast organization  VARA (Association of Worker Radio Amateurs) was once a Socialist broadcaster and nowadays is a left-wing and “multicultural” outfit. A while back VARA invited a stand-up comedian named  Najib Amhali — a Moroccan immigrant who is part of the self-appointed multicultural elite (and has been caught a few times  plagiarizing) — to tape a TV show in eight episodes to be broadcast on Friday evenings. The scheduling of the program, in the evening after another popular program, attracted a reasonable number of viewers for the first episodes (1.3 million). Quite a lot of the responses were negative, even on his fan-site, and judged it worse than his shows on stage.
In every episode Amhali wakes up from a dream and has a problem, each week on a different theme. In the program he looks for a solution. Sometimes he finds it, other times he doesn’t.”
In every feature Najib Amhali plays the role of the Cargo-Bike Imam in his item on Islam. According to the introduction to the series, this imam is “a children’s friend who crosses the country with fresh courage and the wrong ideas in his aim to convert people who stand open to his message. On questions like ‘Why do you never shake hands?’ and ‘Is it true that you throw gays from high rise buildings?’, the Cargo Bike Imam will always have a clear answer.”
Thank you VH for the translation, and GOV for organizing this project.

Exchanging Puppets: Why the International Left Should Not Support the So-Called Iranian Reformist Leaders

Posted on by

Lila made the most excellent documentary on Iran and how the ‘Islamic Revolution’ forced countless women into prostitution.

by Lila Ghobady

While I have no doubt that those leftists who support the so called reform movement in Iran have good intentions, I believe that they have been misinformed, misguided, and are not aware of the whole truth about what has been really going on in Iran.

The dark fact is that those who lead the so-called Iran reform movement outside of the country, with huge financial support from Rafsanjani’s mafia, are mostly people who have been part of the fundamentalist Islamic regime for years, including Mr. Ganji and Sazgara. Their goal was, and remains, limited to removing the Khamenei/Ahmdainejad band and installing the Rafsanjani mafia/reformist band in their stead.  This sham reform has everything to do with power and nothing to do with the people’s fight for freedom. Rafsanjani and his front man in the recent [s]election, Mousavi, have been willing participants in the regime’s system of control, massacre and economic corruption for the past 30 years.

This, incidentally, was the strategy of the hardliners when they came to power in 1979.  The Iranian people supported the revolution because they believed that the new regime would deliver basic social, political and economic rights and freedoms and independence from foreign influence.  However, under Ayatollah Khomeini they did not even receive the minimum of what they had asked — in fact, they lost whatever basic rights they already had. Continue Reading →

Canada: Hizb ut-Tahrir to meet this week in Ontario

Posted on by

From R.E.A.L…. 

On Friday, July 31, 2009, the Islamic supremacist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir will be holding another public conference, this time in the Ontario, Canada city of Mississauga.  Unlike the July 19, 2009 Hizb ut-Tahrir conference which was held at a private facility in Chicago suburb Oak Lawn’s Hilton Hotel, the Canadian Hizb ut-Tahrir meeting will be held at a Canadian government-managed public facility, the Mississauga Valley Community Center.

1. Hizb ut-Tahrir Seeks to Promote Supremacism in Canada

The Islamic supremacist Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) Canadian event is publicized on the Hizb ut-Tahrir web site as being sponsored by “Hizb ut-Tahrir Canada” as part of HT’s “2009 Khilafah Campaign,” which included the July 19, 2009 HT event in the Chicago Oak Lawn, IL suburb.  HT has advertised this event to be held at the Canadian govt-managed facility in Mississauga for: “Friday, July 31st, 6.30PM to 8.30PM, Frank Bean Lounge — Mississauga Valley Community Center, 1275 Mississauga Valley Blvd, L5A 3R8.”   The HT Canada event has also been promoted by a Toronto, Canada website called “TorontoMuslims.com”.  (R.E.A.L. contacted this Toronto Muslim website to ask why they were promoting such a supremacist organization’s event, and received no reply.)

The Hizb ut-Tahrir web site promoting the July 31 event in Canada also promotes a pamphlet (page 62) that supports killing those individuals who leave Islam as guilty of “treason and a political attack on the Khilafah.”

According to the Canadian Criminal Code Section 318:

“318. (1) Every one who advocates or promotes genocide is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.”
“(2) In this section, ‘genocide’ means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part any identifiable group, namely,”
“(a) killing members of the group; or”
“(b) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction…”
“(4) In this section, ‘identifiable group’ means any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.”

Researcher Madeleine Gruen believes that U.S. member of HT Mohammad Malkawi may speak at the Canadian conference, because Mohammad Malkawi has previously given speeches in Canada.  HT’s Mohammad Malkawi moderated the July 19 HT conference in Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn.

2. Efforts to Alert Canadian Government Agencies to HT Supremacist Meeting at Govt-Managed Facility

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) has attempted to contact the Mississauga government to make them aware of the supremacist nature of the Hizb ut-Tahrir organization that it has rented use of the Mississauga Valley Community Centre Frank Bean Lounge facility to for their July 31 conference.  After speaking to a representative at the Community Centre (905-615-4670), we were re-directed to the Mississauga government agency involved in booking the Frank Bean Lounge facility, the Mississauga government recreation and parks department (905-615-4100, choose “facility booking”).

R.E.A.L.’s Jeffrey Imm spoke to a manager with the  Mississauga recreation and parks department on this, and she stated that they are “looking into this.”  The Mississauga recreation and parks manager also stated the person who made the booking of the Frank Bean Lounge facility for the Canadian Hizb ut-Tahrir meeting had held “previous meetings” there, and Mississauga “never had any problems or issues” with them.  On the Mississauga web site regarding renting such facilities, one of the primary concerns is the use of such facilities in terms of serving alcoholic beverages.

In addition, R.E.A.L.’s Jeffrey Imm contacted the diversity relations unit of Mississauga local law enforcement — highlighting that the group promoting the Canadian HT event – is also promoting a brochure that calls for the death penalty for Muslims who leave Islam as guilty of “treason and a political attack on the Khilafah” (page 62).

3. Contact Canadian and Mississauga Legislators

We urge those concerned about the growing threat of the Hizb ut-Tahrir supremacist movement and its efforts to justify violence against those who seek freedom of religion to contact Canadian and Mississauga legislators to voice their outrage about this supremacist group using a Mississauga facility.  Apparently, this is not the first time such proponents of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s supremacist ideology have used Canadian public facilities either.  Contact Canadian and Mississauga government officials to get an answer as to why Canadian public facilities are being used to spread such supremacist hate.

Contact Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion
Email: ma***@*********ga.ca
Phone: 905-896-5555

Contact Mississauga City Council – see list

Contact Mississauga Valley Facility Rentals:
Phone: 905-615-4670 — Fax: 905-615-4671

Contact Mississauga Valley Tourism:
Phone: 905-896-5998

Web Page to Contact Ombudsman Ontario

Contact Mississauga News