Islam Bans Health Insurance?

Where it prevails, Islamic law invades every aspect of life. Now, one Islamic group has declared health insurance forbidden. The Economic Times reports (via WeStandFirm):

Comparing the benefits of health insurance policy to gambling, key Islamic organisations have termed the policies as "illegal" and directed Muslims to keep away from them.

At a seminar to deliberate whether insuring health was permissible under Islamic law Shariat, the Islamic Fiqh Academy (India) decided that availing such policies was illegal. ...

Health insurance schemes have turned a noble service in to a business activity, hence under Islam it is not permitted, they said. ...

The Ulema suggested that the community could itself organise services to help in the treatment of poor.

There is one exception: if insurance is forced through "legal constraints" (like what?), then a person might be able to get away with having insurance, so long as one spends "the left-over amount... on some form of service to Allah." (Why would there be a "left-over amount?" Isn't health insurance supposed to cover health costs?)

This is the sort of thing that happens when religious dogmatists run things. Nevermind that their views are absurd. Insurance is not remotely like gambling; the point of it is to pool resources to cover the expenses of those who happen to suffer high-cost health problems. If that's gambling, then life is a gamble (but don't tell these Islamists!). Note the socialist presumptions of the Islamists, who define business activities as ignoble. The line about helping the poor is off point; health insurance enables the middle class to avoid poverty. But poverty must be a central concern of such Islamists, as they perpetuate it through their anti-reason, anti-liberty controls.

Dutch Museums Pulls Muhammad Photos

I don't enjoy Sooreh Hera's photographs. I don't consider them to be art or even very artistic. But the photographer, originally from Iran, has an absolute moral right to take such photos and display them in consenting establishments -- and her right should be protected by law.

Unfortunately, because Islamists have threatened violence, a Dutch museums have pulled Hera's photographs. Fox reports:

The most controversial images feature gay men posed in various stages of undress. In one, a man wears leather chaps with his buttocks exposed, wearing a mask of Ali, the son-in law of the prophet Muhammad. In other photo two men are shirtless wearing masks of both Ali (on the left) and Muhammad (on the right). ...

Museum directors initially planned to display the work of the 35-year-old artist. But now, citing fear of reprisals and political pressure, they've changed their mind, much to her dismay.

A museum does have the right to choose which works to display. If a museum had decided not to display Hera's photographs beccause they aren't very good, that would have been no violation of Hera's rights. (One museum did reject the photos on the basis of quality.) But, by threatening violence, Islamists have violated the rights both of the museums and of Hera.

Fox continues:

...John Voll, associate director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, said Hera's works cross the line and are offensive.

He said freedom of speech does not mean that one has the freedom to be as insulting as possible.

"It isn't as if we have absolute freedom in the United States to be offensive and insulting just to be different," Voll said in an interview.

"Can you imagine what would happen if John McCain used the n-word about Obama while campaigning? There are consequences. Free speech is not absolute," he said.

Freedom of speech does indeed mean that we have the "freedom to be as insulting as possible," within the context of rights, meaning that libel, slander, and incitements to violence are excluded. (Inciting someone to violence does not mean insulting them such that they become violent, as Islamists would have us believe; it means actively exhorting others to commit acts of violence, as Islamists do.)

Voll confuses freedom of speech -- one's legal right to say and publish whatever one wants with one's own resources -- with the social consequences of speech. McCain has the right to call Obama the n-word. And the rest of us would have the right to vote against him for doing so.

Fox reports:

"The Netherlands is very much a flashpoint right now. It looks as if there is going to have to be some hard choices made about whether we"re going to defend our civilization or not," Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch told FOXNews.com.

Spencer says this sort of pressure by Muslim groups "who don't hesitate to traffic in violent intimidation" will continue to undercut freedom of speech until it no longer exists.

"The ultimate goal of people making threats is to make it illegal or too dangerous or both for anybody to say anything considered to be insulting to Muhammad or Allah, to impose the Islamic code, which is the goal of Usama bin Laden, upon the West," he said.

"It's time to take a stand and say we believe in freedom of speech and that means some people will be offended."

Whether you praise or condemn Hera's photographs, defenders of liberty must defend her right to create and display such work, free from violence and threats thereof. Free speech protects offensive speech or it protects nothing at all.

Iran Threatened by Harry Potter

I don't think Barbie poses much of a threat to Iran's theocratic, oppressive government. But Harry Potter may be another story. The stories' anti-totalitarianism and strong themes of intellectual independence rightly make Iranian officials nervous.

The New York Times reports (via Titanic Deck Chairs):

Iran's prosecutor general railed on Sunday against the invasion of Barbie, Batman, Spider-Man and Harry Potter and demanded that the country's young be protected against them, Agence France-Presse reported. Urging measures to safeguard "Islamic culture and revolutionary values," the prosecutor, Ghorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi [criticized the figures]... In July 2007 "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" went on sale in Tehran. Two years ago the police raided toy shops and put black stickers on the packaging of Barbie dolls to hide their bodies.

Iran had better go ahead and ban Deathly Hallows, before it's too late!

D'Souza Versus Rights

Dinesh D'Souza is a cheerleader for religion, and most any religion will do. His favored religion is Christianity, but short of that, he prefers a religious orientation to a secular one. In a recent article, he continues to find common cause with the Blame America First crowd of the radical left, discussing Islamist terrorism not in the context of problems within modern Islam that cause such terrorism, but in the context of alleged American failures.

D'Souza claims that Americans who advocate "the right to blaspheme, the complete exclusion of religious symbols from the public square, the right of teenage boys and girls to receive sex education and contraceptives, the right to abortion, prostitution as a worker's right, pornography as a protected form of expression, gay rights and gay marriage, and so on... are producing a powerful 'blowback' from the House of Islam."

The first thing to notice is that American domestic politics are hardly the legitimate concern of non-American Muslims. I agree with D'Souza that Islamists hate America for its freedoms, but D'Souza is wrong to suggest that any part of the fault lies with America. Certainly we should not alter our domestic policies in a shortsighted attempt to prevent "blowback" from Islamist terrorists.

D'Souza, in criticizing leftists, also packages items that do not fit together logically. I think that people have the right to blaspheme. Women have the right to get an abortion. Consenting adults have the right to trade sex for money (as I've argued,) produce and view pornography, engage in homosexuality, and partner romantically with whom they choose. I do not advocate "the complete exclusion of religious symbols from the public square," but neither do I think that Christian symbols should dominate that square. I think that non-abusive parents have the right to raise their children and to set policies concerning sex education and contraceptives.

What is the alternative to the liberties that I endorse? To blaspheme means "to speak impiously or irreverently of (God or sacred things)." For example, the phrases "God damn it" and "God does not exist" are blasphemous. The alternative to the right to blaspheme is the imposition of legal penalties for blasphemy; for example, some Americans call for the death penalty for blasphemers. The alternative to the right to abortion is the imposition of legal penalties on doctors and women involved with abortion. The alternative to legal prostitution is today's hypocritical prohibition that fosters violence and disease. (However, most American "liberals" do not favor legal prostitution, as D'Souza suggests.) The alternative to legal pornography is censorship. While calls for censorship are in vogue among both the left and the right, they are incompatible with freedom of speech. The alternatives to gay rights and gay unions are legal penalties for homosexuality (in the "House of Islam" homosexuals often are killed) and discriminatory contract law.

In a future article, perhaps D'Souza can explain precisely what legal penalties he believes Americans should adopt against blasphemy, abortion, pornography, and homosexuality. Otherwise, perhaps he can explain why he thinks some such liberties deserve legal protections while others don't.

'Only' 90 Million Islamic Supporters of 9/11?

We can now rest peacefully, knowing that only around 90 million Islamists "identified with the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C." See? No problem. The "Religion of Peace" has everything under control.

The figure comes from Jerd Smith's Rocky Mountain News write-up of the 60th Annual Conference on World Affairs in Boulder:

Now head of the non-partisan Middle East Institute, [Wendy] Chamberlin [former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan] was the first female U.S. ambassador appointed to a post in a Muslim country and she was in Pakistan on Sept. 11.

Chamberlin's mission Monday is to give World Affairs conference-goers a bit of a primer on Muslims. ...

"It is absolutely necessary that we try to reshape our relations with the Middle East and the larger Muslim world," she says. "We need to acknowledge the Muslim world is a very diverse community. There are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world. Arab's are only a small minority. The most populous Muslim country isn't even in the Middle East. It's Indonesia."

"Too often our politicians focus on one extremely small fraction of the Muslim community, the militant jihadists. We don't talk enough about the mainstream Muslims who are most decidedly not violent, not radical and not extremists."

Key facts: International polls conducted worldwide indicate that 93 percent of Muslims abhorred what happened on 9/11, while only a small minority, 7 percent, identified with the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington D.C.

"What are Muslims like?" Chamberlin asked. "They're like most Americans. They're family people. They practice their faith. Most are young (under 30). They want better education. They want jobs. The polls show the majority want to improve law and order and they want to promote democratic ideals in their own political systems," she said.

"The clear majority also want legal rights for women. For millions of Muslims their religion is a religion of peace and they're outraged at the notion that their mosques are used for violence."

Ah, how comforting that a mere 7 percent of all Muslims approve of the slaughter of Americans.

Vincent Carroll replied:

[I]f someone told you that a suicide bomber just blew himself up along with 30 customers in a London bank lobby, it would be reasonable for you to strongly suspect that the terrorist was Muslim.

It would be reasonable, moreover, even if you readily agreed, as I do, that most Muslims are like most people everywhere and want nothing more than lives of peace.

Unfortunately, the figures are not as rosy as Chamberlin would have us believe.

In his book The End of Faith, Sam Harris reviews statistics collected by the Pew Research Center in 2002 (see pages 124-26). Here was the question:

Some people think that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets are justified in order to defend Islam from its enemies.... Do you personally feel that this kind of violence is often justified to defend Islam, sometimes justified, rarely justified, or never justified?

Responses for "often" or "sometimes" justified ranged from 73 percent in Lebanon to 13 percent in Turkey. However, as Harris points out, if the responses for "rarely justified" are added to the mix, the figures for those who believe that "suicide bombing in defense of Islam" is "ever justifiable" rises to 82 percent in Lebanon and 20 percent in Turkey. The next-highest response rate is Pakistan with 38 percent.

The figures for Indonesia, which Chamberlin specifically mentions, are 27 percent ("often" or "sometimes") and 43 percent ("often," "sometimes," or "rarely.")

No matter how one slices the figures, a huge minority of Muslims worldwide -- at least scores of millions of people -- think it's a good idea to slaughter innocents in the name of their religion.

Taliban Murders Young Couple

Various practitioners of Islam continue to perpetrate and advocate murder in the name of their religion. Following are two recent stories reported by Fox.

The first story involves the murder of a young couple for the "crime" of getting married without the consent of their parents:

A couple found guilty of adultery by an Islamic "qazi" court was stoned to death by Taliban militants in Pakistan's northwest border region, according to a report in Dawn, Pakistan's English-language newspaper.

The execution, which reportedly took place Monday [March 31], is the first by stoning reported in the region, which borders Afghanistan. "Qazi" courts, which are allowed to administer Islamic law outside the Pakistani judicial system, traditionally have ordered execution by firing squad in cases of adultery.

The married woman, identified as Shano, had allegedly eloped on March 15 with Daulat Khan Malikdeenkhel.

A spokesman for the Taliban said a complaint had been received from the woman's family that she had been abducted by Daulat Khan. They later changed the report to say she had run away with him.

What a bunch of despicable barbarians.

But such insanity exists only in backward cultures of the Middle East, right? The second story, which cites Islam Watch, quotes two European Islamists:

A question-and-answer session with Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch.

"Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain."

The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent. ... Choudary said he would not condemn a Muslim for any action.

What's astounding is how many people in the West can continue to ignore such warnings.

'Religion of Peace' Kills Again

The main story for today's post regards a "Saudi woman killed for chatting on Facebook." But first I want to mention two other stories on related topics that I've mentioned previously.

Israel National News reports (via Little Green Footballs via Diana Hsieh):

(IsraelNN.com) Dr. Wafa Sultan has been forced to go into hiding with her family following a fatwa (religious edict) from an Islamic scholar, according to Omedia. Sultan faces the fatwa following a recent debate on Al-Jazeera in which she challenged Egyptian Islamist Talat Rheim over Dutch cartoons of Mohammed, who Muslims revere as a prophet. Sultan argued that Denmark had the right to print the cartoons.

Sultan joins a growing list of public critics of radical Islam facing death threats. Her supporters have asked the American public to join them in writing to the embassy of Qatar, the country which sponsors Al-Jazeera, as well as to United States President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, asking them to defend Sultan's right to free speech and personal safety.

I've quoted from the debate in question.

Next, Pat Condell has a new video out about Fitna (via Footballs via Howard R.), a film that I discussed a couple days ago. The producer of that film has also been threatened with death.

For a "religion of peace," Islam seems to get more than its share of attention for some of its followers murdering people and threatening to murder people in the name of Islam.

Which brings us to the story about another so-called "honor killing" to hit the news.

The Telegraph reports (via 1000 Papercuts):

Saudi woman killed for chatting on Facebook
By Damien McElroy Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:46am BST 01/04/2008

A young Saudi Arabian woman was murdered by her father for chatting on the social network site Facebook, it has emerged.

The unnamed woman from Riyadh was beaten and shot after she was discovered in the middle of an online conversation with a man, the al-Arabiya website reported.

The case was reported on a Saudi Arabian news site as an example of the "strife" the social networking site is causing in the Islamic nation.

Saudi preacher Ali al-Maliki has emerged as the leading critic of Facebook, claiming the network is corrupting the youth of the nation. ...

The woman was murdered in August but her death was highlighted following Maliki's comments. ...

Critics also allege that Facebook is an avenue for the promotion of homosexual relations in Saudi Arabia. More than 6,500 people have signed the online petition in a bid to stop the conservative Muslim kingdom following Syria in banning access to the network from local internet servers.

What's odd about this story is that the only reason we know about it is that it was used by the locals as an example of why Facebook is bad. Facebook causes "strife." And fathers beating and shooting their daughters to death? Isn't that the more obvious and morally culpable cause of "strife?" Shouldn't violence against women, rather than internet communication, be effectively banned by the government?

Meanwhile, Western leaders are falling all over themselves to appease various followers of the "religion of peace," lest those followers start murdering people and destroying property again -- for the cause of "peace," of course.

Hamas Promotes Terror Against Israel

This year's April Fools belong to the Bush administration for believing that they can pander to Islamic terrorists and expect the outcome to be peace.

A New York Times article by Steven Erlanger dated April 1, "In Gaza, Hamas's Fiery Insults to Jews Complicate Peace Effort," discusses some of the problems in the region. All quotations are from that article.

Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas said of the Jews: "Their fate is their vanishing."

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the "Crusaders," or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as "the brothers of apes and pigs," while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children's programs praise "martyrdom," teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.

Consider the insanity of the the imam simultaneously cursing the Danish cartoons, which either criticized actual problems within Islam or merely depicted Muhammad in a neutral way, and spewing overt bigotry against Jews.

The film Fitna, which I discussed yesterday, shows a video of a little girl repeating, at the encouragement of an adult woman, the same bigotry against Jews. Yet some Muslims decry Fitna as "hate speech" -- without breathing a word against the actual hate speech by Muslims against Jews.

The article continues:

[I]n a column in the weekly Al Risalah, Sheik Yunus al-Astal, a Hamas legislator and imam, discussed a Koranic verse suggesting that "suffering by fire is the Jews' destiny in this world and the next."

"The reason for the punishment of burning is that it is fitting retribution for what they have done," Mr. Astal wrote on March 13. "But the urgent question is, is it possible that they will have the punishment of burning in this world, before the great punishment" of hell? Many religious leaders believe so, he said, adding, "Therefore we are sure that the holocaust is still to come upon the Jews."

One point of Fitna is precisely that some modern Muslims draw a violent message from the Quran. Yet some Muslims direct their anger against Fitna, rather than against those Muslims who do, in fact, draw a violent message from the Quran.

Is it not obvious that, for peace to succeed in the Middle East, Muslims there have to stop murdering Jews and advocating the annihilation of Israel?

Muslims Top Catholics; Fitna Update

Fox has a couple of interesting news items about Islam. The first reports:

Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism as the world's largest religion, the Vatican newspaper said Sunday.

"For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us," Monsignor Vittorio Formenti said in an interview with the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Formenti compiles the Vatican's yearbook.

He said that Catholics accounted for 17.4 percent of the world population -- a stable percentage -- while Muslims were at 19.2 percent.

Formenti offered a reason for the trends: "[W]hile Muslim families... continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer."

However, "Christians make up 33 percent of the world population, Formenti said."

So, combined, Muslims plus Christians make up just over half of the earth's population. Regardless of which sect is on top, monotheism is clearly dominant.

In other news, "Nations around the world are protesting the release of a Dutch lawmaker's anti-Islamic film." The film in question is Fitna. It's unclear to me whether YouTube videos referred to as "Fitna" that I was unable to watch are related to the Fitna in question, but it seems not. The link to the video that Fox uses works at this time.

The video contains three main elements: select versus from the Quran that endorse violence, recorded speeches by various Muslims that endorse violence, and scenes of Islamic violence. The movie does not demonstrate that Islam is inherently violent, but it does demonstrate that various Muslims have, in fact, endorsed and carried out terrorist violence. Indeed, the creator of the film, Geert Wilders, has received death threats. (I have read claims alleging that Wilders supports policies that I oppose, including censorship, but I don't know whether those claims are true. Regardless, he deserves freedom of speech and the right to live without fear of being murdered.)

If Islam does not promote violence, then it is up to the followers of Islam to prove it by abstaining from, preventing, and denouncing Islamic violence.

The story from Fox continues, "Despite their condemnation, the European leaders defended the right to freedom of speech and called on Muslims to react peacefully." At least freedom of speech remains a live issue. Unfortunately, "hundreds of Indonesian students took to the streets Sunday... demanding that authorities shut down websites carrying Geert Wilders' film."

And the group Muslims for Free Speech said... nothing, because, as far as I could find with a quick internet search, there is no such organization.

I did check the Minaret of Freedom; a search of "free speech" there pulled up ten hits, most of which are not relevant. At least the organization did criticize the use of legislation to censor speech:

Dutch extremist politician Geert Wilders finally releases his anti-Islam film online, but his project of incitement might be undermined by another Islamophobe as Muhammad (PBUH) cartoonist Kurt Westergaard says he'll sue over the film's unlawful use of his drawing…

* Online, a Violent View of Islam (Washington Post)
* Cartoonist to Sue Over Islam Film (BBC News)

…meanwhile the UN Human Rights Council passes an ill-conceived OIC-backed resolution using legislation rather than the free market of ideas to counter hate speech against other faiths:

* UN OKs Islamic Text Against Defamation (Associated Press/Washington Post)

The organization does not explain what constitutes "Islamophobia" -- apparently anything critical of Islam qualifies. Nor the does the organization explain why it thinks Fitna constitutes "hate speech."

There is, however, very obvious "hate speech" associated with Fitna: it is the speech coming from the recordings of Islamists, such as when one Islamic leader pulls out a sword while exhorting a crowd to behead Jews.

Update: I did find a release from "Young Muslims for Freedom of Speech:"

The Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organisations (FEMYSO) condemns any form of blasphemy that was displayed in the printing of cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad. We are dismayed at the publications and voice our strong objection to this treatment of Prophet Mohammed and any other Prophet (peace and blessings be on them) as being insulting and unacceptable.

Khallad Swaid, President of FEMYSO said: "The freedom of speech is an important fundamental right, which is not to be compromised, but as everything else, has its limits."

"Where religious beliefs, regardless of the religion, or feelings are hurt, its limit has been exceeded." We welcome critical debate but this is an abuse of the freedom of speech which has deliberately provoked Muslims and fuelled hatred and this is unacceptable. Therefore we call on all sections of the media to be more sensitive and responsible and on the governments to take a more robust stance in condemning such offensive images. The FEMYSO [Forum of Eurpoean Muslim Youth and Studnt Organisations] condemns with the strongest terms any violence against people or objects and calls upon all Muslims to protest by peaceful means and respect our fellow Europeans who are not to blame generaly. This neither has been the way the Prophet Muhammad reacted at any time himself nor is it considered to be of civilised manner. He always searched for ways using dialogue to communicate, exchange and explain himself towards his counterpart. We also suggest to our member organisations to use this opportunity to introduce to their societies the life and character of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), who was always seeking justice and peace.

I find several things about this release interesting. At least the release "condemns... violence." Unfortunately, the release does not actually advocate freedom of speech. It does not condemn censorship, but it does claim that free speech "has its limits." It condemns the cartoons -- and, by implication, any criticism of Islam or even any portrayal of the image of Muhammad -- as "blasphemous." Moreover, the release blames the Danish cartoons for Islamic violence, which is absurd.

Fitna and Free Speech

I have not seen the film Fitna, because, when I tried to watch it on YouTube, YouTube offered only the following messages: "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation." "This account is suspended." So I don't know what the film contains other than what I've read in the media, aside from a few minutes I saw before the videos were pulled. I am not at this point able to judge either the film or its creator.

The AP reported that the film's creator, Geert Wilders, "lives under police protection due to death threats." The article adds, "A Dutch court will hear a complaint lodged by Muslim groups seeking to bar Wilders from releasing the film March 28, but there is no legal barrier preventing Wilders from releasing his film before then."

The article states, "Wilders has not described the 15-minute movie [which appeared to be much longer on YouTube before it was removed from YouTube], due to be released by March 31, in detail but has said it will underscore his view that Islam's holy book is 'fascist'."

So Wilders has claimed that the Quran is fascist, and therefore various defenders of the Quran, in order to disprove his claim, are trying to censor his film or murder him.

NYT on McCain: Forest, Anyone?

The New York Times is after John McCain (again). Michael Cooper writes in his March 19 story:

Mr. McCain said several times in his visit to Jordan -- in a news conference and in a radio interview -- that he was concerned that Iran was training Al Qaeda in Iraq. The United States believes that Iran, a Shiite country, has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq, but not Al Qaeda, which is a Sunni insurgent group. ...

It was not until he got a quiet word of correction in his ear from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was traveling with Mr. McCain as part of a Congressional delegation on a nearly weeklong trip, that Mr. McCain corrected himself.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. McCain said, “the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda.”

So the chip of bark is that McCain made a minor misstatement about which terrorists Iran is training in Iraq.

But, while the Times has consumed forests of newsprint through its years, neither that paper nor either of the Democrats running for president seem prepared even to glance at this forest:

"...Iran... has been training and financing Shiite extremists in Iraq..."

How exactly does that qualify as anything other than an act of war by Iran against the United States?

Meanwhile, McCain has glanced at the forest and smelled the smoke from the fire raging within it. Unfortunately, I suspect that, if elected president, his response would be either to busily pump up his squirt gun -- or to try to douse the flames with American bodies. Neither approach is sane, but there is another alternative.

Wafa Sultan Defends Liberty

Along with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan is among the most courageous people in the world. As Rule of Reason pointed out, Sultan recently debated an Egyptian about religion. The video and transcript are available. Sultan said:

All religions and faiths, throughout the history of humanity, have been subject to criticism and affronts. With time, this has helped in their reform and development. Any belief that chops off the heads of its critics is doomed to turn into terrorism and tyranny. This has been the condition of Islam, from its inception to this day. Islam has sentenced [its critics] to prison, and whoever crosses the threshold of that prison meets his death. The Danish cartoons have managed to break down the first brick in the wall of that prison, and to open up a window, through which the sunrays enter, after a lengthy darkness. The Danish newspaper exercised its freedom of speech. Liberties are the holiest thing in the West, and nothing is more important. But if Islam were not the way it is, those cartoons would never have appeared. They did not appear out of the blue, and the cartoonist did not dig them out of his imagination. Rather, they are a reflection of his knowledge. Westerners who read the words of the Prophet Muhammad 'Allah has given me sustenance under the shadow of my sword' cannot imagine Muhammad's turban in the shape of a dove of peace rather than in the shape of a bomb. The Muslims must learn how to listen to the criticism of others, and maybe then they will reexamine their terrorist teachings. When they manage to do so, the world will view them in a better light, and consequently, it will draw them in a better light. The reactions of the Muslims, which were characterized by savageness, barbarism, and backwardness, only increased the value of these cartoons, and gave them more importance than they merited, simply because they proved that these cartoons were true, and that the message they were conveying was true. The Muslim is an irrational creature ruled by instincts. Those teachings have deprived him of his mind, incited his emotions, and reduced him to the level of an inferior creature that cannot control himself or react to events rationally.

The moderator of the television show said, "How come freedom of expression in the West is sacred only when it comes to degrading the Muslims? Are they allowed to talk about the Holocaust? Are they allowed to talk about Christianity? That is the question. Cinemas were burned down in the West when they talked about Christ."

There is no legitimate comparison of free speech between the Muslim world and the West. The Muslim world routinely practices censorship and threatens to murder people for their speech. The West -- and especially the United States -- upholds free speech in almost every case. (The few exceptions should be eliminated.) The comment about cinemas being burned down is a fabrication, as Sultan pointed out.

Meanwhile, in Iran...

Iran's Culture Ministry on Sunday announced the closure of nine cinema and lifestyle magazines for publishing pictures and stories about the life of "corrupt" foreign film stars and promoting "superstitions."

The Press Supervisory Board, a body controlled by hard-liners, also sent warning notes to 13 other publications and magazines on "observing the provisions of the press law," the ministry said on its Web site. ...

The ministry said it shut them down for "using photos of artists, especially foreign corrupt film stars, as instruments (to arouse desire), publishing details about their decadent private lives, propagating medicines without authorization, promoting superstitions."

That's rich: Islamic fascists imposing censorship to prevent the promotion of superstitions!

While there are some Americans who wish to impose censorship in the U.S. (who are in cases regarding alleged obscenity primarily motivated by religious beliefs), most Americans (including religious ones) are dedicated to the rights of free speech. While much of the Muslim world called for the murder of the Danish cartoonists, most of America stood up for free speech. To give just one example, the Rocky Mountain News published not only one of the Danish cartoons but various other cartoons offensive to various groups, as explained in an editorial and an article by the publisher, John Temple. Temple wrote:

I thought you might be interested in seeing what readers said, given that the Rocky Mountain News is one of the few American newspapers to expose its readers to any of the Danish cartoons of Muhammad that are blamed for rioting across the Muslim world.

"Thank you," was the consistent message.

Indeed, the News, and people like Sultan, deserve our thanks for defending freedom of speech.

Iran Murders Homosexual

Back in September, when the United States government shamefully permitted Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- in fact a primary and aggressive enemy of the United States -- to enter the United States, Ahmadinejad claimed that there are no homosexuals in Iran. He said, "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country... In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."

There's a good reason why Iranians don't admit to homosexuality: Iran murders homosexuals as a matter of official policy.

On March 9, the AP reported:

Mehdi Kazemi, 19, came to London to study English in 2005 but later discovered that his boyfriend had been arrested by the Iranian police, charged with sodomy and hanged.

Mr Kazemi was told by his father in Tehran that his boyfriend had been questioned about his sexual relationships before his execution in April 2006 and named him under interrogation.

Mr Kazemi claimed asylum in Britain, fearing for his life if he returned to Iran but his case was refused late last year. He fled Britain for the Netherlands, where he is now being detained.

The article notes that the fate of Kazemi is now in the hands of the Dutch courts. I find it astounding that Britain refused to offer Kazemi protection. Absent important relevant facts not revealed by the AP, Britain's decision was inexcusable. Hopefully Kazemi will find protection elsewhere. If the United States had sensible immigration policies, he would be offered a (voluntarily funded) plane ticket to America.

Saudi Insanity

A story reproduced by Fox -- originally from The Times of February 26 -- reports:

A university professor allegedly caught in a Saudi-style honey trap has been sentenced to 180 lashes and eight months in jail -- for having coffee with a girl. ...

[O]ne senior Saudi journalist told The Times he was Dr. Abu Ruzaiz, a married man in his late 50s with children.

"He is highly respected and above-board. Nobody believes the religious police's version of what happened. The whole of Jeddah (the main city near Mecca) is in uproar about this. Everyone believes he is innocent and was set up," the journalist said.

Contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited in the desert kingdom where religious police, commonly known as mutaween, patrol public places in teams to enforce their brand of ultra-conservative Islam. ... They are under the command of the Saudi Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. ...

Ruzaiz is said to have received a call from a girl purporting to be one of his students who asked to meet to discuss a problem that she did not want to talk about over the phone. The professor agreed to meet at a family cafe, provided she brought her brother along as a chaperone.

When he arrived, he was surprised to find the girl alone, and was promptly surrounded by religious policemen who handcuffed him and hauled him into custody. He was accused of being in a state of khulwa -- seclusion -- with an unrelated woman. ...

In another high-profile case, an illiterate Saudi woman is hoping that King Abdullah will spare her life after she was condemned to death for "witchcraft." Her accusers included a man who claimed that the woman, Fawzi Falih, had made him impotent with her sorcery.

An international human rights group said Falih -- who faces being publicly beheaded -- was allegedly beaten by religious police and forced into fingerprinting a false confession.

Prosecutors are currently investigating 57 young men arrested last week for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca. They were accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to catch the attention of girls.

The Times published an earlier account of the "witch."

Here is yet another story:

A 37-year-old American businesswoman and married mother of three is seeking justice after she was thrown in jail by Saudi Arabia's religious police for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh.

Yara, who does not want her last name published for fear of retribution, was bruised and crying when she was freed from a day in prison after she was strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign false confessions by the Kingdom's "Mutaween" police.

And here is a follow-up:

A US businesswoman living in Saudi Arabia fears for her life after the religious police issued a rare statement defending her arrest this month for having coffee with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh.

According to that Times story, the absurdly named Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice made the following statement:

It's not allowed for any woman to travel alone and sit with a strange man and talk and laugh and drink coffee together like they are married.

All of these are against the law and it's clear it's against the law. First, for a woman to work with men is against the law and against religion. Second, the family sections at coffee shops and restaurants are meant for families and close relatives.

Yes, some people in Saudi Arabia are upset about these sorts of abuses. But the mere fact that this sort of religious-based fascism exists indicates widespread cultural insanity in that country.

Americans who want "faith-based" politics should look seriously at what that actually means when seriously enforced. No, no American (that I've heard) has complained when a man and woman "laugh and drink coffee together." No, various American Christians merely advocate the complete ban of all abortions from the moment of fertilization, say that "in the Old Testament, Harry Potter would have been put to death," and call for "the death penalty for homosexuals" and for "Biblical theocratic republics." But at least in America the religious crazies don't get to go around brutalizing people with state sanction and resources.

Rose on the Danish Cartoons

I have been posting about the desire and alleged attempt of various Muslims to murder a cartoonist for depicting Mohammad. On February 15, Flemming Rose came out with an excellent article on the matter for the Wall Street Journal. Rose is the the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published the cartoon.

Rose reviews the basic facts about the cartoonist:

For the past three months [Kurt] Westergaard and his wife have been on the run. Mr. Westergaard did the most famous of the 12 Muhammad cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 -- the one depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban. The cartoon was a satirical comment on the fact that some Muslims are committing terrorist acts in the name of Islam and the prophet. Tragically, Mr. Westergaard's fate has proven the point of his cartoon: In the early hours of Tuesday morning Danish police arrested three men who allegedly had been plotting to kill him.

Thankfully, Rose points out, "17 Danish newspapers have published Mr. Westergaard's cartoon" in defense of free speech. Rose adds, "As George Orwell put it in the suppressed preface to 'Animal Farm': 'If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear'."

Unfortunately, the threats against the cartoonist are just the tip of the iceberg. Rose continues:

In Oslo a gallery has censored three small watercolor paintings, showing the head of the prophet Muhammad on a dog's body, by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has been under police protection since the fall of 2007. In Holland the municipal museum in The Hague recently refused to show photos by the Iranian-born artist Sooreh Hera of gay men wearing the masks of the prophet Muhammad and his son Ali; Ms. Hera has received several death threats and is in hiding. In Belarus an editor has been sentenced to three years in a forced labor camp after republishing some of Jyllands-Posten's Muhammad cartoons. In Egypt bloggers are in jail after having "insulted Islam." In Afghanistan the 23-year-old Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh has been sentenced to death because he distributed "blasphemous" material about the mistreatment of women in Islam. And in India the Bengal writer Taslima Nasreen is in a safe house after having been threatened by people who don't like her books.

Quite obviously, liberty, including freedom of speech and freedom of religion, is incompatible with Islam as practiced in these cases. Sadly, Muslim voices defending freedom of speech are too few and too quiet.

Rose goes on to argue in the article that the West must not bend to these threats against freedom of speech, but must instead recommit itself to its defense. Those who value their liberty owe Rose a debt of gratitude for his courageous and tireless defense of freedom. And now Westergaard too has become a hero of liberty.

AFP reports that Westergaard "said he considered himself an atheist, adding: 'I feel that I am fighting a righteous fight to defend freedom of expression, which is under threat'."

(Thanks to Lin Zinser of FIRM for links to both articles.)

Americans worthy of the title will join Westergaard's righteous fight.

Muslims for Murder

Recently the authorities broke up an alleged plot to murder a Danish cartoonist for depicting Mohammed. In response, various newspapers republished the cartoon in defense of free speech.

In response, more Muslims called for the murder of the cartoonist.

The AP reports (via Fox News):

Muslims March Against Reprinting of Danish Newspaper Cartoons Depicting Muhammad
Friday, February 15, 2008

Muslims protested Friday in the Gaza Strip, Pakistan and Denmark against the reprinting of a Danish newspaper cartoon depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Thousands of residents in the conservative Gaza Strip ruled by the militant Islamic Hamas movement marched in the Jebaliya refugee camp chanting: "What Denmark said is heresy." ...

And in Denmark, a prominent Danish imam urged rioting youth to stop setting fires and hurling rocks at police.

At the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Mahmood Sadiqui said, "We are even ready to sacrifice our life for our beloved Prophet." The AP continues:

About 200 people held a similar rally in Multan, a main city in the eastern Punjab province, burning Danish flags and chanting "Death to the Cartoonist!" ...

Mohammad Imran, a student leader from Islami Jamiat Talba, a student organization linked with Pakistan's largest Islamic political group, Jamaat-e-Islami, called the cartoon "blasphemous."

"We demand the rulers to sever diplomatic ties" with Denmark and Sweden for publishing the cartoons. "The cartoonist and publisher must be hanged."

The call to murder people for drawing pictures is religion-induced insanity. Muslims who support such measures -- or even who fail to publicly condemn them -- are barbarians at war with civilization.

And Westerners who continue to think that such murderous fanatics can be appeased with cash payments or political concessions are delusional.

European Papers Stand Up for Free Speech

When somebody started selling "Looking Good for Jesus" makeup kits in Singapore, Christians complained, as is their political right.

When a Danish cartoonist depicted Mohammed in order to make a serious sociopolitical point, some Muslims allegedly tried to kill him.

Thankfully, not only did police disrupt the attempted murder, but various European newspapers republished the cartoon to protest the attempted murder and to stand for free speech. CNN reports:

Newspapers reprint Prophet Mohammed cartoon

Newspapers across Europe Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked worldwide protests two years ago.

The move came one day after Danish authorities arrested three people allegedly plotting a "terror-related assassination" of Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the drawing.

Berlingske Tidende, was one of the newspapers involved in the republication by newspapers in Denmark. It said: "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper always will defend," in comments reported by The Associated Press.

Newspapers in Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands also republished the drawing Wednesday as part of their coverage of Tuesday's arrests.

The cartoon was originally published by the Jullands-Posten (also spelled "Jyllands") in 2005. In 2006, I republished all of the cartoons at FreeColorado.com, and I also wrote and cowrote articles defending Flemming Rose, who edited the paper at the time of the publications of the cartoons.

CNN quotes Westergaard's comments to the paper's web page: "Of course I fear for my life after the Danish Security and Intelligence Service informed me of the concrete plans of certain people to kill me. However, I have turned fear into anger and indignation. It has made me angry that a perfectly normal everyday activity which I used to do by the thousand was abused to set off such madness."

Thankfully, some people are starting to stand up to that madness.

Dishonor Killings

Recently I wrote about an apparent "honor killing" in Texas, in which a Muslim man allegedly murdered his own daughters for dating.

My wife, who continues to read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel (order from Amazon), read me the following quote today:

When I tried to find out about honor killings... -- how many girls were killed every year in Holland by their fathers and brothers because of their precious family honor -- civil servants at the Ministry of Justice would tell me, "We don't register murders based on that category of motivation. It would stigmatize one group in society." The Dutch government registered the number of drug-related killings and traffic accidents every year, but not the number of honor killings, because no Dutch official wanted to recognize that this kind of murder happened on a regular basis. Even Amnesty International didn't keep statistics on how many women around the word were victims of honor killings. ... (pages 295-96)

Talk about multiculturalism run amuck!

Surely Ali is among the bravest women in the world.