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| The Brazen Double Standard Dear Harold, Today we have juxtaposed two short articles to clearly illustrate the brazen double standard that exists with respect to free speech and Islam. The first is about Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist supremacist organization that is allowed to hold conferences in America—the latest in a government building—because our government has not deemed fit to classify the organization as a terrorist organization. (Other nations have done so). The second is about the upcoming trial of Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who is being prosecuted for speech that “offends” Muslims. The backdrop for this trial is the UN’s approval, just last Friday, of a resolution urging governments to criminalize speech that defames religion. Given that the 57 member Organization of the Islamic Conference has been working feverishly to get such a resolution passed by the General Assembly, it’s not hard to guess what kind of speech they want banned. Isn’t it amazing? An imam in America can call for “uzi jihad” against this country; Hizb ut-Tahrir can call for the victory of Islam over all other religions; the Qur’an can defame Jews by calling them apes and pigs… …but don’t dare point out these facts, or else you might be guilty of “defaming” Islam! In the forefront of this free speech double-standard in America is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). For years CAIR has tarred critics of radical Islam as “Islamophobes,” “bigots,” and the like—simply for pointing out the truth about radical Islam. Now CAIR is in hot water, thanks to information entered into the record at the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial and new revelations contained in the book Muslim Mafia. There are now over 37,000 signatures on our petition calling for a government investigation of CAIR. If you haven’t yet signed on, please click here to do so today! Thank you. Chicago: Supremacist Group Conspires Against Rights December 15, 2009 by Jeffrey Imm, email: usa@realcourage.org Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.), http://www.realcourage.org http://www.realcourage.org/2009/12/chicago-supremacist-group-conspires-against-rights/ In the Chicago suburbs on December 20, 2009, a group that has conspired to deny Americans their Constitutional and civil rights will be using a government-managed facility to recruit new members to their supremacist cause. In this case it will be the Islamic supremacist Hizb ut-Tahrir America organization, which will be using the Lombard Park District community building in the Village of Lombard. On July 19, 2009, the Hizb ut-Tahrir America organization held a recruitment meeting in another Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, Illinois, in the Hilton Hotel. The self-defined supremacist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir America at the July 19 event distributed brochures to the public calling for the "death penalty" for those who committed the "treason" of leaving Islam; this is found on page 62 of Hizb ut-Tahrir's brochure titled "Islamic reformation." An electronic form of such public death threats by Hizb ut-Tahrir against "apostates" is on the "official Hizb ut-Tahrir" web site Khilafah.com, linked to the Hizb ut-Tahrir America web page promoting the Lombard, Illinois event. Hizb ut-Tahrir rejects democracy and rejects secular nations, seeking only to promote an international "Khilafah" of Muslims, with its own set of laws. Hizb ut-Tahrir America has sought to intimidate those who would exercise their Constitutionally-protected religious freedom by stating that in the global "Khilafah" of Muslims those who "publicly abandon Islam" should know "that they will be killed for it." According to Hizb ut-Tahrir America's handouts in the Chicago suburbs, those who choose such religious freedom are committing "an open attack on the basis of the state which is Islam, essentially it is viewed as treason and a political attack on the Khilafah in order to undermine it"... which according to Hizb ut-Tahrir America deserves "the death penalty." On July 19, 2009, in full view of local law enforcement (and reportedly federal law enforcement) in Oak Lawn, Illinois, Hizb ut-Tahrir handed out this brochure calling for "the death penalty" against "apostates" from Islam to a reported 700 attendees at this conference. Emboldened, Hizb ut-Tahrir America's latest recruitment activity on December 20 will now be using a government-managed community building in the village of Lombard. There is no public denunciation by government officials. There is no public condemnation of this anti-democracy, supremacist international Hizb ut-Tahrir organization, with a long history of making death threats both in the U.S. and around the world. There is no public call for Hizb ut-Tahrir to retract its continuing promotion in the United States of a document calling for "the death penalty" against "apostates." Wouldn't we be outraged if white supremacists were using a government-managed community building to hold meetings? Wouldn't we be more than outraged if such a white supremacist group had been calling for the "death penalty" for white Americans who disagreed with their supremacist views? Wouldn't we be demanding legal and law enforcement action to end such a conspiracy to violate others' civil rights through intimidation? At what point are open and public death threats (in writing no less) by supremacist groups to specific identity groups recognized by our government and law enforcement as nothing less than conspiracies to violate protected American civil rights? At what point is the use of public facilities to call for the "death" of identity groups recognized as a hate crime? In America and around the world, we have seen the consequences of failing to take action against supremacist groups inciting hatred against others with death threats. Hizb ut-Tahrir and similar supremacist groups' calls for "death" against others is considered a call to action for those who share this philosophy of hate. Just last month, on November 2, in Arizona, a 20 year old girl Noor Almaleki died from an attack by her father for not adhering to what his family told the Arizona Republic were "Muslim values." We are certain that the majority of Muslim Americans would reject such supremacist views, but we have also seen similar killings in Ohio, Indianapolis, Texas, and Georgia. Who is next to die as a result because of such supremacist hate? Death threats by supremacist organizations have very real, very deadly consequences. It is past time for Illinois and the federal government to act on the conspiracy by Hizb ut-Tahrir America to deny Americans' freedom of religion, by its publicly calling for the death of those who seek such freedoms. It is not only an outrage; it is also a growing conspiracy to use intimidation tactics of death threats to violate our rights as American citizens. http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/16/free-speech-on-trial-by-robert-spencer/ Free Speech on Trial – by Robert Spencer Posted By Robert Spencer On December 16, 2009 @ 12:12 am Free speech goes on trial in the Netherlands on January 20, when Dutch politician Geert Wilders appears before the Amsterdam District Court on charges of having “intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion,” as well as having incited to hatred and discrimination. What did Wilders do to warrant such charges? He told the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, and their roots in Islamic texts and teachings, in his film Fitna and elsewhere. But nowadays truth-telling is at such a premium that those who still dare to engage in it are threatened, harassed and prosecuted. But Wilders is defiant: “On the 20th of January 2010, a political trial will start. I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing. If a politician is not allowed to criticise an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom. However I remain combative: I am convinced that I will be acquitted.” The very idea of trying someone for offending someone else is absurd – especially when the offended group is known to traffic in the PC multiculturalist coin of wounded feelings, so as to gain the political power that comes from victim status. That the Amsterdam District Court would aid and abet this absurdity and obvious manipulation unmasks the Wilders trial – even before it starts – as what it really is: an attempt by the nation’s political elites to silence one of their most formidable critics. The one who has the power to decide what is an actionable offensive statement or prosecutable incitement has the power to control the discourse – and that’s what the prosecution of Wilders is all about. If offending someone is a crime, can those who find hate speech laws offensive bring suit against their framers? The action against Wilders is taking place, moreover, against the backdrop of the 57-government Organization of the Islamic Conference’s ongoing efforts at the United Nations to silence speech that they deem critical of Islam — including “defamation of Islam” that goes under the “pretext” of “freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security.” If they succeed in doing this, Europeans and Americans will be rendered mute, and thus defenseless, in the face of the advancing jihad and attempt to impose Sharia on the West — in fact, one of the key elements of the laws for dhimmis, non-Muslims subjugated under Islamic rule, is that they are never critical of Islam, Muhammad, or the Qur’an. Thus this prosecution in Amsterdam not only aids the advance of Sharia in the West, but is itself an element of that advance. The stakes are so high in the Wilders case also because the OIC has a new, powerful ally as it moves against the freedom of speech. In October the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” Echoing Obama’s stated determination to combat “negative stereotyping of Islam” in the United States, the resolution also condemns “negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups.” This is, of course, an oblique reference to accurate reporting about the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism — for such reporting, and not actual negative stereotyping or hateful language at all, is always the focus of OIC complaints. Last year the Secretary General of the OIC, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, issued a warning: “We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed” regarding free speech about Islam and terrorism. And he reported success: “The official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look seriously into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked.” For the first time, an American President has bowed to the OIC’s demands and taken cognizance of that “responsibility.” But Geert Wilders, and all those who stand with him, have a responsibility, too. We have a responsibility to bear witness to the world that the freedom of speech is a cornerstone of any free society, and that once it is gone, there is no defense against tyranny, no safeguard against the encroaching power of a protected class against whom there is no appeal, and from whose rulings there is no dissent. If Geert Wilders is found guilty, tyranny and authoritarianism will have won a huge victory in Europe, and in the world in general. The stakes are as high as they can possibly be. Geert Wilders must prevail. If he does not, Europe, and America, and the world, are in for a long, dark night.
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