Agora

At a conference in Vienna in Austria which is currently under way, European Moslems urged Europe to enact laws to ban defamation of religions. In a statement to Islamonline.net, Turfa Bagaghati, deputy chairman of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) said: “It is high time now that Muslims in Europe pressed for their rights like enacting laws banning aggression on Islam and enhancing Islamic education”.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the European Commissioner for External Relations presented a luke-warm response to these demands from European Moslems, saying: “Freedom of religion is non-negotiable. It is a fundamental right of individuals and communities and entails respect for the integrity of all religious convictions and all ways in which they are exercised. Similarly, freedom of expression is central to Europe’s values and traditions. It is also non-negotiable. But it does come with responsibilities and should be exercised with the necessary sensitivity to others.”

According to Jyllands-Posten today, Amar Hariba of the World Islamic Call Society said: “The insult of prophets in the name of Freedom of Speech is a crime which cannot be ignored. We therefore ask the European Union to adopt laws to prohibit that kind of insults.”

To this blog, it seems clear that the European commissioner has chosen sides: For Religion and against Freedom of Speech. By qualifying Freedom of Expression and not Freedom of Religion, she has once again said to the world that Europe at large has no special interest in defending Freedom of Speech.

The delegate from Denmark was Imam Abdul Wahid Petersen who has declared himself in favor of making Sharia the law of the land.

The conference is expected to agree on a statement that will be issued today.

Related links:
Description of the Conference from April 3rd

This story from March 18th in “Die Presse” of Austria states in summary that 3 Moslem members of the Marie Therese garrison demonstratively refused to salute the flag at a parade. They instead turned their backs on the flag, standing at attention. They stated that saluting the Austrian flag was not compatible with their faith.

Austrian Army officers have complained that Moslem soldiers are incompetent, making them skilled to do only the most rudimentary jobs. If they get a certificate from the Austrian Moslem Faith Community stating that they are observant Moslems, they are allowed to pray 5 times a day, no matter the job they are performing at the time. Some who go for Friday’s Prayers stay away the rest of the day. The only punishment they receive for this is more frequent watches during the weekend. Some of the Moslem soldiers eat pork, drink alcohol and some even do drugs, raising suspicions among officers that the certificate is used mainly for shirking their duties and that the certificates are too easy to get.
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I stumbled across this article while reading Polemiken. It’s in German but I have translated it below. Tariq Ramadan clearly doesn’t want to discuss the basics. He also seems very badly adjusted to anyone questioning him and his beliefs. He’s been known to criticise people for their Jewishness and is accused by some of being a master of the long con, Osama bin Laden with patience, waiting for the demographic explosion of the Moslem populations of Europe to take over Europe. What’s a bit frightening is that this man is an advisor to the British government and seems to be generally well received in the intellectual millieu.

In the translation, the links are all mine, the editor’s comments are the newspaper’s.

You’re an Arrogant Man

Weltwoche, ausgabe 47/04.

By Hanspeter Born and Eugen Sorg

Interview with Tariw Ramadan: What was supposed to have been a critical dialogue with the Islamist writer, ended in fiasco.

We looked forward to a stirring, critical second talk with the Islamist author and preacher Tariq Ramadan. The first took place two weeks before this, and after we had reviewed it, we had a few misgivings - with ourselves and with Ramadan. We talked about Islam and terrorism, Iraq, the backwardness of the Arab world, the United Nations, universal values, freedom of opinion, headscarves. Now we had the feeling that our questions were too ordinary and too tentative. And that his answers were too rehearsed, too evasive and too ambigous - without our asking more questions to gain clarity.

This time we wanted to do better. We wanted to be concrete, harder, more personal and, if possible, to prevent empty retorics and charades.We wanted to know Ramadan’s position on the following questions and issues:In the eyes of most Moslems the West is morally inferior. Tolerance is a sign of decadence. The Islamic law of Sharia demands the death penalty for e.g. Homosexuality, female adulterers, atheism, the apostates of Islam, etc. Assuming the following: Ramadan’s daughter goes to the pool in bikini, wants to move together with her boyfriend, her boyfriend is an atheist; Ramadan’s son announces to his parents that he is a gay and has acted on this: What is Ramadan’s response?

Righteousness and laws are central to Islam, but it has no concept of Freedom or individuals. Islamism is not Humanism. It is significant that the writer Rushdie had a fatwa proclaimed against him, but not Osama bin Laden, Zarqawi or criminals of that ilk. The Koran is the work of man, the Prophet a warlord with a large following. The desolate state of things in the Arab world is connected to the ban on criticism of Islam. The Prophet allows Taqqiya for the believers (Taqiya is the omission and the lie) if they live under the rule of the unbelievers: How can we belive that Ramadan believes in what he is telling us?
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This piece was published in today’s edition of Jyllands-Posten. It was written by Poul Højlund of Pia Causa. It’s good, conservative reasoning about this thing called Islam. Please notice, by the way, that Muhammed is depicted once again in this infidel newspaper from the North.

Update: Poul has a post about this article. If you want to praise or comment on the article, go here.

Democracy before Religion

By Poul Højlund

Islam is an unbreakable monolith of religion and politics. Islam as traditionally interpreted is not compatible with democracy, the author of today’s feature article writes.

“Freedom of Religion is included in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Danish Constitution. This means that I am free to be a Christian and my neighbor can be a Moslem without this interfering with our basic rights or our recognition by society at large. And our neighbor another door over is allowed to believe in absolutely nothing while remaining a co-equal member of our common society.

Freedom of Religion means that if someone by words or deeds attacks my two non-Christian neighbors on account of their beliefs or lack thereof, I’ll be there to defend their rights. In the same manner, I can count on them - if things get to that.”

That is what I wrote in Jyllands-Posten in November of 2002 in the feature article titled “Freedom of Beliefs and Belief in Freedom”, and I still hold it to be true - indeed I don’t see how I could believe otherwise. But in that article I also wrote of the real and present danger of oppression of Democracy. (more…)

I have covered the Manifesto here. Here the leader of the Danish People’s Party adds her signature. Here I link to a petition where you can sign the manifesto.

Are you daring enough to do so?

Death Threat against signers of Manifesto

By Jørgen Ullerup, Correspondent to Jyllands-Posten

Warning against Islamic totalitarianism brings death threats. On a website an Islamic group has made death threats against the 12 intellectuals, including Salman Rushdie, who recently signed a Manifesto against Islamic Totalitarianism.

/Paris/

According to one of the signers, the French writer Caroline Fourest, the threat was made this Saturday on the website ummah.net. It mentions a who’s who guide and a list of targets scheduled for termination.
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This is “Today’s Debate” in Dagens Nyheter in Sweden:
Hattip: Pia Causa

“One in four Swedes wouldn’t want a Jew to be their Prime Minister”

New report about anti-semitism in Sweden: 41 percent are very or somewhat negatively inclined towards Jews. 25 percent of the Swedes are disinclined to have a Jew as their Prime Minister. As many (25%) say that the Jews have decisive influence over the world economy, 15 percent say that the Jews have too much power in the world today. So says a new survey by the Forum for Living History which was based on 3000 responses to be published today. In total, 36 percent of Swedes have some anti-semitic views but are sceptical of other anti-semitic views. 5 Percent, among them supporters of extremely nationalistic parties, have systematically negative views of Jews writes Helene Lööw, Superintendant of Forum for Living History, and the researcher Henrik Bachner

I had a post about this earlier, but that has been deleted. It was only the English excerpt from aftenposten.no. Here I bring the full interview from dagbladet.no. This is a rough translation, but I need some sleep. If there are any errors, they will be corrected tomorrow.

(I would also like to thank sveitserosten for bringing to my attention that this interview had been made.)

Dagbladet.no February 13, 2006

Islam will be Victorious against the West

There can be no lasting peace between the West and Islam before the Islamic Caliphate has been reborn. So says Mullah Krekar. In this interview he shares a peek at Radical Islamists’ thoughts in the aftermath of the Caricature affair.

Carsten Thomassen

Mullah Krekar is wearing a bright white tunic as he welcomes us to his home at Tøyen in Oslo. In a corner sits the computer which Mullah Krekar uses to publish his articles and communicate with co-religionists from all over the world.
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Yay! Today is a day of happy tidings. From Politiken today:

Turkish Mediation in Prophet Crisis given the Brush-off

The Turkish Foreign minister suggests to the EU that they tighten their laws against offending religious sensibilites. Both the Danish and the Dutch Foreign Minister rejects the proposal.
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UPDATE: Today is a day of happy tidings. See this post.

MFs and crapola. You’ll have to excuse my language but it’s prophane times we live in. This just in:

BT, March 11, 2006

Turkey urges European Union to examine its legislation
The Turkish Foreign Minister to be a broker between the Islamic and the European countries.

Turkey asks the European Union to examine its legislation in order to avoid conflicts between the Moslem and Western world similar to what was seen in connection with the Muhammed-crisis.

So a draft of Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül’s speech to be delivered at a convention of Foreign Ministers of the European Union at Salzburg today says.
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Ah fuck! On top of everything else today, now this:

UPDATE: Transcript of interview with Foreign Commissioner of EU at the bottom of this post. Looks ominous.
UPDATE: Time to do the Dhimmi dance. Turkish Foreign Minister to urge European nations to “examine their legislation!”
UPDATE: Today is a day of happy tidings. See this post.

Jyllands-Posten, March 10, 2006

EU-Ministers considering Arab demands

It may no longer be enough to just combat discrimination, a presentation document at meeting of EU-ministers says.

As a pendant to the Muhammed-affair, the Foreign Ministers of the EU are considering complying with Arab demands to “fight defamation of religion.”

So far the EU has voted against these kinds of proposals at meetings of the UN General Assembly, but they are now considering reversing that. So a written presentation document aiming at bettering the relations between Europe and the Islamic countries.
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In a statement to The Guardian today, The British Home Secretary criticises Anders Fogh Rasmussen of not responding to a letter sent by the Ambassadors to protest the Muhammed cartoons:

Clarke criticises Danish ‘mistake’ over cartoons

Hélène Mulholland
Wednesday March 8, 2006

The British government has accused its Danish counterparts of making “a serious mistake” in the way it handled relations with Muslim countries after the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.

The home secretary, Charles Clarke, criticised the decision by the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to snub a request from 11 Muslim countries for a meeting after the cartoons were published in the Jyllands Posten newspaper in September.

Mr Clarke told a public meeting in Willesden Green - primarily held to discuss law and order issues - that Mr Rasmussen had not even responded to the request.

Admitting it was a “political point”, Mr Clarke said: “I think that was a serious mistake which you could not imagine happening in other countries … certainly not in this country. It is a question of respecting others, and that means do not provoke or challenge the deeply-held views of others.”

This is not true. Click the image below to see the full letter. (more…)

It seems the Quran is under indictment in Germany. This entry will be updated. The article below is from Jyllands-Posten today:

Update: I see Pia Causa has posted about this also.
And Democracy Frontline has too.
Six Days More has some interesting commentary:

Many of us have been waiting for the inevitable collision between the emerging raft of religious vilification, “tolerance” and blasphemy laws, and the Koran, holy book of the intended beneficiaries of these new laws.
There have been a number of near-misses.

Their homepage.
A quote: “Schluss mit der falschen Toleranz für die muslimische Doppelmoral.”
Take this translation with a grain of salt - this is a translation between two non-native tongues for me - but that would go like this is English:
“End the wrongful tolerance of Moslem hypocrisy.”

Hrmm… I was wrong. They do speak my language.

Update: Found a shortened version of this article online (In Danish).

The Quran reported to the Police

By Kent Olsen, correspondent to Jyllands-Posten

A broad alliance of grass-roots movements have gone to the prosecutors of several states to hinder the dissemination of the Quran. According to the indictment, the Quran is not just a religious and historic book, but also a political book, which is incompatible with the constiution.
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Note to my American readers: In Europe, blue is the colour of the Right and Red the colour of the Left. I don’t know why you got it so terribly mixed up at some point, but just so you know: Blue is Right, Red is Wrong. In the same vein, liberal in Europe is usually used in the meaning of "classic liberal", meaning Equality before the Law, Free Trade, Spreading Democracy, etc.

The cartoon imbroglio seems to have made some impact on our fellow Northerners in the marxist-leninist people’s monarchy of Sweden and the social-democratic hill fort of Norway. According to Politiken, a survey by Sentio reports that the blue areas of Scandinavia are growing daily. In Denmark, the first bastion of social democratism to fall to the powers of good, Right wing parties DPP, The Conservativ and The Liberal Party stand to get 53.7% of all votes. In Sweden, the Alliance for Change stands to reap 55.5% of all votes - impressive for a country that is usually rules by turtle-necked social democratic dolts. Norway still hangs in the balance though. The Conservative parties of that country stand to gain slightly over last election, and would squeak into power with 50.1% of all votes if elections were held today.

Quote about the Danish People’s Party (DK) and the Progress Party (NO):

"The Forces of the Right in Denmark and Norway are riding with the wind in their backs. Our poll shows the Muhammed affair has mobilised many voters who didn’t vote in the last elections, but who would cast protest votes for the two parties today." [says Arve Østgård of Sentio to Altinget.dk]

I only just read this piece. ???WWW.WHATTHEFUCK.COM???

‘Weed out textbooks offensive to Muslims’
By David Rennie in Brussels
(Filed: 16/02/2006)

School textbooks should be reviewed for intolerant depictions of Islam and other faiths by experts overseen by the European Union and Islamic leaders, the European Parliament was told yesterday.

The call for a special committee to examine religious education in schools came from Hans-Gert Pöttering, the German Christian Democrat, who heads the largest group of MEPs. But the proposal was immediately condemned as "appeasement" by Charles Tannock, a British Conservative MEP.

Mr Pöttering, the head of the centre-Right, but largely federalist European People’s Party, said the work of building bridges between Islam and the West had to "begin with young people".

During a debate intended to show Europe’s unity in the face of the row over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, he said textbooks should be checked to ensure they promoted European values without propagating religious stereotypes or prejudice.

He also called for similar tolerance in the Islamic world, holding up examples of anti-Semitic cartoons taken from the Middle East and suggesting a parallel review should be made of Islamic school books.

He also suggested that the EU could co-operate with the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference, which has its headquarters in Saudi Arabia, to create a textbook review committee.

"They could help to choose the experts to sit on this committee," he said.

But Dr Tannock, the Conservatives’ foreign affairs spokesman at the European Parliament, said: "This sounds like an exercise in political correctness and appeasement. I don’t see why we should be bringing children into this debate."

Hat tip: Frit Aalborg

Turning to our daily dose of hypocrisy, this just in:

(About limits to free speech)

The reason I am viewed as provocative is that I show people things they don’t want to see. I think I am a good provocateur - I want to do something positive.

- Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, speaking to Aftonbladet, May 30, 2002

But then…

There should be limits. We don’t have any prohibition against depicting Christ, but we must respect their limits.

 - Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin (of “Ecce Homo” fame) on P1 Morgon, February 2, 2006

"Hello? Hey, pot! It’s kettle on the phone - yeah, something about you being black."

So Christians don’t have limits when it comes to saying that Jesus was a backdoor-kind-of-man, that he took it up the chute?

The difference here is… The Swedish Embassy still stands. Dhimmi. Backdoor socialist. Hypocrite.

Hat tip: Stockholm Spectator (THE ressource for Swedish news) [Via: Uriasposten, Dansk-Svensk]

Danish Minister President Anders Fogh Rasmussen, 53, discusses the caricatures of Mohammed, the disproportionate reaction of Muslims and the threat of a clash of civilizations.