Nice Little Province You Have Here… Wouldn’t Want to See Anything Happen to It…

As we reported last night, a proposed bill before the provincial assembly in Quebec would make it a crime to “defame religions” — that is, it would implement UN Resolution 16/18 and enforce sharia-based Islamic blasphemy laws in Quebec.

The following video shows excerpts from testimony in favor of Bill 59 given by an imam named Salman Elmenyawi before the Commission des Institutions at the National Assembly in Quebec City. Pay special attention to the very end of this clip. Some people say that Mr. Elmenyawi made a “veiled threat” against Quebec, but to my mind, it’s about as veiled as Miley Cyrus.

He presented a straightforward warning to the Assembly: “If you don’t pass this bill, daddy-o, you gonna run into a little Muslim trouble, dig?”

Many thanks to Sassy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript (two clips patched together):

0:01   In your memoir, and I think it’s important, the word HATE
0:05   must be well defined, while respecting protected minority groups
0:09   within the Charter. We should also include
0:13   PREVENTION of DERISION and MOCKERY of ALL RELIGIONS.
0:20   To talk about a religion, this is debating an idea.
0:28   Are you saying to simply mock or disagree with a religion
0:32   should be included in this Bill?
0:36   I think this is a bit extreme.
0:40   We’re addressing ideas now and no longer hateful discourse.
0:41   It’s ideas.
0:52   I said that mocking and making fun of a religion,
0:57   is unacceptable, is what I said.
1:02   To mock and insult your neighbour
1:07   is not democracy. It’s against what unites us.
1:11   This will not prevent radicalization.
1:16   So, I say religion has a RED LINE.
1:20   We must avoid mockery.
1:25   It’s… It’s… UHM… we must be open,
1:29   there are articles about this.
1:33   O.K. Because it’s really… maybe it’s the translation,
1:37   but we should include ‘prevention of derision
1:41   and mockery of all religions’
1:46   to ensure mutual respect and harmony.  
1:50   So, for me, we seek to define the limits and
1:54   I look at your memoir and the limits are quite…
1:58   expanded while we were trying to contain them.
    [next section]
0:01  

0:01   Our charters protect people and not religions or deities.
0:05   What you are asking here goes far beyond.
0:09   Regardless of the religion, if we cannot mock or ridicule it,
0:13   this goes against all our principles of free speech.
0:17   Your proposal is truly far-reaching.
0:22   When we mock or ridicule a religion,
0:27   we go much further than we think.
0:31   You mock me, you mock my wife,
0:35   you mock the prophet’s mother.
0:40   There are people who don’t mind
0:44   if their mother is insulted. But me,
0:48   if you insult the prophet’s mother, you insult me.
0:52   You may insult me but not my religion.
0:56   It’s also great for the kids, they are proud.
1:00   If their pride is attacked,
1:04   our society will not be healthy.
1:08   If your intent is to protect people…
1:12   then, for a Muslim,
1:16   if we attack his religion, we attack him.
1:20   You ignore an entire group of people.
1:25   If we concede to your request,
1:29   I will no longer be able to laugh at the Pope,
1:33   no more jokes about religion, things like that, right?
1:37   A person that is alive can reply, of course.
1:41   You can mock any religious personality
1:45   you want but…
1:49   I speak only for prophets in the Bible and Qur’an.
1:52   These are people from the past.
1:56   We can well laugh about other things.
2:00   But… instead of heading in that direction,
2:04   … You might laugh for a few seconds but you
2:08   will have MANY PROBLEMS down the road.
 

12 thoughts on “Nice Little Province You Have Here… Wouldn’t Want to See Anything Happen to It…

  1. 84. In addition, criminal defamation laws may not be used to protect abstract or subjective notions or concepts, such as the State, national symbols, national identity, cultures, schools of thought, religions, ideologies or political doctrines. This is consistent with the view, sustained by the Special Rapporteur, that international human rights law protects individuals and groups of people, not abstract notions or institutions that are subject to scrutiny, comment or criticism.

    Document A/HRC/14/23

    Available here:

    http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomOpinion/Pages/Issues.aspx

  2. Limitations to the right to freedom of opinion and expression have more often than not been used by Governments as a means to restrict criticism and silent dissent. Furthermore, as regional human rights courts have already recognized, the right to freedom of expression is applicable not only to comfortable, inoffensive or politically correct opinions, but also to ideas that “offend, shock and disturb”.[3] The constant confrontation of ideas, even controversial ones, is a stepping stone to vibrant democratic societies.

    (3. Arslan v. Turkey, European Court of Human Rights, 1999.)

    Document A/HRC/7/14, paragraph 66.

    Available here:

    http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/FreedomOpinion/Pages/Issues.aspx

  3. Free speech is the forge that shapes and improves imperfect ideas or gets rid of them.

    Mockery and offense is one of the ways it works along with reason and logic. It has removed ideas such as eugenics and racism and the exclusivity of male voting.

    Good ideas circulating through millions of us keep us united and respectful of each other and release creativity. It has brought us ideas like kindness and neonatal health care and education.

    Bad ideas bring distrust, fear and friction and inhibit our social adhesion.

    Some of us feel Islam has to be changed. It needs free people talking about it, desperately.

    • William, I think all of us feel islam needs to change, but how can that be accomplished when muslims are not allowed to question their faith, and if we attempt to question them about it we get death threats…

    • Apart from a few fantasists, nobody expected that Nazism or Communism would change culturally, the only option for earlier generations in the West was to resist totalitarian ideologies. The first task is to dismantle institutionalised multiculturalism which has been a very effective Trojan Horse for Islamisation. We’re running an uncontrolled social experiment, it’s self-destructive wishful thinking to assume that this vicious, totalitarian sterile religion will be somehow civilised by exposure to liberal democracy.

      • Our Trojan Horse is invited by colluding muslims and our elected geniuses. saddam and Gaddafi would kill those who coveted their chair. Ours want to commit suicide.

        You see, those bigoted Christians checked Kara mustapha pasha. What a great loss. He would have put an end to the Europe’s plague, Christianity.
        That’s how bad Christians were/ are: They prevented the Saracens from grooming their teenagers, as is happening today.

  4. Someone please stop them! They cause most of the crime where they’re at! And everyone else is afraid of stopping them because it’ll make them look racist…

Comments are closed.