Imran Firasat is a Pakistani ex-Muslim and proprietor of www.mundosinislam.com who now lives in Spain. He teamed up with Terry Jones of Stand Up America Now to produce a movie entitled The Innocent Prophet, which was released last week (watch it here).

The Spanish government had threatened to arrest and deport Mr. Firasat if the movie were ever released. Now that it is publicly available (and had been viewed almost 37,000 times, as of this writing), Spain seems to be making good on its threat.

According to a press release that was just sent out by Terry Jones:

Imran Firasat has today been informed by the Spanish government that his residency status has been revoked because of his involvement in the production of the youtube, The Innocent Prophet, with Terry Jones and Stand Up America Now.

If Imran Firasat is deported to Pakistan, his chances of survival are not good. I’ll keep you informed of further developments as they come in.

We were waiting for the end of the world,
waiting for the end of the world,
waiting for the end of the world.
Dear Lord, I sincerely hope you’re coming,
’cause you really started something.

— Elvis Costello, from “Waiting for the End of the World”

The latest from Reuters:

The much-anticipated end of the world arrived today, causing disruption in the financial markets and throwing into doubt any resumption of bipartisan congressional negotiations to craft a tax plan that might avert the “fiscal cliff”.

As the midnight line began its journey across the Western Pacific, signs of the Apocalypse were noted all across the region. The Four Horsemen were observed off the island of Vanuatu, galloping over the water as if it were the Plain of Megiddo. As the End of Days swept across New South Wales, Australians reported both Bangs and Whimpers in various locations. Further north in Japan, earthquakes, fire, pestilence, famine, and tidal waves rippled across the islands as midnight arrived.

President Obama has scheduled an End of Days speech and press conference for 11:00 pm Eastern Time. A White House spokesmen said that the President will use the occasion to unveil his plan for turning the End into “an uplifting occasion of renewal as Americans gather in true equality and prosperity to face the future with optimism and new resolve.” The spokesman refused to comment on speculation that Mr. Obama’s “Apocalypse Now” plan would include additional taxes on corporations and the wealthy.

After his speech the President plans to take Air Force One and fly ahead of the midnight line to his birthplace in Hawaii, where he will await the End with a reduced staff of 6,000.

Although still too early for meaningful results, exit polls in Brisbane, Canberra, Seoul, Manila, and Tokyo indicate that women, minorities, the poor, the elderly, and children with medical problems have been hardest hit by the End. Gays and transgenders also report that the Apocalypse will have a disproportionate impact on their lifestyles.

A spokesman for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation blamed “Crusaders and Zionists” for the End, but said, “Even so, the hearts of faithful Muslims will never waver in their dedication to jihad in the cause of Allah. We await our imminent arrival in Paradise with great anticipation.”

A Mayan spokesman in Chichen Itza told reporters that the day is nothing special for him. “Today is Day 2,880,000 of the old b’ak’tun. Tomorrow is Day 1 of the new b’ak’tun. What’s the big deal?”

A few weeks ago we presented a subtitled version of a four-part Israeli documentary about the Islamization of Europe. For readers who understand German, here is the final part of the same series subtitled in German. The English-language version was posted in November.

Many thanks to Der Prophet des Islam for the translation.

Die Eroberung Europas durch den Islam…

…ist eine 4-teilige Dokumentarserie von Zvi Yehezkeli und David Deryi über die Islamisierung Europas.

Der Filmemacher ist ein arabisch sprechender Israeli dessen äussere Erscheinung und makelloser arabischer Akzent genügten, um ihm freien Zugang in verschiedene muslimische “no-go” Gebiete in Schweden und Frankreich zu verschaffen und gewährten ihm einen Insider-Einblick in die islamische Geistesverfassung des Grossraumes Europa.

Der Originaltext ist in Hebräisch und wurde ins Englische übersetzt. Der Prophet des Islam präsentiert die Serie nun mit deutschen Untertiteln.

Republican leaders have pulled their backup tax plan from the floor of the House, saying that they do not have enough votes to pass it. This leaves it up to President Obama and Senate Democrats to devise legislation to avert the fiscal cliff.

Meanwhile, civil servants in Greece who work for state enterprises will receive salary cuts of 25% after the new year.

In other news, pupils in a Church of England primary school may experience a shock when they return to class after the holidays. The teacher they had always known as “Mr. Upton” will have become “Miss Meadows”, the name by which he/she wishes to be addressed after his/her gender change.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Due to the press of real work — a temporary programming job, which means I actually get paid for it — posts here at Gates of Vienna may be scanty for the next few days.

If the world ends on schedule tomorrow, posting will also be light as a result, or possibly even non-existent.

As reported on Tuesday, we received an email that morning from a nice lady at Sveriges Television (SVT), the Swedish state broadcaster, requesting that we take down the video embedded in a Gates of Vienna post from last April entitled “A Loss of Faith in Sweden as a Democracy”. I explained to her that the video did not belong to us, that we did not upload it, and that therefore we could not take it down.

Evidently there is some confusion at SVT about the difference between uploading a video to one’s own channel, as opposed to simply embedding it using publicly provided embedding code. Today we received a second email from another nice lady, this one a lawyer at SVT:

To Gates of Vienna.

On behalf of Pia Bernhardson at SVT – the Swedish public service broadcasting company – I hereby request that you immediately delete the video belonging to SVT that you illegally publish under the headline: A Loss of Faith in Sweden as a Democracy on your web site:
http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.se/2012/04/loss-of-faith-in-sweden-as-democracy.html.

The copyright to this video belongs to SVT and to publish this video, whit out consent from the copyright holder, is a breach to the copyright law, both in Europe and in the United States. It is also a breach to the copyright law to make changes in the material by adding subtitles to the video whit out SVT’s permission and by adding an unfamiliar logotype to the video.

The copyright law is clear on the issues above.

The breaches makes SVT entitled to economic reparation and if the video is not deleted immediately SVT will consider to take legal action.

Kind regards,

Frida Persson
Bolagsjurist/Lawyer

SVT Juridik
105 10 Stockholm
+46 (0)8-78 480 59
+46 (0)70-843 14 55
frida.persson@svt.se

I wrote Ms. Persson back and explained that I did not own the video, and therefore could not take it down. However, I seem to be having trouble making myself understood.

Our Swedish readers are invited to write to this estimable lady and repeat to her in her native language what I have explained here in English. Since she is almost certainly fluent in Danish and Norwegian, native speakers of those languages may also want to drop her a note and help her out.

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The image at the top of this post is a derivative of “En Svensk Tiger”, which was featured on Tuesday’s post.

“En Svensk Stör” means “A Swedish Sturgeon”, and the fish painted with Swedish-colored stripes is indeed a sturgeon. However, the phrase is also a pun, and has an alternative reading: “A Swede Interferes”.

’Nuff said.

An independent U.S. government panel has issued a report on the terror attack in Benghazi last September, blaming the State Department for multiple failures in providing security and protection for the ambassador and the Benghazi consulate. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she accepts the report’s conclusions, and will work to implement changes in policy.

In other news, President Obama says he will send Congress proposed new gun control legislation within the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, according to The Express, people are leaving the Conservative Party in Britain in droves and joining UKIP.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DS, Insubria, JP, Takuan Seiyo, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed is a notorious Islamic radical who now lives in Lebanon. He was born in Syria in 1958 and later moved to Britain, where he became an Islamic zealot. He worked tirelessly to strengthen the radical group Hizb ut-Tahrir, and founded the now-banned organization Al-Muhajiroun, to which several of the 7/7 bombers belonged. He is the mentor and close associate of the Ilford firebrand Anjem Choudary.

Sheikh Omar fled Britain in 2004 to escape prosecution, and has lived in Lebanon ever since.

Young “Danish” radicals now find great inspiration in the words of Omar Bakri, which are broadcast live to them at their rallies in Copenhagen. During the same rallies they call openly for violent jihad against Denmark and the rest of Europe.

Below is an investigative report from TV2 about Omar Bakri’s influence on Danish “youths”. Many thanks to Henrik Ræder Clausen for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

A kindergarten in France has cancelled its annual visit from Santa Claus. School administrators say tight finances are to blame, but parents don’t believe them. They’re certain that the exclusion of Santa is an attempt to placate Muslims, and they’re up in arms about the decision.

Many thanks to Hermes for translating this article from RTL.fr:

Kindergarten children in Loiret deprived of visit by Father Christmas

This is a story that keeps the mood boiling at a kindergarten in Montargis-Loiret. With the holiday season approaching, the headmistress decided to cancel the ritual visit of Father Christmas to the classrooms. Official reason: financial problems. Stunned parents charge that it was instead on religious grounds.

The headmistress gave in?

For some parents with children in the Grand Clos kindergarten, there is no doubt that the reason for the cancellation of the visit of the white-bearded man in the red suit is of a “religious” kind. A mother declared on Wednesday in Le Parisien — Today in France that: “The director told me she did not want her wrist to be slapped by some Muslim families,” she said.

The problem was confirmed by the Deputy Mayor of Montargis, who is responsible for matters concerning children. He adds that “each year, families threaten to boycott the school in the day of Santa’s visit.” The director gave in. For some, “this is too much.” It is, according to them, the “Islamization of a school.”

Pagan tradition

“It is an error”, was the reply from the Academy of Orléans-Tours. “It makes no sense, this is a misinterpretation.” Officially, the reason for cancelling the arrival of Santa at this small school is of a financial nature. The decision was made on October 26, during the school council’s meeting.

While still facing controversy, the mayor of Montargis requested an explanation from the Academy, as well as from the directive board of the kindergarten. He reminded everyone that Father Christmas is a pagan tradition with no religious connotations

For her part, the director told “La République du Centre” that: “This was hellish,” she said, her eyes reddened. “Incredible harm has been done to the school and the children.” She announced her intention to file a complaint.

After six volunteer health-care workers were shot dead while administering polio vaccines, Pakistan has suspended its anti-polio drive in the province of Sindh until the safety of workers can be assured. The Taliban have not claimed responsibility for the killings, although they have been know to oppose such immunization programs in the past.

In other news, Muslim leaders in Britain are demanding that the Islamic community be made exempt from the new law permitting same-sex marriage.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, CSP, Fjordman, Insubria, JP, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Regular readers are familiar with Gavin Boby and the Law and Freedom Foundation. Gavin has racked up an impressive string of successes in his lobbying efforts against the approval of new mosques in Britain.

Last week Erick Stakelbeck of CBN interviewed Gavin Boby about his work, and discussed its applicability to American circumstances, where citizens’ groups may wish to mount initiatives to prevent the building of new mosques.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

You can see the full post here.

Also recommended: Stakelbeck on Terror weekly bulletin.

Gavin sends this heartening note about one of his successes in the UK:

Plus, some good news for freedom lovers: the Purley Mosque planning application, from March of this year, was recently refused at appeal [pdf]. A win confirmed is not quite two wins, but it feels like it!

Previous posts about Gavin Boby and the Law and Freedom Foundation:

To prove how tolerant and free of “Islamophobia” it is, Norway is hosting a radical Islamic scholar who, among other accomplishments, helped inspire the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab to blow up his crotch on a transatlantic flight.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated an article about this illustrious sheikh’s upcoming visit to the fjords. The translator includes this introductory note:

The article deals with a ‘religion of peace’ seminar which is scheduled for next weekend at the University College of Oslo. One would imagine that all those morally outraged people that demonized the Counterjihad movement in the aftermath of the Breivik attacks would be up in arms about allowing such a person to enter the kingdom of Norway, but funnily enough they are all quiet as mice.

The translated article from Human Rights Service:

Are praising invited extremist
by Hege Storhaug

Next weekend Islam.net is hosting a seminar at Oslo University College. Haitham al-Haddad, the keynote speaker at the seminar, is a well-known Sharia extremist who has been accused among others things of having contributed to the radicalization of the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab. Seminars by al-Haddad have previously been axed in the Netherlands and the UK, where he currently resides, but apparently he is welcome to come to Norway and he is free to use the premises of the Oslo University College.

Haitham al-Haddad’s record is unattractive, to say the least. Here are some of his “pet causes”: Yes to female genital mutilation; women should not work; women are subordinate to their husbands, whom they should obey; Jews are the offspring of apes and pigs; homosexuality is worse than murder; apostates should be killed, sex outside of marriage should be punished by stoning; forced marriages of girls, the younger the better, just make sure to hide it from the authorities in the West. Hence it also fits into the pattern that he incites hatred against Muslims who do not follow his message.

The underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab was radicalized at a university in the UK, and he has himself admitted that he attended some of al-Haddad’s seminars. Al-Haddad’s rap sheet is even longer than this, but the picture should be pretty clear by now. Al-Haddad blends in nicely with all the other radical preachers that Islam.net brings to Norway — without any shame — and without a single Government Minister or other political figure seeing the need even to raise an eyelid. Here is the invitation to next weekend’s seminar organized by Islam.net — ‘Practising Islam in the West’. The trailer is well worth watching. [The video clip include some Norwegian footage and some English footage — translator]

The seminar fee includes dinner with the man who is presented in the following manner:

Shaykh Haitham al-Haddad is a great scholar who holds the position of a Judge in the Sharia Council in Britain. He has studied under great scholars such as Shaykh Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah ibn Baaz, Shaykh Abdullah Ibn Jibreen, the former top Justice of Riyadh and the retired leader of the monarchy’s “Higher Judiciary Council”, Shaykh Abdullah ibn Aqil, Shaikh Muhammad ibn al Uthaymeen (for a brief period) and other senior scholars

Surely Norwegian students deserve something better than this? What do our leading politicians think about all this? Does one have to be a self declared Nazi before any steps are taken? What would happen if a Christian organization decided to bring a key Ku-Klux-Klan lecturer to Norway?

Well, seminars by this man have been canceled at the University of Amsterdam and the London School of Economics. Why can’t Norway follow their examples? Shall naïveté and weakness be allowed to continue under the leadership of Principal Sissel Østberg?

In an op-ed yesterday at the Norwegian website Document.no, Hans Rustad pointed out that Norwegians can no longer assume that their discussions and customary practices will remain “within the family”. Thanks to the Internet and the widespread use of machine translation, what happens in Oslo does not stay in Oslo.

The same is true of Sweden and other “totalitarian democracies”. Their repressive, illiberal, and insular cultures are now easily exposed to the gaze of the rest of the world. This is not something that the elites of those societies will always be proud of — perhaps they are subliminally aware of the moral and ethical degradation into which their countries have descended.

Such seems to be the case with Sveriges Television (SVT), the Swedish state broadcaster. This morning I received the following email from Pia Bernhardson, the executive producer of “Agenda SVT”, concerning a Gates of Vienna post from last April entitled “A Loss of Faith in Sweden as a Democracy”:

Dear Gates of Vienna,

it has come to my attention that you have posted a link on your website that belongs to SVT, Swedish Television.

See below http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.se/2012/04/loss-of-faith-in-sweden-as-democracy.html

You do not have the legal rights to introduce this material as your own, with a logotype of your own. I strongly urge you to take this material off your website.

Best regards,
Pia Bernhardson,
executive producer,
Agenda SVT

Pia Bernhardson
projektledare Agenda

Sveriges Television
08 784 84 94
070 884 73 87
pia.bernhardson@svt.se
http://svt.se/agenda

I responded as follows:

Ms. Bernhardson,

Gates of Vienna always respects copyright, and stays within “fair use” guidelines.

The video to which you refer does not belong to Gates of Vienna, but was simply embedded on our site, just as we would do with a YouTube video. I cannot remove the video from where it was uploaded.

The translated transcript that accompanies the video was a volunteer effort, and does not duplicate any material published by SVT. Since it was offered to readers without any charge, we are of the opinion that its publication constitutes “fair use” as defined under U.S. copyright practices. However, I will consult with our legal staff to learn whether they are in agreement with this assessment.

Thank you for writing.

I’ll talk to a couple of lawyers I know and see what they think about our use of that English transcript.

However, as we have often emphasized, we rely on the distributed intelligence of our readers for information and evaluation. In that sense, the lawyers amongst them are actually members of our legal staff, so we would be happy if any of them — particularly those familiar with international copyright conventions — would like to leave advice in the comments.

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I obviously don’t know Ms. Bernhardson’s motives in asking us to remove the post, but I strongly suspect that copyright is not the real issue.

The image used at the top of this post provides incidental evidence for SVT’s opinion of copyright. The illustration of “En Svensk Tiger” is a well-known state propaganda poster from World War Two. According to the Wikipedia entry on the topic:

In Swedish, svensk can mean both the adjective “Swedish” and the noun “Swede” while tiger can mean either the noun for the animal or the present tense of the verb tiga (“to keep silent”), giving the poster the double meaning “a Swedish tiger” or “a Swede keeps silent”. The phrase is comparable in use to “loose lips sink ships” in the USA.

The image, clearly marked with ®, was taken from the Creative Commons upload page accompanying the article. The page includes this note:

This is a logo of an organization, item, or event, and is protected by copyright. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, of logos for certain uses involving identification and critical commentary may qualify as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. Certain commercial use of this image may also be trademark infringement.

Wikipedia recognizes “fair use” of the design, and so do I. And, interestingly enough, so does Sveriges Radio, the radio arm of Swedish public broadcasting. If you take a look at this page, you’ll see that SR has “En Svensk Tiger” prominently posted.

Furthermore, under the image you’ll see the credit “SVT Bild” — that is, it’s an “SVT picture”.

What’s that again about copyright, SVT?

As far as I know, this news/opinion report from German television represents the first time any MSM TV outlet has ever told the truth about the global hegemonic aspirations of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its resemblance to Nazism, Communism, and other totalitarian political movements.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of a media trend.

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

Transcript: