Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/11/2014

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Tensions are still running high in Bunkerville, Nevada, where hundreds of heavily-armed federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management are surrounding the ranch of Cliven Bundy and his family. The feds claim the rancher owes them more than a million dollars in back grazing fees for pasturing his cattle on federal land. Mr. Bundy says that his family has been grazing cattle on the same acreage since 1870, before the BLM even existed, and that he does not recognize the jurisdiction of the federal government over the land. Militia members and other supporters — some of them armed — are pouring into the area from out of state.

In other news, the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, says that more quantitative easing by the ECB cannot be ruled out. He says he remains concerned about deflation as high unemployment in Europe continues.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Andy Bostom, Caroline Glick, Diana West, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Srdja Trifkovic, 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.

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.

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“Fascism is Rooted in Islam”

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Hamed Abdel-Samad is a German-Egyptian author and an apostate from Islam. He lives under the constant threat of death, and has to have 24-hour police protection. Last week we posted a translated text interview with Mr. Abdel-Samad that was originally published in Die Welt.

Below is a television interview with Hamed Abdel-Samad from the German public broadcaster ZDF. Many thanks to Oz-Rita for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

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Showdown in Birmingham

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Left to right: George Whale, Patrick Rourke, Tim Burton, Jack Buckby, Aaron Brian

As discussed here earlier in the week, Tim Burton of LibertyGB was acquitted of a “hate speech” charge in Birmingham on Tuesday. Yesterday Mr. Burton published an account of his trial at The New English Review. Below are some excerpts:

Showdown in Birmingham
by Tim Burton

I took a last mouthful of cappuccino and glanced out of the window of the restaurant over the road from the Birmingham Magistrates’ Court. A small group of demonstrators had already arrived on the Court steps and were busy setting up placards and handing out leaflets to curious passers-by. It was time to go.

It was Tuesday 08 April, and the time was just after 09:00. I was scheduled to appear in Court 13 of the Court later that morning to answer a charge of Racially Aggravated Harassment — a charge which had been brought by the Crown Prosecution Service following my interview with West Midlands Police some four months earlier. A gentleman by the name of Fiyaz Mughal had complained that I was harassing him on Twitter by referring to him as a “Mendacious Grievance-Mongering Taqiyya-Artist” and a “Lying Muslim Scumbag” — words which I had indeed used in relation to the gentleman in question — and he had seen a chance to exact revenge by using the forces of law and order to do his dirty work for him.

A link to the case from Liberty GB is included here.

I walked across the street and introduced myself. The demonstrators with the placards and the leaflets (whom I already knew by reputation) were from Liberty GB, a political party for whom I was the Radio Officer, and there were also one or two familiar faces from other publications and political organisations that I had come to know and respect. I also recognised (from photographs in his many articles and books) Professor Hans Jansen, our expert defence witness, chatting on the courtroom steps with one or two people. The case had generated a lot of interest over the preceding four months, with the phrase “Mendacious Grievance-Mongering Taqiyya-Artist” going around the world like wildfire — a phenomenon which had generated its own cottage industry with commemorative coffee mugs and T-shirts, each emblazoned not only with the “Mendacious Grievance-Mongering Taqiyya-Artist” slogan but also with the distinctive features of Fiyaz Mughal himself.


The Fiyaz Mughal Mendacious
Grievance-Mongering Taqiyya-Artist keychain

It was now 09:30 — time for me to present myself at the Court. I walked up the steps into the main building, an imposing edifice built in Victorian times and originally known as the Victoria Law Courts. As I walked through the door, past the security screening device, the two imposing gentlemen wielding metal detectors and the sign saying “No Knives Allowed”, I reflected on the many generations of people who had come here to answer similar charges and wondered if they had felt as I did — a feeling of awe at the magnificence of the surroundings combined with a certain trepidation at the prospect of facing serious jail time.

For make no mistake, the charge of Racially Aggravated Harassment is not one to be dismissed lightly. On conviction, the penalty may be up to £5000 and six months imprisonment. One might think that this is somewhat over-the-top for the heinous crime of calling a Mendacious Grievance-Mongering Taqiyya-Artist a — well, a Mendacious Grievance-Mongering Taqiyya-Artist — but apparently there is “A Lot Of This Going Around” according the Crown Prosecution Service, and they wanted to put a stop to it. Never mind that the right to free speech is one of our fundamental freedoms and the cornerstone of a free democracy — if it offends one of our protected minority species then it must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law — or so the current thinking goes today, influenced as it is by the twin evils of political correctness and multiculturalism.

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Fjordman: Sweden’s Totalitarian Face

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Fjordman’s latest essay has been published at FrontPage Mag. Some excerpts are below:

On April 4 2014, in Malmö District Court in Sweden, the provocative artist Dan Park was sentenced to three months in jail for hate speech (“hets mot folkgrupp”) for his works of art. The prosecutor even wanted the artist examined for mental illness, similar to the way Communist dictatorships have treated dissidents. The court did not support this suggestion, however. Park and his defense lawyer have indicated that they will appeal the verdict.

Ingrid Carlqvist, the editor of the newspaper Dispatch International, commented that the verdict essentially amounts to a ban on satire in Sweden, at least if the satire involves ideologically protected immigrant groups.

At the same time, and with a heavy heart, Carlqvist announced her own decision to leave her native Sweden. The repressive and totalitarian atmosphere in the country has simply become intolerable, especially if you happen to be a critic of Islamization, Multiculturalism or mass immigration. You then run a real risk of physical attacks. The level of political violence as well as street crime is only rivaled by the level of ideological censorship and repression. In combination, this has created a society plagued by levels of tension that are growing increasingly dangerous.

Malmö is Sweden’s third largest city. It is set to become the first Scandinavian town with a Muslim majority population. In recent years, it has achieved a certain notoriety for its crime problems.

The wave of robberies the city has witnessed is part of a “ war against Swedes.” This was the explanation given by young robbers with immigrant background for why they are robbing native Swedes. The sociologist Petra Åkesson interviewed boys between 15 and 17 years old, both individually and in groups. “When we are in the city and robbing, we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes.” This argument was repeated several times. “Power for me means that Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet.” The boys explained, laughingly, that “We rob every single day, as much as we want to, whenever we want to.”

Yet suggesting that the ongoing rise in violent crime might have something to do with mass immigration of alien and aggressive cultures is quite literally banned by law. In March 2007 during a rally supported by SSU (the Social Democratic Youth League) a man carried a sign reading, “While Swedish girls are being gang raped by immigrant gangs the SSU is fighting racism.” He was promptly arrested and later sentenced to a fine. His crime? He had “expressed disrespect for a group of people with reference to their national or ethnic background.” The local court rejected the man’s free speech argument because even free speech has its limits, and he had clearly acted in too provocative a manner.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/10/2014

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A car bomb exploded outside the Greek Central Bank in downtown Athens early this morning. The blast damaged nearby buildings and vehicles, but caused no casualties. No group has claimed responsibility, but the timing and location of the bomb suggest that a far-left group protesting the government’s austerity policies is the likely culprit.

In other news, Kathleen Sebelius, the embattled Secretary of Health and Human Services who oversaw the disastrous implementation of ObamaCare, resigned today.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Andy Bostom, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Steen, 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.

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.

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Deconstructing the “Family of Abraham”

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For decades the term “Red-Green Alliance” referred to the working partnership between Marxists/Progressives and environmentalists (a “watermelon” was an environmental activist who was Green on the outside and Red on the inside).

The first time I ever heard the phrased used in reference to Islam was in a post by Carl in Jerusalem. Since green is the color of the Saudi flag, and is prominent in many other Islamic flags and logos (including that of the Muslim Brotherhood), it makes sense to refer to the “Red-Green alliance” between the Left and Muslims. The “Left”, in this case, includes the excessively PC progressive-minded Christian denominations.

The latest newsletter from the The Tennessee Council for Political Justice discusses these matters as they pertain to Nashville and the state of Tennessee:

The Red-Green Alliance and the BDS Campaign

Groups interfaithing in Nashville under the Red-Green alliance include but are not limited to: the Muslim American Center for Outreach (ACO), the American Muslim Advisory Council (AMAC), the Family of Abraham (FOA), Clergy for Tolerance (CFT), Temple Ohabai Sholom, West End United Methodist Church, Vine Street Church, Christ Church Cathedral, Woodmont Christian Church, First Presbyterian Church, Glendale Baptist Church, University School, and Lipscomb University.

Organizers include Remziya Suleyman, Avi Poster, Irwin Venick, Daoud Abudiab, Bernard Werthan, Mary Shelton, Tom Negri, Rev. Heidi Hudnut-Beumler and Rabbi Laurie Rice, among others listed on their invitations.

Did Family of Abraham organizers Avi Poster, Irwin Venick and Rabbi Rice know about ISNA’s Jew hatred but invited ISNA’s representative anyway? What about ISNA’s support for Hamas and Sayyid Syeed’s complicity? Why is Jewish Federation Director Mark Freedman silent? Why does Rabbi Mark Schiftan want such a close relationship with Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR/Hamas supporters?

Could it be that they agree with Secretary of State Kerry that Israel does not have to be recognized as the Jewish homeland? Are they aligned with J Street and therefore have to work with the Islamists and pro-BDSers?

Did Rev. Michael Williams at UMC and event promoter Rev. Kleinert at Vine Street Christian Church bother to google their speaker and his associations? Have any of these people read the Quran? If not, they are politically naïve (Islam is a political ideology as well as a religion), and useful to Islam as dhimmis and apologists who are ignorant of the fact that Allah cautions Muslims to not take Jews and Christians as friends. Is this Quranic quote compatible with the goals of interfaith dialogue?

Hopefully ignorance is their answer to these questions. Otherwise, it seems that the Family of Abraham wanted to legitimatize what ISNA, its ally the Muslim Brotherhood and Syeed represent.

Respectful but Dishonest Dialogue in Nashville

The August 2013, Family of Abraham meeting at The First Presbyterian Church in Nashville featured Lipscomb University president Randy Lowry. He said that while “be[ing] honest about their differences” interfaithers should “focus on their interests — the things they really care about — rather than the issues that divide them.” Does he mean differences like wife-beating, polygamy, slavery, jihad against non-Muslims, death for apostasy, theocratic government, much less the story that God saved Ishmael, not Isaac from Abraham’s sacrifice? Does Lowry mean those differences?

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The Acquittal of Tim Burton: Good News and Bad News

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As we reported on Tuesday, Tim Burton of LibertyGB has been acquitted of “racially aggravated harassment” for his tweets directed at Fiyaz Mughal. The article below summarizing the implications of the verdict was originally posted at Enza Ferreri’s blog.


Left to right: Aaron Brian, Jack Buckby, Tim Burton,
Enza Ferreri, Patrick Rourke, George Whale.

Tim Burton’s Trial Pronouncements: Good on Taqiyya and Harassment, Bad on Race

by Enza Ferreri

Overall, the acquittal of Tim Burton and the judge’s rulings on the case were a victory on two fronts and maybe not so much on a third.

The judge ruled that a few tweets, even intemperate and even relating to a Muslimperson, cannot be construed as harassment. He clearly said that the Harassment Act was intended for entirely different situations from this one, like stalking somebody or shouting through his letterbox.

He also, if not explicitly accepted, took into account the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya. This can be a turning point for the counterjihad movement. Muslims are generally believed by people in the West when they talk about Islam; in fact they are considered as the experts on this system of beliefs, as one could naturally assume, so they are often asked questions about Mohammedanism by the media in the expectation that they’ll throw light on it and help Westerners to better understand it.

But if the Western public can now gradually come to realise that there is a good, inherent reason, rooted in Islam itself, why Muslims are not reliable and trustworthy sources of knowledge on Islam, the discourse on this pseudo-religion in the West may slowly take a different path.

Taqiyya may now be officially established in the British legal system. Although taqiyya itself may not have been part of the judge’s ruling, what sets a precedent is that the doctrine has somehow been given official recognition.

There is a hierarchy of the courts in the UK. The basic rule is that a court must follow the judicial precedents from a higher court, but it is not bound to follow decisions from courts lower in the hierarchy. Roughly, the hierarchy is:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/9/2014

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Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch apostate from Islam who fled the Netherlands in fear of her life, was awarded an honorary degree by Brandeis University in Massachusetts. However, the university has now succumbed to pressure and withdrawn the offer. Muslim student groups and some faculty members complained that awarding the degree to an “Islamophobe” such as Ms. Hirsi Ali would be a violation of everything that Brandeis stands for.

In other news, more than 4,000 migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean by Italy in the last 48 hours. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano called the emergency “serious”, and demanded help from the EU.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, RR, 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.

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.

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The Most Despised People in the World

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I mentioned last week that Bill Warner of Political Islam has launched a new initiative called Voices for the Voiceless. He points out that no significant publicity can be gained for the persecution of Christians by Islam unless Christian activists and Counterjihad-minded people use the only language that the left-wing media understand: that of victimhood.

The “Prayer March for Persecuted Christians” that will be held on May 17, 2014 in downtown Orlando is one of a series of events that will employ Dr. Warner’s selected methodology. Some events have already been held — Nashville is a notable example — and others are in the planning stages.

Last December Dr. Warner wrote the following essay elaborating on the plight of Christians in Muslim countries, and the willing complicity of mainstream Christian denominations in the West with the persecution of their brothers and sisters in the Third World (and Europe, for that matter). Using the ploy of “interfaith dialogue”, Muslim groups have successfully neutralized Christian criticism of Islam, resulting in the silence in major media outlets about the persecution of Christians.

His entire article is reproduced below.

The Most Despised People in the World
by Bill Warner

The most persecuted group in the world today is Christians. Christians in Nigeria, Egypt, Syria and other nations are murdered, raped, kidnapped, enslaved and persecuted on a daily basis. The reason for the vast majority of all of this violence is that they are Christian among Muslims.

But their abuse does not stop with the violence. The perpetrators of violence are measured in the thousands, but the greatest abuse is at the hands of those who should demand that the violence stop. The silence in the face this persecution is denial and justification. The persecutors are few, but the deniers are in the billions.

Christians are enjoined to care for all persecuted people, but in particular, they are to care for their own brothers and sisters. They manage to ignore the persecution by doing good works, such as care for the poor. Christians have compassion but no courage to face the enemy who kills them. In Nashville, TN (the buckle on the Bible belt) the favorite indoor sport for those who should be dealing with the enemy, Islam, is going to Family of Abraham events and bridge building dialogues where they dance to the tune of Muslims. There is no problem of meeting with Islam, but the rules of engagement are that nothing will be said that offends Islam.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, an injured man is on the side of the road. Two religious leaders pass him by on the other side of the road. They don’t harm the injured man, they just ignore him. This is the same thing that Christian leaders do at dialogues such as Family of Abraham. They meet with Muslims who adhere to a doctrine that includes killing Christians. But, the leaders will not bring up the Islamic persecution to them. The Christian leadership response to murder of their brothers and sisters is silence. They pass by on the other side of the road. Their silence is consent.

But Christians are not the only deniers. Normally, Jews are quick to step forward in the area of charity and support of victims, but not so with persecuted Christians. Some of this denial may be due to a dislike of Christianity, but Jews are no quicker to help their own.

If you go to thereligionofpeace.com you will find an amazing data base of jihad attacks since 9/11. The current number of attacks is in excess of 22,000 attacks. It is very instructive to parse the data and see what are the top four nations of jihad attacks. When you put the data on a per capita basis, you get the following countries: Israel, Thailand, Philippines and India. Or by religion: Jews, Buddhists, Christians and Hindus. So Jews are the victims of violence by Islam, but the Jews of America love to go to Family of Abraham events and be as silent as the Christians.

But what about the most sensitive victim group — the black American? Victim-ology is the dogma of a myriad black “civil rights” groups with their high priests of race hustles such as Al Sharpton. The most persecuted Christians are in Africa. But the civil rights hustlers of America just love to hang with Muslims as their brothers. All of those dead Africans? Not a problem for African Americans.

It is surprising how many Buddhists are being killed in jihad, but is it a surprise that Buddhists never talk about it? And aside from a few Hindu activists, never a word is heard from the Hindu community about their deaths by jihad.

The deaths in the Philippines are Catholics and what does Pope Francis say about Islam? He says,

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The Toleration Tango

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Our German translator JLH has discovered a fragment of a play by William Shakespeare from the “Lost Folio”, which was written after the Bard emigrated to the newly-established colony of Virginia. (For a similar passage, see The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I.)

The Toleration Tango
by the Bard of Washington-upon-Potomack

The equality of multiculture is most strange.
It drifteth like a turgid fog
Across both high and low. It is twice potent;
Empowering him that gives and blinding him that takes.
It is most arrogant in the most elite; it suits
The self-styled leaders even better than self-love;
Their invective shows the strength of personal attack,
An aspect of that narcissism,
Which causes dread and fear of character assassination,
Like an attribute of Hope and Change itself.
And their social power then is like a plague,
When spite doth poison politics. Therefore, Racist,
Bigot, Misogynist and Homophobe,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of that justice, none of us
Would see wealth distribution. We do but pray for special treatment;
And that same prayer should teach you all to accept
The deeds of Political Correctness. I have spoken this much
To mitigate the so-called justice of thy plea:
Which, if thou follow, the strict court of popular opinion
Might just decide against the truly entitled.

Tim Burton Acquitted

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As reported here previously, Tim Burton of LibertyGB went on trial yesterday in Birmingham on a charge of “racially aggravated harassment” for tweeting that Fiyaz Mughal was a “mendacious taqiyya-artist”. Enza Ferreri reports the good news — rare these days — that Mr. Burton was acquitted. As a bonus, the doctrine of Islamic taqiyya was publicly discussed in the courtroom.

Three Tweets Are Not Racially Aggravated Harassment, Birmingham Court Rules, Taqiyya Doctrine Accepted

by Enza Ferreri

On 8 April at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court, District Judge Ian Strongman heard a trial of racially aggravated harassment against Tim Burton, 61, a computing consultant from Birmingham and the Radio Officer of the British party Liberty GB.

The reason for the charge was three tweets he sent over a period of a month from early June to early July 2013 to Tell Mama UK, a helpline organisation for victims of anti-Muslim attacks that also serves to monitor and collect data on them, whose director is prominent Muslim Fiyaz Mughal.

Investigations by The Telegraph‘s Andrew Gilligan discovered that, in the wake of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby, Tell Mama had inflated numbers and seriousness of “Islamophobic” crimes, many of which were just posts on social media.

Discrepancies were also found between police figures and the association’s statistics, and this led to Tell Mama’s state funding — which by then amounted to £375,000 — being discontinued.

These revelations inspired Mr Burton to write the tweet “I wish to report Fiyaz Mughal for being a mendacious, grievance-mongering little Muslim scumbag & I want my £214,000 back now.” (a reference to taxpayers’ money) and two other tweets of a similar tone, calling Mr Mughal a “taqiyya-artist”. For these three tweets Mr Burton was accused of racially aggravated harassment.

The concept of taqiyya, part of a well-established Islamic doctrine, is the divine permission and even encouragement for Muslims to deceive non-Muslims to further the cause of Islam, particularly when Muslims are a minority.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/8/2014

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Federal authorities arrested a Moroccan national in Connecticut, who is now being held without bail. The suspect allegedly overstayed an expired student visa for seven years, and also plotted to fly a drone carrying explosives into a school and a federal building.

In other news, a transgender student filed a sex-discrimination complaint against a Christian college in Oregon that segregates students in campus dormitories by sex. He/she/it alleges that the school’s housing policies failed to meet his/her/its non-traditional gender requirements.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Fjordman, Insubria, JD, 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.

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.

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Elisabeth’s Voice: The Final Push to the ECHR

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In 2011 Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff was convicted of “hate speech” in an Austrian court for telling the plain truth in her seminars on Islam. As we have noted in previous posts, her case is now pending at the European Court of Human Rights. Her legal costs for the petition are considerable, and she has issued an appeal for contributions to her defense fund.

For readers who are not already familiar with her case, here is a brief timeline of what has happened up until now:

October 2010   Elisabeth was indicted in Vienna, Austria, for statements she made in one of her seminars on the ideology and effect of Islam.
February 2011   Elisabeth was convicted of “hate speech” in an Austrian court. In order to obtain a conviction, the trial judge was forced to introduce a new charge, “denigrating the teaching of a legally recognized religion” — during the trial itself.
December 2011   the verdict was upheld by the appellate court, which noted that her statements constituted “an excess of opinion” punishable under Austrian law.
December 2013   the verdict was upheld by the Austrian supreme court, which noted that under the European Convention of Human Rights, freedom of religion overrides freedom of expression. Elisabeth notes that criticism of Christianity comes under the rubric of art, while criticism of Islam is criminal. She says: “There is no political freedom without religious freedom, inclusive of the right to criticize religion.”
 

The following video shows excerpts from one of Elisabeth’s seminars. Statements such as these have now been criminalized by the Austrian judicial system.

We owe a great debt of gratitude to Rembrandt Clancy for translating and subtitling the audio, and for translating the German text of the slides and superimposing the English version in the video.

Many thanks also to Henrik Ræder Clausen for selecting the clips to be excerpted from the original seminar video, and to Vlad Tepes for uploading the final result:

If you would like to help Elisabeth defray the costs of her legal defense, please visit english.savefreespeech.org and follow the instructions for donating.

Video transcript:

Al-Ghazali, a very well known, leading cleric of the 11th century says the following:

Imams and their Holy Lies

“Understand that lying is not wrong in itself. If a lie is the only way to achieve a good result [for Islam], it is permitted. Therefore we must lie, if the truth will lead to an unpleasant result.”

Al Ghazali (1059-1111) One of Islam’s most important theologians.

It is not I, who is saying that, . . . that is what Al-Ghazali says.

Let’s hear more of what people have to say. And Muhammed Mermer said as long ago as 1998:

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Global Mosque Report: March 2014

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This is the second in a series of monthly reports by our British correspondent JP on the progress of worldwide Islamization, as represented by the building of mosques, and activities associated with mosques.

Global Mosque Report (GMR) — March 2014
by JP

Definition of a mosque and/or Islamic center as a ‘rabat’: a place for the preparation of raids against infidels. Not to be mistaken for a place of genuine worship.

“The Prophet imposed his rule on parts of Arabia through a series of ghazvas, or razzias… The ghazva was designed to terrorize the infidels, convince them that their civilization was doomed and force them to submit to Islamic rule. Those who participated in the ghazva were known as the ghazis, or raiders. After each ghazva, the Prophet ordered the creation of a rabat — or a point of contact at the heart of the infidel territory raided.

The rabat consisted of an area for prayer, a section for the raiders to eat and rest and facilities to train and prepare for future razzias. Later Muslim rulers used the tactic of ghazva to conquer territory in the Persian and Byzantine empires. After each raid, they built a rabat to prepare for the next razzia.”*

USA

Arkansas

In Lincoln a group of young Bosnian and Middle Eastern immigrants raised nearly $200,000 to purchase a long-empty church and convert it into a mosque.

California

Jamaal Diwan, imam at the Islamic Center of Irvine, interviewed by Orange County Weekly. A convert, his love of basketball and hip-hop led him to Islam.

Michigan

‘Questions about Islam’ event held at the Kalamazoo Islamic Center. “The main goal is to achieve a sense of understanding between those who practice Islam and those who do not,” said Farhan Igbal, a student at Western Michigan University.

New Jersey

Bernards Township: Islamic Society of Basking Ridge’s Liberty Corner mosque proposal met opposition from neighbours concerned about lights, noise, and traffic. Further hearings scheduled to take place in April and May.

Burlington County Muslim Association proposed a 22,745-square-foot building to house a mosque, elementary school, and day care center in Delanco.

United American Muslim Association Inc. filed an application to convert one of Clifton’s oldest buildings, erected in 1740, and latterly a funeral parlour, into a mosque.

New York State

North Side Learning Center purchased Holy Trinity Roman Catholic church in Syracuse for conversion into a mosque to be named ‘Mosque of Jesus the Son of Mary’ (Masjit Isa Ibn Maryam). A petition was lodged with the Landmark Preservation Board to remove crosses from the steeples and grounds as these are not in line with the ‘worshipping practices’ of the new tenants.

Ohio

Shakila Ahmad became the first woman president of the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati in its eighteen-year history. The mosque sees up to 3,000 Muslims involved on holy days, and there are an estimated 25,000 Muslims in the region.

Tennessee

Memphis Islamic Center to launch the first of three phases required for the construction of a $6.5 million, 63,144-square-foot rabat in Shelby County this summer. In October 2012, World Relief Nashville/Memphis was awarded a Preferred Communities grant by the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Virginia

State delegate Alfonso H. Lopez defended his praise of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church after being rebuked by counter-terrorism officials and media for sponsoring a successful resolution at Virginia’s General Assembly commending the center.

Canada

Ontario

The Islamic Center of Raleigh held its annual open day: among the attractions on offer, visitors could watch Muslims praying, listen to a recitation in Arabic of the ninety-nine names of God, and examine a travelling display of artefacts showing the history of Muslims in America since 1500.

Report on a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Muslim Outreach program visit to Toronto Islamic Center mosque.

Bulgaria

A convert sentenced to one year in prison for spreading radical Islam. His Saudi Arabian-educated tutor at a south Bulgarian mosque school was given a suspended sentence.

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