Did European Governments Overreact to a New 'Anti-Islam' Film?

by Adam Turner
The Blaze
December 31, 2012

In September of 2012, supposedly because of an obscure "anti-Islam" film named "Innocence of Muslims," the Islamic world erupted with violent protests towards Westerners for exercising their right to free speech. Although subsequent information has revealed that most of this violence was actually instigated beforehand by Islamist radicals, often for reasons having nothing to do with the scapegoated film, this has not lessened Western government's extreme sensitivity to free speech in the West regarding Islam. Just this December, we saw another person targeted by European nations for his critical speech about Islam.

The target this time is a man named Imran Firasat, who is a former Muslim from Pakistan who is now a convert to Christianity and resides in Spain. Mr. Firasat is a well-known critic of his former religion, and runs a website World without Islam (Mundo sin Islam). He, in coordination with American Pastor Terry Jones – who seems to be establishing a brand name for himself as a determined but unrefined speech opponent of the religion of Islam – has produced a new movie about the Muslim prophet Muhammad, an hour long cartoon film called "The Innocent Prophet: The Life of Mohammed from a Different Point of View." Needless to say, this film does not portray Muhammad in a positive light, basically arguing that Muhammad conspired with his friends to create his own religion to give him ultimate power over Muslims and the World.

The Belgian government was the first European state to overreact to the new film. Soon after Mr. Firasat told the Belgian newspaper De Morgen that he decided to make it, ironically because he thought the Islamist rioting had indeed been caused by "Innocence of Muslims" and that the Western world needed to respond with more free speech about Islam, the Belgium government upped its national security threat level from two to three (meaning "severe") out of a maximum of four. ­In response to Belgium's move, Firasat initially said he might postpone the release of the film so it could be previewed by Belgian authorities to ensure "there is nothing in this movie which doesn't fall under the right of freedom of expression and that my movie will not cause any kind of loss to humanity."

Simultaneously, Spain also moved against Mr. Firasat, taking the more serious step of going after him personally for his speech. They initiated two forms of lawfare against him: 1) attacking him on his Spanish residency grounds; and 2) threatening him with prosecution for violating Spanish hate speech codes. The former, their threat to remove him from Spain after seven years, is particularly dangerous for Mr. Firasat. If he loses his residency, he could be deported to Pakistan, which would expose him to a blasphemy prosecution and a death penalty sentence for his speech against Islam. (And even if the Pakistani government doesn't actually sentence Firasat to death for his blasphemy, Pakistani mobs are known to take blasphemers out of prison and personally kill them.) The Spanish government is justifying their action to revoke his asylum status on the grounds that he is "threatening national security with the production of this video." For the latter form of lawfare, the hate speech prosecution, the Spanish government has brought Mr. Firasat into court to face a charge of violating 510 of the Spanish Penal Code, a crime that punishes incitation to hatred and violence for racial, ideological or religious reasons. In combination, this double dose of Spanish lawfare against Imran Firasat was successful – after two hours before a judge in Madrid, he agreed not to distribute the "offensive" video. However, the Spanish government won the battle but lost the war, as Pastor Jones then released the film anyway.

Imran Firasat was somewhat surprised by the aggressive Spanish efforts against him. In an interview, he pointed out that "I was granted asylum because of my criticisms of Islam. I have formally asked the Spanish government for the prohibition of Koran in Spain. I have given thousands of interviews to radio and TV channels. I wrote articles in newspapers." In other words, Spain knew what they were getting from Imran Firasat when they allowed him to seek asylum there seven years ago, so why would they be upset now? Also, he ironically noted the fact that he has received far more threats from the Spanish government than from angry Muslims.

Perhaps most disturbing, in another interview, Imran Firasat and his interviewer just blithely assumed that the United States could, if it so chose, use its judicial system to go after Firasat and Terry Jones. As of right now, of course, this is simply not true, thanks to the First Amendment. But, as we know, the U.S. has taken legal action against the maker of the "Innocence of Muslims" film, using his probation violations as a way to punish him, presumably for his speech. And considering that fact, and the U.S.'s continuing participation in the Istanbul Process, and President Obama's UN Speech declaring that "(t)he future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam," Mr. Firasat and his interviewer may be forgiven for their mistaken assumption.

One day soon, the U.S. may join European nations as a place legally hostile towards free speech that antagonizes Islamists. That day may very well be sooner rather than later.

Source URL: http://www.legal-project.org/3729/did-european-governments-overreact-to-a-new-anti

The Price of Our Freedom

George Lakoff- Author, 'The Political Mind,' 'Moral Politics' and 'Don't Think of an Elephant!'

"Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?" -- Barack Obama, Newtown Address, December 16, 2012

That sentence, uttered by President Obama in his Newtown Address, may turn out to be a turning point in American history. The president, in one sentence, turned the beautiful faces of the 20 first-grade children murdered brutally by assault weapons into the moral measure of our nation. Conservatives have argued that guns = freedom, and that there should be no limit on such freedom. The president trumped their argument: The price of not protecting the nations' children is too high. Permitting the mass murder of our children is not freedom.

It comes as a shock at a certain point where you realize no matter how much you love these kids, you can't do it by yourself. That this job of keeping our children safe and teaching them well is something we can only do together, with the help of friends and neighbors, the help of a community, and the help of a nation.
And in that way we come to realize that we bear responsibility for every child, because we're counting on everybody else to help look after ours; that we're all parents; that they are all our children.

This is our first task, caring for our children. It's our first job. If we don't get that right, we don't get anything right. That's how, as a society, we will be judged.

Democracy, as the president has said, begins with the people taking care of one another responsibly, importantly through government as an instrument of freedom. That how we get our public schools, our roads, our sewers, our patent office, our scientific research, our energy, communication and transportation systems, our food safety, our protectors, and all the rest that we need to be free in our private lives. It is a truth: the private depends on the public. We, all together, constitute the public. Unless we take care of one another and one another's children, we can't get democracy -- and freedom -- right.

The gun lobby rests on conservative ideology: Democracy supposedly gives each of us individually the "liberty" to seek our own self-interests with no responsibility for the interests or well-being of anyone else. After and Obama's Newtown Address, the whole idea of such "liberty" makes no sense.

The time is ripe to end the conservative grip over nearly half of America. That starts with an all-out effort to put in place responsible gun safety laws. Total registration, just like with cars. An end to automatic and semi-automatic weapons. And an end to blaming massacres on crazies. Gun massacres require guns that can massacre. Eliminate them.

The president set just the right tone. We're in this together. We bear joint responsibility for one another and all our children. If you accept this, really accept it, you can't keep conservative ideology, not just on guns, but on anything.

George Lakoff is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is co-author, with Elisabeth Wehling, of The Little Blue Book.

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/the-price-of-our-freedom_b_2314658.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=121712&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Does the NRA Represent Gun Manufacturers or Gun Owners?

Lee Fang on December 14, 2012 - 7:40 PM ET

Over the last four years, Congress and the Obama administration have only enacted laws that have deregulated gun use in America. It’s no secret why. As pundits love to note, the gun lobby is incredibly influential. But as we consider the potential for reform in the wake of the tragedy today, one of the first questions we should ask this time is: who does the gun lobby really represent?

The National Rifle Association portrays itself as an organization that represents “4 million members” who simply love the Second Amendment. The truth is much more murky.

In reality, the NRA is composed of half a dozen legal entities; some designed to run undisclosed attack ads in political campaigns, others to lobby and collect tens of millions in undisclosed, tax-deductible sums. This power has only been enhanced in the era of Citizens United, with large GOP donors in the last election reportedly funneling money to the NRA simply to use the group as a brand to pummel Democrats with nasty ads. (As The Huffington Post’s Peter Stone reported, even the Koch network now provides an undisclosed amount to the NRA.)

Despite the grassroots façade, there is much evidence to suggest that corporations that profit from unregulated gun use are propping up the NRA’s activities, much like how the tobacco lobby secretly funded “Smokers Rights’” fronts and libertarian anti-tax groups, or how polluters currently finance much of the climate change skepticism movement.

In a “special thanks” to their donors, the National Rifle Association Foundation lists Bushmaster Firearms Inc., the company that makes the assault rifle reportedly found with the shooter responsible for the mass murder today in Newtown, Connecticut. How much Bushmaster Firearms Inc. (a firm now known as Windham) contributes is left unsaid.

The Violence Policy Center has estimated that since 2005, gun manufacturers have contributed up to $38.9 million to the NRA. Those numbers, however, are based on publicly listed “sponsorship” levels on NRA fundraising pamphlets. The real figures could be much bigger. Like Crossroads GPS or Americans for Prosperity, or the Sierra Club for that matter, the NRA does not disclose any donor information even though it spends millions on federal elections.

And like other industry fronts, the NRA is quick to conceal its pro–gun industry policy positions as ideological commitments.

Take, for example, “The NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund.” It’s a pro–gun rights legal fund “involved in court cases establishing legal precedents in favor of gun owners.”

And who helps pick which impact-litigation cases the NRA will become involved with? Folks like James W. Porter II, a board member of the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund, who doubles as an attorney whose private firm specializes in “areas of products liability defense of firearms manufacturers.” His last client, according to a search of the federal court docket, was Smith & Wesson Corporation.

Is the NRA working for casual gun-owners, many of whom, according to polling, support tougher restrictions on gun ownership— or is the NRA serving the gunmaker lobby— which is purely interested in policies that will promote greater gun sales and more profits? Any gun control policy debate should begin with this question.

The NRA never walks alone. Read John Nichols on ALEC's efforts to thwart honest gun policy debate.

Article source: http://www.thenation.com/blog/171776/does-nra-represent-gun-manufacturers-or-gun-owners?utm_medium=email&utm_source=HeadlineNation&utm_term=&utm_campaign=#

Women: The Silent Majority?

"Election results told a clear story, however. A Gallup poll released on Monday showed that women in crucial swing states favored Obama over Romney by sixteen points and that nearly 40 percent named abortion as the most important issue for women in the election. Women’s issues that are seen as “fringe” were actually central. And it may be that women who don’t like talking about how personally these issues affect their lives were not afraid to be loud in the voting booth."

To read more, click here.

Turkish book on Darwin sparks outrage

By Daniel Dombey in Istanbul and Funja Guler in Ankara

A series of books for primary schoolchildren, describing Charles Darwin as a Jew with a big nose who kept the company of monkeys and other historical figures in anti-Semitic terms, has caused outrage in Turkey amid fears of rising religious intolerance.

To read more click here.

From Greta Christina's Freethought blog

"My father figured out that there was no God, pretty much on his own: without atheist billboards, without the atheist blogosphere, without a local atheist support group, without a dozen atheist books on the best-seller list, without anything but Bertrand Russell and his own fearless, “fuck authority,” razor-sharp mind. And he did it when he was a teenager. " To read more, click here.

Women Who Love Republicans Who Hate Them

Katha Pollitt | August 29, 2012

I know there is no monolithic voting bloc called “women”—femaleness, like maleness, is cross-cut with race, education, class, income, ethnicity, religion, marital status, even geography. I also know we all make allowances for our own side, which usually boils down to forgiving men for sexual shenanigans and insulting “gaffes” (aka blurting out their true feelings) that no woman politician would get away with. But with that fully acknowledged, I still want to say: Women! WTF?! After all the weird, heartless, misogynistic, ignorant things Republican men have said about women and pregnancy and rape over the past month, I’m ashamed for my sex that any woman is still planning to vote for Romney and Ryan.

And a lot of them are: 51 percent of white women, to be exact. What’s the matter with them? Do they have Stockholm syndrome? And how about you, women of Virginia—21 percent of whom in a just-issued Public Policy Polling survey say they “strongly” agree that abortion should be banned even in cases of rape and incest? (For women 18 to 29, it’s 32 percent.)

Ladies, I doubt you read The Nation, but I’m going to say it anyway: The Republican Party is not your friend! It does not respect you or even like you. Rush Limbaugh thinks women who use birth control are sluts and prostitutes. Ann Coulter regrets that women can even vote. Most recently, you may have heard, Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin said it’s “really rare” for women to get pregnant from rape because “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” He has said he “misspoke” about “legitimate” rape—he meant “forcible,” another problematic word—and denies believing that women have magic sperm-killing plumbing. But both ideas—that only some rape really counts as rape, and that such rape doesn’t cause pregnancies—have long, inglorious Republican pedigrees. Some highlights:
§ In 1988, Pennsylvania Republican State Representative Stephen Freind said that women emit “a certain secretion” that stops pregnancy when they are raped.

§ In 1995, North Carolina Republican State Representative Henry Aldridge said that when a woman is raped, “the juices don’t flow” so she can’t get pregnant.

§ In 1998, Arkansas Republican Senate candidate Dr. Fay Boozman claimed that hormones prevented rape from resulting in pregnancy. Boozman lost the election, but Governor Mike Huckabee appointed him to run the state Department of Health.

§ In 2004, President Bush appointed to the federal bench James Leon Holmes, who had stated in 1980, “Concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.”

Nor is Akin the only rape skeptic in today’s GOP. In March 2012, Idaho State Senator Chuck Winder said, “I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape.” Pennsylvania Senate candidate Tom Smith recently said that his daughter faced “something similar” to the situation of a pregnant rape victim because she decided to have a baby “out of wedlock.” And Iowa Representative Steve King remarked that he’d never heard of a girl getting pregnant from rape.

Should your magical uterus fail you, Mike Huckabee supports carrying your rapist’s baby: “Even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.” Well, who says they aren’t? The issue is whether the woman should be forced by law to bear her rapist’s wonder tot.

Paul Ryan and Todd Akin wanted to restrict coverage of abortion to victims of “forcible rape” in their version of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, sponsored by 217 Republicans (and, sadly, ten Democrats). In the wake of Akin, Ryan has defended the term as “stock language.” John Willke, the mad physician who founded the National Right to Life Committee, has been denying that rape causes pregnancy for decades (“the tubes are spastic,” he recently explained to the New York Times). Romney welcomed Willke’s endorsement in 2008 (“I am proud to have the support of a man who has meant so much to the pro-life movement in our country”). Willke says they met last October and that Romney assured him they agree on “almost everything.”

Finally, let’s not forget that since 1984 the GOP platform has called for a complete ban on abortion, even for good girls, and that this is the position of Paul Ryan, who has described keeping abortion legal when there’s a risk to the woman’s health as ”a loophole wide enough to drive a Mack truck through.”

If a white candidate said black people don’t feel the heat because they come from Africa, would black voters brush that off as a slip of the tongue? If a Christian candidate made headlines for saying Jews secretly run the world, would Jewish voters insist the media was making a fuss over nothing? Only women refuse to take collective insults seriously. You would think even anti-choice women would pick up on the indifference, distrust, callousness and obtuseness toward women exhibited by the GOP. But no. Sometimes I feel women have been hit on the head with a great big frying pan.

Obviously, the Republicans worry that the polls will shift—as has already happened in Missouri, where Claire McCaskill is now nine points ahead of Akin. On the eve of the Republican National Convention, Romney felt the need to tell CBS that the president has little to do with abortion, a matter to be decided “in the courts.” Does he not know who nominates Supreme Court justices?

Come on, women voters. Show you have a better grasp of government than the Republican who wants to run it.

Editor's Note: This column initially misstated the year in which the Republican platform first called for banning abortion. It was in 1984, not 1998.

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Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/169630/women-who-love-republicans-who-hate-them