Archived news and commentary: February 13 - 19, 2006

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Sunday, February 19, 2006

News and commentary:

"Protesters burn St. Saviour's church in Sukkar..."
(Pervez Khan, AP, 2006/02/19)
"Protesters burn St. Saviour's church in Sukkar, 560 kilometers (348 miles) northeast of Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, Feb 19, 2006. About 400 people attacked the church in Sukkur, a city in southern Sindh province, after accusations that a local Christian man had burned pages from the Quran, said Akbar Arian, chief of police in the area. The incident came amid angry protests across Pakistan over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in Western newspapers."

"Pakistani Capital Sealed Against Protests" (Matthew Pennington, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/02/19)
The Danish cartoon affair VII: "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani security forces arrested hundreds of Islamic hard-liners, virtually sealed off the capital and used gunfire and tear gas Sunday to quell protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons that were banned after a wave of deadly riots. ...
On Sunday, thousands of police and paramilitary troops manned armored personnel carriers and sandbag bunkers in and around Islamabad to block a planned rally organized by a coalition of hardline Islamic parties that sympathizes with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is fiercely anti-American.
As roadblocks went up around the capital, authorities declared they would arrest anyone joining a gathering of more than five people. ...
In Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, police said 15,000 coalition supporters, most wearing white shrouds of mourning splashed with red paint to symbolize their willingness to die defending the prophet's honor, rallied peacefully.
Twelve-year-old Amar Ahmed joined the protest, carrying a sign reading, 'O Allah, give me courage to kill the blasphemer.'"

"Islamic protesters damage US embassy in Jakarta" (Telly Nathalia and Jerry Norton, Reuters/The Washington Post, 2006/02/19)
The Danish cartoon affair VI [emphasis added]: "JAKARTA (Reuters) - Islamic demonstrators angry at depictions of the Prophet Mohammad turned their wrath on the U.S. embassy in Jakarta on Sunday, beating on the gate with sticks and pelting the building with tomatoes, eggs and stones.
The missiles shattered glass in the guard post and cracked fibreglass-like material in the gate.
More than 200 white-clad members of Indonesia's militant Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) were protesting over Danish cartoons lampooning the Prophet as well as his depiction in a sculpture at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. ...
"Suicide bombings! Prepare for a bomb," said one protester. ...
The Mohammad depiction at the U.S. Supreme Court that was an added issue in the latest protest is one of a number showing historical figures viewed as lawgivers and sculpted in the 1930s."

"Cartoon creator in hiding" (Jude Sheerin, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2006/02/20)
The Danish cartoon affair V. Tim Blair points out that Bill Clinton doesn't even seem to know that the 12 cartoons were done by different cartoonists: "But I would not be surprised if the person who drew those cartoons...".
Which by the way make my suspicion that he hadn't seen them when he called them "appaling" all the more likely.
And Jude Sheerin seems to be a bit confused as well:
"The Danish cartoonist whose depiction of the prophet Muhammad has sparked a worldwide furore says he has no regrets about the drawings.
Kurt Westergaard told a Glasgow newspaper, The Herald, that his inspiration for the pictures was terrorism, which he said received "spiritual ammunition" from Islam.
Westergaard defended the drawings on the grounds of freedom of expression and the press.
He is now in hiding after a Pakistani cleric put a $US1 million ( $1.35 million) bounty on his head, and hinted that the Danish secret service was guarding him.
Asked if he thought artists had the right to say whatever they wanted in any way, Mr Westergaard replied simply: 'Yes.'" (Note: Kurt Westergaard's cartoon was the one with Muhammed shown wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. In his Washington Post article, Flemming Rose notes:

"In fact, the same cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were, however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those."

And no denounciation from Bill Clinton either.)

"What Will It Be?"
(DeeyahPoint.co.uk)
A screenshot from Deeyah's latest video, "What Will It Be?".

"Fanatics tell Muslim singer: We'll kill you" (Wersha Bharadwa, The Independent, 2006/02/19)
"A Muslim pop singer has been forced to hire bodyguards to protect her during a visit to Britain next month after she received a string of death threats from religious extremists.
US-based Deeyah is due in London next month to promote a new single and video, released tomorrow. But the track "What Will It Be?" has already outraged hardline Islamists here as it promotes women's rights.
Her performances with a clutch of male dancers and revealing outfits have also deeply offended many Muslims. In one scene in her latest video, the singer drops a burqa covering her body to reveal a bikini.
That has attracted vitriol from some quarters. The 28-year-old singer claims that in the past she has been spat upon in the street and told that her family would be in danger if she did not tone down her work. The situation is now so bad that Deeyah feels she cannot visit Britain without protection. "I can no longer walk around without specially assigned bodyguards," she told The Independent on Sunday. "I would be lying if I said abuse from religious fanatics didn't upset or scare me." ...
"I had no plan to court controversy or anger people in my community. I wanted to make people think and confront my own fears as a Muslim woman," she said. Soon, though, she was dubbed "the Muslim Madonna". And then came hate mail and abuse from extremists.
'I have been on the verge of a breakdown. Middle-aged men have spat at me in the street and I have had people phone me and tell me they were going to cut me up into pieces. I became this figure of hate simply because of what I do and wear.'"

"When fear cows the media" (Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 2006/02/19)
The Danish cartoon affair IV: "But the Phoenix isn't publishing the Mohammed drawings, and in a brutally candid editorial it explained why.
''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from . . . bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do . . . Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and . . . could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history."
The vast majority of US media outlets have shied away from reproducing the drawings, but to my knowledge only the Phoenix has been honest enough to admit that it is capitulating to fear. ...
Like the Nazis in the 1930s and the Soviet communists in the Cold War, the Islamofascists are emboldened by appeasement and submissiveness. Give the rampagers and book-burners a veto over artistic and editorial decisions, and you end up not with heightened sensitivity and cultural respect, but with more rampages and more books burned. You betray ideals that generations of Americans have died to defend."

"It's so cowardly to attack the church when we won't offend Islam" (Nick Cohen, The Observer, 2006/02/19)
The Danish cartoon affair III. "Last week, I went to the East End of London to witness the death of the avant-garde." Cohen on Gilbert and George's "Sonofagod Pictures: Was Jesus Heterosexual?":
"After the refusal of the entire British press to print innocuous Danish cartoons, the stench of death is in the air. It is now ridiculous and impossible to talk about a fearless disregard for easily offended sensibilities.
Sonofagod is clearly trading under a false prospectus. Gilbert and George narcissistically present themselves as icons towering over a shrivelled Christ. 'God loves Fucking! Enjoy!' reads one inscription. This isn't a brave assault on all religions, just Catholicism.
The gallery owners know that although Catholics will be offended, they won't harm them. That knowledge invalidates their claims to be transgressive. An uprising that doesn't provoke a response isn't a 'rebellion', but a smug affirmation of the cultural status quo.
If they were to do the same to Islam, all hell would break loose. ...
The insincerity extends way beyond the arts. Rory Bremner will tear into Tony Blair, but not Mohammed Khatami. Newspaper editors will print pictures of servicemen beating up demonstrators in Basra, which may place the lives of British troops in danger, but not Danish cartoons, which may place their own lives in danger.
You can't be a little bit free. If you are not willing to offend Islamists who may kill you, what excuse do you have for offending Catholics, the families of murdered children and British troops who won't?"

"Author sees growing Muslim enclaves hoping to rule Europe" (Carlin Romano, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 2006/02/19)
A review of Bruce Bawer's "While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam
Is Destroying the West From Within":
"In Bawer's view, Western Europe is becoming a "house divided against itself." On the one hand, the educated European elite maintains an unshakable "belief in peace and reconciliation through dialogue," a faith (their only remaining faith) that every issue can be resolved without violence.
On the other hand, Europe's unassimilated Muslim communities are led in many cases, Bawer contends, by "fundamentalist Muslims" who seek "the establishment in Europe of a caliphate government according to sharia law." Such leaders, often imams and elders, see "Islamist terrorists as allies in a global jihad, or holy war, dedicated to that goal." ...
Bawer asserts that the reality - confirmed for him by the resistance of European Muslims to assimilation, and the marked presence in their communities of honor killings, homophobia, polygamy, marital rape, forced marriage, and intolerance of democracy and pluralism - is that European Muslim leaders, with demographics on their side, still harbor the millennial hope of taking power in Europe, and see the European attitude as both weak and hostile. It is "political correctness," Bawer writes, that has 'gotten Europe into its current mess.'"

"After Neoconservatism" (Francis Fukuyama, The New York Times, 2006/02/19)
"The so-called Bush Doctrine that set the framework for the administration's first term is now in shambles.":
"Now that the neoconservative moment appears to have passed, the United States needs to reconceptualize its foreign policy in several fundamental ways. In the first instance, we need to demilitarize what we have been calling the global war on terrorism and shift to other types of policy instruments. We are fighting hot counterinsurgency wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and against the international jihadist movement, wars in which we need to prevail. But "war" is the wrong metaphor for the broader struggle, since wars are fought at full intensity and have clear beginnings and endings. Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a "long, twilight struggle" whose core is not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world. As recent events in France and Denmark suggest, Europe will be a central battleground in this fight. ...
We need in the first instance to understand that promoting democracy and modernization in the Middle East is not a solution to the problem of jihadist terrorism; in all likelihood it will make the short-term problem worse, as we have seen in the case of the Palestinian election bringing Hamas to power. ...
By definition, outsiders can't "impose" democracy on a country that doesn't want it; demand for democracy and reform must be domestic. Democracy promotion is therefore a long-term and opportunistic process that has to await the gradual ripening of political and economic conditions to be effective."

"Parliament’s failed us, so let’s challenge Blair’s police state ourselves" (Iain Macwhirter, Sunday Herald, 2006/02/19)
Macwhirter on the new law against "glorifying terrorism":
"Such is the absurdity of the new laws that it may be impossible for Madonna to use the iconography of Che Guevara in her pop videos. Jenny Tonge, who was sacked from the Liberal Democrats for expressing support for the Palestinians, could find herself in jail.
Even Cherie Blair will have to think carefully in future before saying – as she did three years ago – that “as long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress in the middle East”. Of course, the PM’s wife is most unlikely to be banged up under her husband’s law. But that’s not the point.
Self-censorship will have a chilling effect on freedom of speech. Whenever any person speaks on any liberation struggle, hanging above them will be the threat of prosecution for glorifying terrorism. This is thought crime."

"Minister offers £6m to behead cartoonist" (Dean Nelson, The Sunday Times, 2006/02/19)
The Danish cartoon affair II: "A minister in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has offered a £6m reward to anyone who beheads one of the Danish cartoonists who outraged Muslims by depicting the prophet Muhammad.
Yaqoob Qureshi, minister of minority welfare, said the killer would also receive his weight in gold. He made the offer during a rally in his constituency in Meerut, northeast of Delhi. Protesters then burnt an effigy of a cartoonist and some Danish flags.
A Pakistani cleric has also offered a $1m reward — and a car — as a “prize” to anyone who kills one of the cartoonists. Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi made his announcement after Friday prayers in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar." (See also: "Pakistani cleric offers rewards for killing cartoonists" (Reuters, 2006/02/17))

"Torturers' Iraq link" (Jason Burke, The Observer, 2006/02/19)
An update on the torture and murder of Ilan Halimi:
"Criminals who tortured and killed a young hostage, keeping him naked and hooded and burning him repeatedly before throwing him from a train, were inspired by images from Iraq, according to a French prosecutor.
Jean-Claude Martin, a senior government lawyer, said that the kidnappers, who kept their victim imprisoned for three weeks, were 'repeating things they had seen practised elsewhere'. ...
The 23-year-old victim is thought to have been starved and tortured while negotiations with his family for a ransom of up to €450,000 continued. According to a police source, the violence was 'gratuitous, extreme, spontaneous and without any limits or boundaries'.
The gang was composed of jobless youths from the suburbs around Paris which erupted in violent riots last autumn. They are believed to have made several previous attempts at kidnapping. According to the Liberation newspaper, the gang was inspired by a film which had itself been inspired by a press report." (See also: "Kidnappers lured their victim into a honey trap, were offered a ransom and killed him anyway. Was it all a grisly game?" (Charles Bremner, The Times, 2006/02/17))

"'The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state'" (Alasdair Palmer, The Sunday Telegraph, 2006/02/19)
The Danish cartoon affair I: "For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries.
"They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.
"The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.
"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."
Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.
'It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue.'"

UPDATE 2006/03/14: Alasdair Palmer's interview with Patrick Sookhdeo has been removed from the website.
¡No Pasarán! has a snapshot of the page: "This story has been removed for legal reasons."
LGF links to a Yahoo search cache of the original article, which can also be found here.
Laban Tall has more, including an apparent reason for the removal:
"The Sunday Telegraph acknowledges that Dr Sookhdeo's remarks did not refer to The Noble Qur'an, A Rendering of its Meaning in English, but to a completely different translation. The Sunday Telegraph apologises for this mistake and for any offence caused by it.".
It's a must-read article and its removal is an apparent example of the current self-censorship in Western media.
It's also notable that The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator have stopped publishing Mark Steyn, who of course is known for his brilliant and uncompromising columns on Islam.

"Poll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK" (Patrick Hennessy and Melissa Kite, The Sunday Telegraph, 2006/02/19)
"Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today.
The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity.
Overall, the findings depict a Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society, even though 91 per cent still say they feel loyal to Britain. ...
The most startling finding is the high level of support for applying sharia law in "predominantly Muslim" areas of Britain. ...
Forty per cent of the British Muslims surveyed said they backed introducing sharia in parts of Britain, while 41 per cent opposed it. Twenty per cent felt sympathy with the July 7 bombers' motives, and 75 per cent did not. One per cent felt the attacks were 'right.'"

Added today:
"All-ah Busts Loose" (Andrea Peyser, New York Post, 2006/02/18)

Saturday, February 18, 2006

News and commentary:

"GOD BLESS HITLER"
(T. Mughal, dpa, 2006/02/15)
Via LGF: "At Germany’s n-tv.de, a photo from an Islamic rally in Pakistan. ... [Caption translated to English] 'What these women want to say with the sign is unclear.'"

"Cartoon Protests Leave 15 Dead in Nigeria" (Njadvara Musa, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/02/18)
The Danish cartoon affair VI: "MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday, killing at least 15 people in the deadliest confrontation yet in the whirlwind of Muslim anger over the drawings.
It was the first major protest to erupt over the issue in Africa's most populous nation. An Associated Press reporter saw mobs of Muslim protesters swarm through the city center with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group threw a tire around a man, poured gas on him and setting him ablaze. ...
Thousands of rioters burned 15 churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order, Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi said. Security forces arrested dozens of people, Iwendi said.
Chima Ezeoke, a Christian Maiduguri resident, said protesters attacked and looted shops owned by minority Christians, most of them with origins in the country's south.
"Most of the dead were Christians beaten to death on the streets by the rioters," Ezeoke said. Witnesses said three children and a priest were among those killed. ...
With Saturday's deaths, at least 45 people have been killed in protests across the Muslim world, according to a count by The Associated Press." (Note: In the same dispatch, Moammar Gadhafi's son, Seif el-Islam Gadhafi, expresses pride for the violent protest in Libya yesterday: "'Setting the consulate on fire was a mistake, but using excessive force was the most tragic response,' the younger Gadhafi said, explaining the suspension of Interior Minister Nasr al-Mabrouk.
Gadhafi expressed pride, however, that the demonstrators were behind Calderoli's resignation when 'other Arab states refused or lagged behind in taking revenge for insults to their religion.'")

"15,000 in London cartoon protest" (AP/CNN.com, 2006/02/18)
The Danish cartoon affair V: "More than 15,000 people joined an angry but peaceful protest in central London on Saturday against the Prophet Mohammed cartoons that have infuriated many in the Muslim world. ...
"How dare you insult the blessed Prophet Mohammed?" asked one placard. "Europe lacks respect for others" said another. ...
"Every Muslim understands this basic concept of the centrality in importance of Mohammed to their lives," said Taji Mustafa, a spokesman for the Muslim Action Committee, which organized the event.
"So when he is demonized, the young and old are deeply affected. As long as the abuse is ongoing we will continue to rise up in protest." ...
Mustafa said the cartoons were reminiscent of attacks on Jews in European publications in the 1930s.
"Now there is a demonization of the Muslim community, so we have to speak up to prevent something like the Holocaust from happening," he said."

"Italian Minister Resigns After Libyan Protests Over T-Shirt" (Bloomberg.com, 2006/02/18)
The Danish cartoon affair IV. The Brussels Journal has more, including pictures of Caldori from the television show:
"Italian Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli resigned after a mob attacked an Italian consulate in Libya yesterday over a T-shirt worn by the minister that was printed with a Danish cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad.
Calderoli, 49, had the T-shirts printed with the cartoons earlier this week and wore one on an Italian television talk show Feb. 14. He said the shirts weren't meant to provoke Muslims, but instead to invite "real dialogue." ...
The prime minister asked Calderoli to resign late yesterday, which the leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, the smallest of Italy's four coalition parties, initially refused to do.
"I don't intend to allow the shameful manipulation used against me and the Northern League to continue," said Calderoli in a resignation statement today, confirmed by his spokeswoman.
"I may even be sorry for the victims, but what happened in Libya has nothing to do with my T-shirt," Calderoli was quoted as saying in la Repubblica today. "That's not what's at stake. What's at stake is Western civilization."
"It's time to stop making up stories about looking for dialogue with these people," Calderoli said on Feb. 14, adding it was "hypocritica" to distinguish between 'terrorist Islam and pacifist Islam.'"' (See also: "'Nine die' in Libya cartoon clash" (BBC News, 2006/02/17) and "Italian minister puts Mohammad cartoon on T-shirts" (Crispian Balmer, Reuters, 2006/02/14))

"Why I Published Those Cartoons" (Flemming Rose, The Washington Post, 2006/02/19)
The Danish cartoon affair III: "Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself been in hiding.
Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)
Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive coverage of Islam.
So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded. ...
Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy."

"Islamic truths" (Mansoor Ijaz, Los Angeles Times, 2006/02/18)
The Danish cartoon affair II: "ANOTHER WEEK, another Muslim country burns in rage over months-old Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in an unflattering light. On Friday it was Libya, and earlier in the week it was my father's homeland, Pakistan, where violent protests were scattered across the nation. Some Muslims have decided that burning cities in defense of a prophet's teachings, which none of them seem willing to practice, is preferable to participating in rational debate about the myths and realities of a religion whose worst enemies are increasingly its own adherents. ...
In fact, the most glaring truth is that Islam's mobsters fear the West has it right: that we have perfected the very system Islam's holy scriptures urged them to learn and practice. And having failed in their mission to lead their masses, they seek any excuse to demonize those of us in the West and to try to bring us down. They know they are losing the ideological struggle for hearts and minds, for life in all its different dimensions, and so they prepare themselves, and us, for Armageddon by starting fires everywhere in a display of Islamic unity intended to galvanize the masses they cannot feed, clothe, educate or house.
This is not Islam. And the faster its truest believers stand up and demonstrate its values and principles by actions, not words, the sooner a great religion will return to its rightful role as guide for nearly a quarter of humanity."

"All-ah Busts Loose" (Andrea Peyser, New York Post, 2006/02/18)
The Danish cartoon affair I. A report on yesterdays cartoon protest in New York: "The young man with the hot head calls himself Abdul lah, which he translates to mean "slave of God." This slave is revolting, in more ways than one.
"If anyone disrespects the prophet, it's our duty to kill him," he said.
"One drop of Muslim blood is worth all the blood in the world."
The man who calls himself Abdullah steeled his gaze at a non-believer.
"You insult the prophet," he snarled, "and you will pay."
And then this young man with no identifiable name displayed a handmade sign depicting four faces, all of them Danish [in fact, Michael Leunig and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are of course not Danish]. Each face bore the picture of a gun sight drawn in the middle of the forehead.
So much for constructive dialogue.
The protest has come home, New Yorkers. Some 1,000 Muslims came out yesterday — in the middle of the workday — to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, ostensibly to chant for peace and foster understanding for Islam.
It did not quite work out that way."

"How does the modern world look when you have done nothing to help create it, and innovation is a threat to cherished beliefs?" (Dinocrat, 2006/02/18)
"We take it for granted that people are fiddling around in their garages inventing oscilloscopes or wonder drugs or extreme sports. But what would it be like to live in a land where people invented nothing, where technology came to you as though from Mars? More than this: what if that constant progress and tinkering represented a threat to the sufficiency of the founding documents of your culture and religion? Judging by the numbers, that is apparently the current state of thought in some major Islamic countries. Take Saudi Arabia, which recently went six years without granting a patent.

The Saudi Patent Regulations of 1989 established a patent registration system, covering any new article, methods of manufacture (including improvements in either of them) and product patents. In 1996, the Saudi Patent Office granted its first patents since its establishment in 1990.

By contrast, the US granted 157,000 patents in 2005, and is up to about 7,000,000 patents overall. Or take Egypt, home to about a quarter of the world’s Arabs:

A new patent law has been drafted recently. The new law, if approved, would extend patent protection period to twenty years and widen the definition of an “invention” as protected by the law. Unlike the current patent law, the draft law provides for a substantive examination of the patent application before granting the patent.

The new draft law provides for “substantive examination” of a patent application, eh? My, my, that would be progress if they get there. Contrast that with the (overly cumbersone) US rules for “substantive examination” of patents, whose rulebook currently runs to 27 Chapters! Or take our current bugbear, Iran:

Iran in 2001, had only one patent, whereas U.S. in 1997 had 111805 patents… ...

Remember this pathetic performance the next time some bonehead tries to argue cultural equivalency to you. How dare these people try to impose their ways on us, or dictate anything about the way we should live. Theirs is a formula for poverty, stagnation and misery. Imagine: over a billion people, and they have fewer patents in their entire recorded history than did the citizens of Utah last year." (Hat tip: Thomas Lifson.)

"Hamas takes over Palestinian parliament" (Wafa Amr, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2006/02/18)
"RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Islamist group Hamas took over as the dominant party in the Palestinian parliament on Saturday and swiftly rejected President Mahmoud Abbas's call to pursue his peacemaking efforts with Israel.
The swearing-in of the parliament, elected last month, paves the way for Hamas to form a government that is on a potential collision course with Abbas and faces a boycott by major powers unless it renounces violence and its vow to destroy Israel. ...
n a speech at the opening of parliament, Abbas said the new government must recognize past peace deals with Israel and commit itself to pursuing statehood through talks, but he stopped short of setting conditions for forming a cabinet.
"The presidency and the government will continue to respect our commitment to the negotiations as a strategic, pragmatic political choice," Abbas said.
"At the same time, we must continue to strengthen and develop forms of popular resistance of a peaceful nature."
Abbas's words won applause from Fatah lawmakers but not from Hamas members.
"We were elected on a different political agenda," Haniyeh said as sessions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, joined by video link, broke off for Muslim prayers."

Note: Democratic Muslims - the other voice, founded by Danish MP Naser Khader, has launched its website. It's still only in Danish though. Hopefully this initiative will spread to other countries as well. Hat tip: Jihad i Malmö.
See also: "More and More Moderate Muslims Speak Out in Denmark" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/02/13)
Also: "Declaration by the newly founded "Moderate Moslem"-Network" (khader.dk): "As Moslems, we are the proof that Islam and democracy are not incompatible. It is our hope that our example here in Denmark will make Moslems around the world react and follow our lead. Only by uniting, can we change the fundamentalistic picture of Islam that the many extremists have drawn with violence."

Added in archive:
"'Of Course I’m Afraid'" (Rod Nordland, Newsweek, 2006/02/17)
"Call to free journalists imprisoned in Prophet cartoons row" (CNW Telbec, 2006/02/17)

Friday, February 17, 2006

News and commentary:

"ISLAM WILL DOMINATE!"
(Dima Gavrysh, AP, 2006/02/17)
"A group organized by a Muslim leader protests cartoons published by a Danish newspaper, outside the Danish consulate in New York, Friday, Feb. 17, 2006."

"'Nine die' in Libya cartoon clash" (BBC News, 2006/02/17)
The Danish cartoon affair VI: "At least nine people are reported to have been killed and several injured in clashes during a protest outside an Italian consulate in Libya.
Riot police confronted hundreds of protesters as they stormed the building in the city of Benghazi, in the latest protests over the Muhammad cartoons.
They were said to be angry at recent remarks - deemed to be anti-Islamic - by Italian minister Roberto Calderoli.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has called for his resignation.
He said Mr Calderoli - of the anti-immigrant Northern League party - should step down for announcing he would start wearing a T-shirt bearing the controversial cartoons, which were first printed by a Danish newspaper.
Italian consular official, Antonio Simoes-Concalves, said nine protesters had been killed and several more had been wounded.
Speaking on the telephone, he told the Associated Press news agency in Rome that the Libyan police had used teargas and fired bullets, but were unable to control a 1,000-strong crowd.
"They are still continually firing," he said at 2100 GMT, from inside the consulate where he was barricaded. "They haven't managed to block them."
The protesters set fire to the Italian consulate building after breaking into the grounds." (See also: "Italian minister puts Mohammad cartoon on T-shirts" (Crispian Balmer, Reuters, 2006/02/14))

"'Of Course I’m Afraid'" (Rod Nordland, Newsweek, 2006/02/17)
The Danish cartoon affair V. "In an interview from his jail cell, a Yemeni editor [Mohammed al-Asaadi] imprisoned over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons discusses press freedom, religion and calls for his execution.":
"How are the accommodations?
I'm in a temporary prison, awaiting a hearing, so it's not so bad. It's a basement, and we have to buy everything we need, even bottled water. There are 15 of us sharing one big room and one toilet, but the others aren't common criminals. A couple are journalists, because it's the prison of the prosecutor for press and publications. ...
Some hard-line preachers at Friday prayers called for your execution; some even suggested death by beheading or immolation. Aren't you afraid for your future, in or out of jail?
Of course I'm afraid. I'll have to take precautions when I go to and from my office and travel around in the future. But Yemenis as a whole are very moderate, and I know I can persuade any reasonable person that I did nothing wrong. And I believe in God. What I did was in defense of the Prophet, and I don't think God will let me down for doing that."

"Call to free journalists imprisoned in Prophet cartoons row" (CNW Telbec, 2006/02/17)
The Danish cartoon affair IV: "Reporters Without Borders today launched an appeal and a petition for the immediate release of seven journalists thrown into prison in Yemen, Syria and Algeria for reprinting the controversial Prophet cartoons as part of informing their readers.
"Whatever one thinks of the cartoons or whether they should be published, it is absolutely unjustified to jail or prosecute journalists, threaten them with death or shut down newspapers for this reason," the worldwide press freedom organisation said.
At least twelve journalists are being prosecuted in five countries and seven have been jailed. Some face long prison sentences if convicted. Two editors in Jordan have been charged with provocation and encouraging disorder. Three journalists have been jailed in Yemen and charged under article 103 of the press law, which bans publication of anything that "harms Islam, denigrates monotheistic religion or a humanitarian belief." Reporters Without Borders calls for all criminal cases among these to be dropped.
Thirteen publications have been closely temporarily or permanently in Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Malaysia and Indonesia for reprinting the cartoons. Reporters Without Borders demands that these bans be lifted." (Hat tip: Tim Blair.)

"Pakistani cleric offers rewards for killing cartoonists" (Reuters, 2006/02/17)
The Danish cartoon affair III. Moral equivalence Part 2 [emphasis added]: "PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 17 (Reuters) - A Pakistani Muslim cleric and his followers offered rewards amounting to over $1 million for anyone who killed Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that have enraged Muslims worldwide.
Maulana Yousef Qureshi, a cleric in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said he personally had offered to pay a bounty of 500,000 rupees ($8,400) during Friday prayers, and two of his congregation put up additional rewards of $1 million and one million rupees plus a car.
Qureshi repeated the offer at rally later in the city to protest against the cartoons.
"If the West can place a bounty on Osama bin Laden and Zawahri we can also announce reward for killing the man who has caused this sacrilege of the holy Prophet," Qureshi told Reuters, referring to the al Qaeda leader and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri."

"How Muslim Blackmail Works" (Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, 2006/02/17)
"Moscow has now canceled its Gay Pride parade. It was canceled after the chief Muslim leader in Russia warned that marchers would be "bashed" if they dared to walk the streets. Money quote:

"Earlier this week Chief Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin warned that Russia's Muslims would stage violent protests if the march went ahead. "If they come out on to the streets anyway they should be flogged. Any normal person would do that - Muslims and Orthodox Christians alike ... [The protests] might be even more intense than protests abroad against those controversial cartoons." The cleric said the Koran taught that homosexuals should be killed because their lifestyle spells the extinction of the human race and said that gays had no human rights."

Notice this is not al Qaeda. It is the official mainstream Muslim leadership." (See also: "Russia's first gay parade vetoed by 'outraged' city" (Andrew Osborn, Independent, 2006/02/17))

"The Muslim Holocaust" (Tom Bevan, RealClearPolitics, 2006/02/17)
Moral equivalence Part 1: "I'm confused. Half the time we're told by Muslims that the Holocaust never happened, and now we have people like Bouthaina Shaaban, the Syrian Minister of Expatriates, saying the Holocaust was not only real but is a perfect analogy for the way Muslims are being treated today:

"Facts show that Europe is launching a new Holocaust against Muslims around the world. What is happening to Muslims in Europe today is almost identical with what the Jews suffered at the beginning of the [last] century."

(See also: "West should change its attitude" (George S. Hishme, Gulf News, 2006/02/17))

"More Hair Exposure Abuse: Danish Imam Beats Kid Senseless" (Gateway Pundit, 2006/02/17)
The Danish cartoon affair II: "Imam Ahmed Akkari, the spokesman for the Danish Imams who peddled "fake" cartoons on the Middle East tour to build animosity against Denmark, is serious about Sharia.
He beat a young child senseless for accidentally touching a girl's headscarf while playing run and catch!
Freedom for Egyptians reported this news earlier this week from a translated article at Jyllands-Posten:

According to the famous Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the spokesman of the extremist Imams in Denmark, Mr. Ahmed Akkari, violently attacked a 10 to 11 year old pupil while training to become a teacher at Lykkeskolen in Aarhus. The episode, that took place some years ago, was reported to the police by the school, and Mr. Akkari was sacked immediately and forbidden future access to the premises of the school.
Mr. Akkari attacked the boy, during a run and catch game, when the boy touched the headscarf of a girl so that her hair got exposed. Mr. Akkari knocked the boy to the ground and several times hit him in the chest with his fists, completely loosing his self control."

"From Cartoons to Chaos" (Abraham H. Miller, FrontPageMagazine, 2006/02/17)
The Danish cartoon affair I. The evident racism * in much of the anti-cartoon reactions, as when "Palestinian gunmen searched hotels for citizens of countries where newspapers had printed the pictures", seems to be taken as a given by many commentators and is hardly criticised at all. Bradley Burston:

"The idea is racism itself. Punish the people as a whole. All are guilty of the sin of one. ...
The current case: One editor of one Copenhagen newspaper decides to print cartoons which are profoundly offensive to Muslims? The Danes must be punished. All of them. As a whole.":

In fact, the Western indifference over Muslim bigotry is in itself a form of racism, as it sets lower standards for them than for ourselves. Bernard Lewis analyses this in "The New Anti-Semitism" (Bernard Lewis, The American Scholar/HNN, 2006/02/16):

"One can imagine the outrage if Israel had announced that it would not give visas to Muslims, still more if the United States were to do so. As directed against Jews, this ban was seen as perfectly natural and normal. ...
One might argue that when Arabs are judged by a lower standard than Jews, as for example the minimal attention given to the atrocious crimes committed at Darfur, this is more offensive to Arabs than to Jews. Contempt is indeed more demeaning than hatred. But it is less dangerous.":

"When Muslims demand that the Danish government stop the publication of the offending cartoons and when they boycott Danish products, they impose their notion of collective guilt on all Danes. They hold all Danes responsible for the actions of one paper, and they know full well that in Western society, unlike in most Muslim countries, the government has no control over what papers print. ...
In many ways, the cartoon riots inadvertently tell us more about Islam, and the facile way that anti-Western anger is mobilized in the Islamic world, than they do about the Danish cartoons. The episodes underscore the Islamic world’s primitive notion of collective guilt, and how most Western pundits and politicians have been so busy falling over themselves with apologias that they forgot to examine whether indeed Islam does expressly prohibit representations of the prophet. ...
A cartoon of Mohammed gives sufficient offense to cause rioting, killing and the invocation of the collective guilt of an entire civilization — ours." (*Note: I don't approve of the current usage of the term "racism" for several reasons. First of all because it maintains the racist notion that there are different races within the race Homo sapiens sapiens, which is not scientifically true. But even more because neither Muslims, Danes or Westerners etc. are races even in the traditional sense. "Collective guilt syndrome" or some such might be a better term.
Miller also describes the near-lynching of two counter-protesters during the anti-cartoon rally in Paris this weekend. See also: "Islamic Protestors in Paris Come Face to Face with an Unexpected Counter-Protest" (Eric, ¡No Pasarán!, 2006/02/12))

"Cultures collide: Muslim immigrants will be expelled from Europe unless they reverse the growing perception of them as a social threat" (Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post, 2006/02/17)
"The Muslims refused to assimilate. They were expelled. This was the story in Europe 400 years ago. We are watching the sequel today.":
"European leaders have reacted to the Muslim upset over the cartoons two ways. Publically and to buy time, they seek to calm the protesters by deploring the abuse of freedom of speech. More significantly, they seek to preserve their societies by legislating Western norms, by tightening or ending immigration from Muslim countries, by enabling the expulsion of radical imans and other Muslim activists, and by raising the spectre of mass deportations.
In France, hard-line Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who in October characterized France's urban rioters as "rabble," will require non-European immigrants to sign a new "Contract of Welcome and Integration" that spells out their obligations. Among other reforms, the French government will be free to expel immigrants after 10 years. ...
In Germany, which pioneered the guest-worker program in Europe, a sea change has occurred. "Multicultural societies have only ... functioned peacefully in authoritarian states. To that extent it was a mistake for us to bring guest workers from foreign cultures into the country at the beginning of the 1960s," said former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Germany's new Chancellor, Angela Merkel, shares his view: "The notion of multiculturalism has fallen apart," she said prior to her election. "Anyone coming here must respect our constitution and tolerate our Western and Christian roots." ...
Europe's Muslims now know that they are expected to integrate or to depart. Four centuries ago, after decades of threats of expulsion, forced conversions and other failed attempts to assimilate Muslims, complaints about them -- their use of Arabic, their clothes, their rejection of Western culture -- were similar. "They marry among themselves and do not mix with Old Christians," complained one report of Spain's Moriscos (Muslims who had undergone forced conversions to Christianity). Riots by Muslims at offences perpetrated upon them added to tensions. In the end, still not assimilated, most were expelled."

"In the Mideast, the Third Way Is a Myth" (Shibley Telhami, The Washington Post, 2006/02/17)
What a difference a year makes. "Could George W. Bush Be Right?" wondered Der Spiegel last February as David Ignatius wrote about "Beirut's Berlin Wall": "Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. 'The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.'":
"The reality shown by Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections is this: If fully free elections were held today in the rest of the Arab world, Islamist parties would win in most states. Even with intensive international efforts to support "civil society" and nongovernmental organizations, elections in five years would probably yield the same results. The notion, popular in Washington over the past few years, that American programs and efforts can help build a third alternative to both current governments and Islamists is simply a delusion. ...
If we are not willing to engage, there is only one alternative: to rethink the policy of accelerated electoral democracy and focus on a more incremental approach of institutional and economic reform of existing governments. There is no realistic third party that's likely to emerge anytime soon. ...
The single most significant demographic variable correlated with anti-Americanism in the Arab world is income. In Gaza, where unemployment is nearly 50 percent, per capita income is half of what it was in the late 1990s. Income is related to the quality of education. In Egypt, home to one-quarter of Arabs, Cairo University, the leading Arab university, is now rated 28th -- in Africa. Human rights violations remain widespread in the region, where our own troubling behavior toward prisoners has significantly hampered our ability to lecture others. Concerted efforts in those areas of economic, educational and judicial development, coupled with a strong human rights policy, have a far greater chance to make a difference."

"Kidnappers lured their victim into a honey trap, were offered a ransom and killed him anyway. Was it all a grisly game?" (Charles Bremner, The Times, 2006/02/17)
This sounds suspiciously like pre-meditated, anti-Semitic torture and murder. The kidnappers are suspected to be a "group of young men and women from the housing estates of the Paris suburbs" and the victim, with the Hebrew name Ilan, had a shop in a "Jewish quarter of the 11th arrondissement.":
"French police are hunting a group of kidnappers who tortured to death a young man after he was lured into their hands by an attractive woman.
Officers suspect that the crime was committed by a group of young men and women from the housing estates of the Paris suburbs. The group is believed to have made up to half a dozen attempts to seize victims around Paris until three weeks ago, when they kidnapped a 23-year-old shop assistant called Ilan. In all the suspected kidnap attempts, a young woman chatted up the intended victim, always a young man, and exchanged telephone numbers with him.
Ilan was abducted on January 21 after a date with a blonde woman who had befriended him in his shop in a Jewish quarter of the 11th arrondissement. Last Monday he was found, naked, bound and gagged near a suburban railway station in south Paris. More than 80 per cent of his body had been burnt. He died on the way to hospital." (UPDATE. See also this translated article from Le Figaro: "Paris kidnapping gang tortures and kills a Jewish 23 year old" (Le Figaro/HNN, 2006/02/16): "The victim had been tortured, 80% of his body was covered with bruises, deep cuts, and burns from an inflammable fluid. The young man, handcuffed and gagged, left for dead by his torturers, died on his way to the hospital. ...
“On other occasions a mysterious correspondent with a North African or African accent phoned and sent text messages to Ilan’s father demanding a ransom. ‘But,’ explained the public prosecutor Jean Claude Marin, 'the kidnappers were totally inconsistent.'"
UPDATE II: "Dispute around motivation for murder in Paris" (EJP, 2006/02/17): "According to an informed source, the head of the gang has been identified as the 26-year-old Youssef Fofana, a Black Muslim who is calling himself “brain of the barbarians." He is already known to the police services as “extremely dangerous.” ...
According to police, Halimi, a cellular phone salesman, was attracted by a young Arab “pleasant” woman who came to his place of work, on Voltaire boulevard, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, on January 17. The woman apparently charmed him and arranged an appointment. ...
“We think there is anti-Semitism in this affair,” Rafi, Ilan’s brother in law, told the European Jewish Press.
”First because the killers tried to kidnap at least two other Jews and secondly because of what they said on the phone,” he added.
”When we said we didn’t have 500,000 euros to give them they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it,” Rafi stressed. 'They also recited verses from the Koran. We didn’t know what they were saying but the police told us.'")

Thursday, February 16, 2006

News and commentary:

"Reformist Iranian Internet Daily: A New Fatwa States That Religious Law Does Not Forbid Use of Nuclear Weapons" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 1096, 2006/02/17)
Iran II: "On February 16, 2006, the reformist Internet daily Rooz (www.roozonline.com) reported for the first time that extremist clerics from Qom had issued what the daily called "a new fatwa," which states that "the shari'a does not forbid the use of nuclear weapons." ...
"The spiritual leaders of the ultra-conservatives [in Iran] have accepted the use of nuclear weapons as lawful in the eyes of the shari'a. Mohsen Gharavian, a disciple of [Ayatollah] Mesbah Yazdi [who is Iranian President Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor], has spoken for the first time of using nuclear weapons as a counter-measure. He stated that 'in terms of the shari'a, it all depends on the goal.' ...
[Gharavian] said that he sees no problem with the military use of nuclear weapons [sic]: 'One must say that when the entire world is armed with nuclear weapons, it is only natural that, as a counter-measure, it is necessary to be able to use these weapons. However, what is important is what goal they may be used for.' ...
Gharavian's statement is the first public statement by the Mesbah Yazdi group on the nuclear issue. Until now, none of the top-ranking religious [leaders] have authorized, on religious grounds, the use of nuclear weapons. But now it seems that the ultra-[conservatives] in Iran have launched a new effort to prepare the religious grounds for use of these weapons..."

"France Accuses Iran of Making Nuclear Arms" (John Leicester, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/02/16)
Iran I: "France accused Iran on Thursday of secretly making nuclear weapons, ditching Europe's traditional diplomatic caution for bluntness in remarks that echoed the tough U.S. stance on Iran's disputed nuclear program.
The accusation from French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy — which Iran quickly denied — appeared to reflect mounting exasperation and a tougher stance by one of three key European negotiators.
"No civilian nuclear program can explain the Iranian nuclear program. It is a clandestine military nuclear program," Douste-Blazy said on France-2 television."

"Hamas Wants Off Terror List" (Albert Aji, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/02/16)
"A senior Hamas official called on the United States Thursday to remove the militant Islamic group from Washington's list of terrorist organizations and to open a dialogue without preconditions.
Moussa Abu Marzook, deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, told The Associated Press the U.S. should deal with Hamas "as it is, and later there could be a dialogue...but there should be no preconditions."
"Hamas is not the only side that wants peace. ...All the Palestinians want peace because they are the only people whose rights have been encroached upon and who have been expelled from their lands," Abu Marzouk said.
Abu Marzouk described as "absolutely unacceptable"
Israel's call for Hamas to start an unconditional dialogue with the Jewish state, saying 'Hamas...was chosen by the Palestinian people...this is democracy.'"

"'Weed out textbooks offensive to Muslims'" (David Renni, The Daily Telegraph, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair X: "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. ...
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.'"

"Don't Burn Muhammad" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair IX: "In 711 Muslim armies crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. They took Spain by force and remained there until they were thrown out during the reconquista in 1492. Every year, in a tradition that goes back to the 16th century, Spanish villages still celebrate the liberation from the Moors (as the Muslims were locally called) during “Moros y Cristianos” festivals in which effigies of the prophet Muhammad – the so-called “la Mahoma” – are mocked, thrown out of windows, and burned.
Now the Spanish, having witnessed what happened to the Vikings recently, are wondering whether they can still continue their tradition of “offending Muslims.” The village of Bocairent near Valencia decided this year to discontinue the century old tradition of mocking and burning effigies of Muhammad. Bocairent does not want to risk becoming the target of suicide bombers." (See also: "Dispatch from the Eurabian Front: The End of Carnival" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/02/08): "The largest and most famous carnival celebration in Belgium is the one of the Flemish town of Aalst, 35 kms to the west of Brussels. ... After last year’s parade the organizers received a protest letter from the Arab League, stating that the event had been “insulting and offensive to Muslims and their culture.” Some “dirty fagots,” as usual dressing up as women, instead of putting on corsets and bras, had put on burqas.")

"Female Reporter Stoned at Turkish Cartoon Protest" (Gateway Pundit, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair VIII: "A Turkish female journalist was stoned at a Muhammad Cartoon protest for not wearing a head scarf:

Aliye Cetinkaya, a journalist from the Turkish daily Sabah newspaper, who was reporting on the recent protests over the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, was stoned in Konya for reasons demonstrators said were provocative – as she did not cover her head. Cetinkaya was taken away by male colleagues after stones hit her head and shoulders. The female journalist was attacked for being ‘sexually provocative’ for not wearing a head scarf at the demonstration organised by the Peoples Education Research and Support Group in Konya (He-Da-Der) and entitled ‘Loyalty to the Prophet’.
A group of protestors insisted that Aliye Cetinkaya get off the bus where she was reporting the march, as they claimed she was provoking the crowd. At this moment, somebody started reciting the Koran into a microphone.
Approximately 30 people then started throwing stones at Cetinkaya, seated with her legs dangling from the back of the vehicle and taking notes. They claimed that her clothes and way of sitting was inappropriate while the Koran was being read, and shouted words of abuse at her.
Cetinkaya had to be rescued by her colleagues. ...

But that is not all... an Islamist Group is filing charges against Cetinkaya for "Disturbing the Peace" that carries up to 3 years of jail time!

One of the groups in the demonstration, the Islamist "Association for Training, Research and Cooperation of the People" (HEDA-DER) meanwhile filed a complaint against Cetinkaya the same day, accusing her of disturbing the demonstration, an offence that carries a fine or between 18 months and three years imprisonment under a 1983 law on public demonstrations."

"Embattled Nordic Muslims reject talk of radicalism" (Stephen Brown, Reuters, 2006/02/16)
OK, Stephen Brown, give me one example of Muslims being demonised in mainstream Scandinavian media? Just one. *
As for the "withdrawn" Swedish textbook with portraits of the Prophet that Daoud found "offensive and misleading," it is a) thankfully not withdrawn, but was indeed cravenly withdrawn one day after the complaint of an Imam and b) you can judge yourself how "offensive" one of the medieval Muslim illustrations is, and read more on the affair, here:

"MALMO, Sweden, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Muslims in Scandinavia have suffered arson attacks on mosques, discrimination in the job market and been demonised in the media, but say they still want to make a future for themselves here and reject extremism.
"They make me out to be a Taliban, but they don't say any positive things like the fact that my kids go to Swedish schools and my wife doesn't cover her face," said Ammar Daoud, who runs a small basement mosque in the southern Swedish city of Malmo. ...
"Sweden is the best Islamic state now," enthuses imam Adly Abu Hajar, citing Nordic tolerance, welfare and controls on alcohol and prostitution as values shared with the Koran.
His optimism is admirable in the drab surroundings of the Malmo suburb of Rosengard. Tower blocks straddling a motorway house Scandinavia's highest proportion of immigrants and Muslims suffering unemployment of more than 50 percent and endemic crime. ...
"I don't think there is extremism in Sweden," said Daoud, a softly-spoken Palestinian scientist, angry at the media for portraying the basement mosques as hardline Islamic agitators.
Malmo has produced some terrorist suspects: two locals were among four Muslims arrested by Swedish police on suspicion of funding bombings in northern Iraq, of whom two were jailed. ...
Daoud said Swedish schools had only now withdrawn a textbook with portraits of the Prophet he found offensive and misleading.
"My 16-year-old daughter came home crying two or three times saying 'Look what they are saying about the Prophet'," he said."

(*Note: And Jyllands-Posten's cartoons don't count. Personally, I think it is preposterous to deem innocuous depictions of Muhammed and satires over Islamic terrorism as "demonisation" of Muslims in general. But let's leave that infected affair, which also per definition was an exception that proves the rule, to the side for the moment. I dare Brown to give even one other example of Muslims being even remotely "demonised" in Scandinavian mainstream media.
Scandinavian media can be accused of many things, but demonising Muslims is really not one of them. We strictly lambast ourselves, America and Israel, just as it says in the PC guide book. )

"BBC Spooked by al-Qaeda" (Thomas Whitaker and Sara Nathan, The Sun, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair VII: "BBC bosses are ready to AXE a £1million episode of hit drama Spooks in which an al-Qaeda terrorist is shot dead — in case it upsets Muslims.
Filming the assassination plot for the MI5 drama took four weeks.
But actor Shaun Dingwall who plays a renegade Christian gunman, fears he could become a target for fundamentalists if the scene is aired.
In the episode, due to be shown later this year, a religious nut played by Shaun, 35, guns down the fanatic on the steps of London’s High Court.
But production sources admitted it could be canned. One said: “In the climate of Muslim fury over cartoons, Shaun isn’t sure about it all.”
Shaun refused to comment last night.
But Sun security adviser Andy McNab urged the BBC to keep the scene. He said: “Self-censorship would be the thin end of the wedge.”
Labour MP Stephen Pound added: “Giving terrorists a veto over what is shown on TV is the road to madness.
'Al-Qaeda will be objecting to Gardener’s Question Time next. Where does it stop?'"

"Guardian Roundup" (Scott Burgess, The Daily Ablution, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair VI. Lots of interesting stuff as always, so read the whole thing.
The incoherence of the current left never surprises me anymore, but it is kind of perplexing to note their sudden concern for "religious sensitivities" following the cartoon affair. Aren't they supposed to be materialists and to view religion as the opium of the masses?
But now the very same leftists who are endlessly lambasting the Vatican and the Christian right in America, while defending the right to portray Christ drowned in urine or Mary covered with elephant dung, are deeply concerned over the impropriety of even depicting Muhammed:
"Guardianista Oliver Burkeman inadvertently offers an excellent illustration of the double standards that the cartoon row has revealed among some on the left, struggling as they are to justify a tendency to reflexively mock Christianity while at the same time droning on incessantly about the need to avoid giving offence to Muslims.
Writing on Tuesday, Mr. Burkeman grapples with the thorny issues raised by the imbroglio:

"The current uproar is certainly one of those disputes where it can be difficult to know what to think. (Just because you support free speech, do you have to applaud bigoted, unfunny cartoonists? Just because you support freedom of belief, do you have to internalise some religion's special rule against portraying certain historical figures?)"

It's easy to sympathise with his dilemma - especially as he's so keen to distance himself from the vicious bigots who would mock the deeply held religious beliefs of others.
Except when it's a "duty", of course - that would be when Christianity, not Islam, is the butt of the jibes. In a column published yesterday, completely unrelated to the cartoon dispute (which is never even mentioned), Mr. Burkeman writes, beginning a bit defensively:

"This isn't about being respectful to the Christian faith [heaven forfend!]. On the contrary, it's the secular democrat's duty to expose religious ideas to mockery, and I for one can think of few more fulfilling ways to spend a spare afternoon then laughing at a church or teasing a vicar."

I look forward to Mr. Burkeman's account of his "fulfilling" afternoon spent laughing at the Finsbury Park mosque and teasing the Imam and congregants there - get back to us quickly with that, will you, Oliver?"

"Dutch Vexed with Solana. Europeans Quarrel over Cartoons" (Paul Belien, The Brussels Journal, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair V: "Jozias van Aartsen, the leader of the Dutch Liberal Party (VVD) which is the coalition partner of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende’s Christian-Democrat Party (CDA) in the Dutch government, is angry with Javier Solana. Mr van Aartsen demands that the Dutch Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs both reprimand Mr Solana. The latter, a Spanish Socialist who is the EU Foreign Policy Coordinator, recently signed a common statement with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary-General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The EU-UN-OIC statement said: “We understand the deep hurt and widespread indignation felt in the Muslim world. The freedom of the press, which entails responsibility and discretion, should respect the beliefs and tenets of all religions.”
Mr van Aartsen wants the Dutch government to criticize Mr Solana and speak out firmly in defence of freedom of speech. ...
Meanwhile, Mr Solana continues his appeasement visit to the Middle East. On Wednesday he met Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Cairo. The EU Foreign Policy Coordinator told the press that they discussed measures to ensure that “religious symbols can be protected.” He said: “Such steps could materialise through various mechanisms, maybe inside the new human rights commission created in the UN.” ...
Hans Winkler, the Secretary of State for European Affairs in Austria, the current chairman of the EU Council, said that freedom of the press is not absolute and that 'religious feelings should not be offended.'"

"Islam's problem with democracy" (Suzanne Fields, The Washington Times, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair IV: "Religion has always been linked to political power, often controlled by kings and despots. In a democracy there's a different kind of link. Freedom allows everyone to raise questions, to confront dogma and challenge beliefs. That's why maintaining the complete separation of church and state is crucial. ...
A century and a half before Samuel Huntington expressed concern for the "clash of civilizations," de Tocqueville identified the difference between our inheritance of Western religious values and the teachings of Muhammad that inspired Arabs in the Middle East. Muhammad contributed political maxims, criminal and civil rules and scientific theories to the Koran, mixing religion and politics, whereas the Gospels deal only with the relationship between man and God, and man and man: "That alone, among a thousand reasons," he wrote, 'is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.'"

"Appeasement 101" (Victor Davis Hanson, Jewish World Review, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair III: "Appeasement in the 1930s was popular with the European public for a variety of reasons. All of them are instructive in our hesitation about stopping a nuclear Iran, or about defending the right of Western newspapers to print what they wish — or about fighting radical Islamism in general. ...
Just as Hitler concocted incidents such as the burning of the Reichstag to create outrage, Islamist leaders incite frenzy in their followers over a supposed flushed Koran at Guantanamo and several inflammatory cartoons, some of them never published by Danish newspapers at all.
Anti-Semitism, of course, is the mother's milk of fascism. It is always, they say, a small group of Jews — whether shadowy cabinet advisers and international bankers of the 1930s or the manipulative neoconservatives and Israeli leadership of the present — who alone stir up the trouble.
The point of the comparison is not to suggest that history simply repeats itself, but to learn why intelligent people delude themselves into embracing naive policies. After the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, the furious reply of the radical Islamist world was to censor Western newspapers, along with Iran's accelerated efforts to get the bomb.
In response, either the West will continue to stand up now to these reoccurring post-Sept. 11 threats, or it will see the bullies' demands only increase as its own resistance weakens. Like the appeasement of the 1930s, opting for the easier choice will only guarantee a more costly one later on."

"Europe Is Warned That Its Values Are Under Siege" (Graham Bowley, The New York Times, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair II: "In the face of escalating attacks against foreigners in the Muslim world by violent critics of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, the European Union's chief executive said today that Europe had to fight for its core European values, including freedom of speech.
"We have to stick very much to these values," said José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. "If not, we are accepting fear in this society."
Referring to his youth during a totalitarian regime in Portugal, Mr. Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister, said in an interview that Europe had to defend its right to have in place a system that allowed the publication of the cartoons.
"I understand that it offended many people in the Muslim world, but is it better to have a system where some excesses are allowed or be in some countries where they don't even have the right to say this?" Mr. Barroso said. 'This reminds me of my own country up to 1974. I defend the democratic system.'"

"Anatomy of the Cartoon Protest Movement" (Anthony Shadid and Kevin Sullivan, The Washington Post, 2006/02/16)
The Danish cartoon affair I. A thorough report on the cartoon war, but of course without any of the actual cartoons:
"Protests have erupted in an arc stretching from Europe through Africa to East Asia and, at times, the United States. About a dozen people have died in Afghanistan; five have been killed this week in Pakistan. Muslim journalists were arrested for publishing the cartoons in Jordan, Algeria and Yemen. European countries have evacuated the staffs of embassies and nongovernmental organizations, Muslim countries have withdrawn ambassadors, and Danish exports that average more than $1 billion a year have dried up in a span of weeks. ...
But the conflict illustrates a broader collision of worldviews, often fueled by feelings of Muslim weakness and injury that date back long before the cartoons were published.
"The way I see it, the war has already started," said Daii al-Islam al-Shahal, a Sunni Muslim cleric in the coastal Lebanese town of Tripoli, who helped organize protests this month against the cartoons in his home town and in Beirut. 'Will it end soon, or will it come to a close only after it has completely wiped out the two sides? That is up to God.'"

"Radical Cleric Rising as a Kingmaker in Iraqi Politics" (Robert F. Worth and Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, 2006/02/16)
"Late Saturday night, on the eve of a crucial vote to choose Iraq's next prime minister, a senior Iraqi politician's cellphone rang. A supporter of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr was on the line with a threat.
"He said that there's going to be a civil war among the Shia" if Mr. Sadr's preferred candidate was not confirmed, the politician said.
Less than 12 hours later, and after many similar calls to top Shiite leaders, Mr. Sadr got his wish. The widely favored candidate lost by one vote, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the interim prime minister, was anointed as Iraq's next leader.
"Everyone was stunned; it was a coup d'état," said the politician, a senior member of the main Shiite political coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance.
It was a crowning moment for Mr. Sadr, whose sudden rise to political power poses a stark new set of challenges for Iraq's fledgling democracy. The man who led the Mahdi Army militia's two deadly uprisings against American troops in 2004 now controls 32 seats in Iraq's Parliament, enough to be a kingmaker. He has an Islamist vision of Iraq's future, and is implacably hostile to the Iraqis closest to the United States — the mostly secular Kurds, and Ayad Allawi, the former prime minister." (See also: "Misunderestimating Moktada al-Sadr" (Lee Harris, Tech Central Station, 2006/02/15) and "Iraqi Shiites Nominate Jafari for Top Position" (Nelson Hernandez, The Washington Post, 2006/02/13))

Added today:
"Do the Jyllands-Posten Cartoons resemble "Nazi Cartoons"? Judge For Yourself" (John Rosenthal, Transatlantic Intelligencer, 2006/02/13)
"Muammar Gaddafi: One Day Islam May Rule Europe" (FocusNews Agency, 2006/02/13)

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

News and commentary:

"But on February 10, in Oslo..." (Bruce Bawer, brucebawer.com, 2006/02/15)
The Danish cartoon affair IV. Bruce Bawer has finally started blogging. Sort of. Or at least I surely hope so:
"But on February 10, in Oslo, came a dramatic capitulation that seemed a classic case of sharia in action. For days, Velbjørn Selbekk, editor of the tiny Christian periodical Magazinet – the first publication to reprint the now-famous Muhammed cartoons from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten – had firmly resisted pressure by Muslim extremists (who made death threats) and by the Norwegian establishment (which urged him to give in). But then, on that morning – the day before a planned mass demonstration against the cartoons – Norway’s Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion, Bjarne Håkon Hanssen, hastily called a press conference at a major government office building in Oslo.
There, to the astonishment of his supporters, Selbekk issued an abject apology for reprinting the cartoons. At his side, accepting his act of contrition on behalf of 46 Muslim organizations and asking that all threats now be withdrawn, was Mohammed Hamdan, head of Norway’s Islamic Council. In attendance were members of the Norwegian cabinet and the largest assemblage of imams in Norway's history. It was a picture right out of a sharia courtroom: the dhimmi prostrating himself before the Muslim leader, and the leader pardoning him – and, for good measure, declaring Selbekk to be henceforth under his protection, as if it were he, Hamdan, and not the Norwegian police, that held in his hands the security of citizens in Norway.
Alas, Selbekk’s surrender plainly represented a giant step toward a purely theoretical "freedom of speech" – a "freedom" of which fewer and fewer Norwegians, after this officially sanctioned act of national humiliation, will dare to avail themselves. ...
Many Islamists do not hide the fact that their long-term goal is to turn Europe, step by step, into a Muslim caliphate ruled by sharia law. Alas, it looks at present as if the cartoon controversy may turn out to have been a significant step on the way to that goal. One thing is clear, at any rate: these have been the darkest days for European freedom in many a decade." (See also: "Barbarians in the Gates" (Joshua Trevino, The Brussels Journal, 2006/02/12) and "Editor apologizes for caricatures" (Aftenposten, 2006/02/10))

"Mohammed cartoons derail talks on rights body" (swissinfo/NZZ Online, 2006/02/15)
The Danish cartoon affair III: "Talks to establish a new United Nations human rights body in Geneva have been thrown into disarray by Muslim calls for new clauses against blasphemy.
Fifty-seven Islamic nations have demanded the insertion of three amendments following the controversy over cartoons of Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper. ...
he proposed Human Rights Council is based on a model drawn up by Swiss human rights expert, Walter Kälin.
Talks were derailed when leading members of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) added new conditions to the already heated debate over the rights body, diplomats and UN officials said.
In the document handed to the UN on Monday, the OIC said "the defamation of religions or prophets is not in accordance with free speech" and that states, organisations and media "had a responsibility to promote tolerance and respect for religious and cultural values".
The OIC told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that language against blasphemy should be written into the tenets for a human rights council. So far, Western nations as well as UN officials are resisting such a move."

"Three Killed in Massive Cartoon Protests" (Riaz Khan, AP/Yahoo! News, 2006/02/15)
The Danish cartoon affair II: "PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Gunfire and rioting erupted Wednesday as tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Pakistan's third straight day of violent protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons. Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy.
More than 70,000 people flooded the streets of Peshawar, said Saeed Wazir, a senior police officer. The huge crowd went on a rampage, torching businesses and fighting police who struck back with tear gas and batons. A bus terminal operated by South Korea's Sammi Corp. was torched, police said.
Protesters also burned a KFC restaurant, three movie theaters and the offices of the main mobile phone company. A Norwegian mobile phone company's offices were also ransacked. Gunfire was heard near the burning KFC, as police tried to clear people from a main street, witnesses said.
An 8-year-old boy died after being struck in the face by a bullet fired by a protester, police officer Shahid Khan said. A 25-year-old man was killed by an electric cable that was snapped by gunfire, said the man's cousin, Jehangir Khan.
At least 45 people were injured, Khan and witnesses said."

"Decline of the West" (Paul Greenberg, The Washington Times, 2006/02/15)
The Danish cartoon affair I: "Note the West's response, or lack of it, to the violent scenes in the Arab world and beyond as ambassadors are called home, boycotts declared, embassies burned, flags stomped et (usual) cetera -- all in response to some less-than-respectful depictions in a Danish newspaper of the Prophet, the blessings of Allah be upon him and all his household.
In response, Western politicians and businessmen speak of freedom of the press in muted, pro-forma tones if they remember to defend that outdated idea at all. Right now the West's leaders seem to be lining up to explain how horrified they are at the tastelessness and worse of these cartoons -- as if one could have liberty without tolerating license. ...
What distinguishes a great civilization is its tolerance of ideas it does not share and even sees as offensive. There was a time when the Arab world was the tolerant realm while Christian Europe was mired in the Dark Ages. And Arabdom's decline proceeded in step with its refusal to tolerate different ideas.
But instead of pointing out all that, much of the West just hunkers down and hopes this storm, too, will pass. As if freedom isn't worth explai