Free Speech Does Not Exist In Britain

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about a recent court case in Britain.

The article reports:

It’s a verdict that would make the Ayatollah smile. Today, in nominally liberal Britain, a man has been found guilty of a crime after he dared to burn a Koran in public. Hamit Coskun, a Turkish-born asylum seeker, has been convicted of a ‘religiously aggravated public-order offence’ over his – quite literally – incendiary protest outside of the Turkish consulate in London in February, against what he sees as the Islamist turn of Erdogan’s Turkey. If nothing else, Coskun’s stunt has exposed the Islamist-apologist turn of our own United Kingdom.

On paper, Coskun has been convicted of ‘disorderly behaviour within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress’, motivated by ‘hostility towards members of a religious group, namely followers of Islam’, contrary to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and the Public Order Act 1986. But we all know what that word salad really means in practice, regardless of the judge’s many assurances to the contrary. Coskun has been convicted, and fined £240, for blasphemy. All by a supposedly secular court.

The article also mentions that Hamit Coskun was attacked by two people during his protest–one of whom attacked him with a knife. The article notes, “Remarkably, this is used as proof of his guilt.”

The question that comes to my mind is, “What would have been the penalty for burning a Bible?” Also, how does the logic in this conviction compare to the women who was arrested for silently praying outside an abortion clinic?

It is telling that the most popular boys’ names in the UK for 2023 were Muhammad, Noah, and Oliver. Muhammad has recently overtaken Noah as the top choice for baby boys in England and Wales. England is losing its place as a stronghold of western civilization.

No, It’s Not A Religion Of Peace

Anyone who has studied Islam understands that it is not a religion of peace. Muslims who truly believe the Quran are taught that it is not a crime to murder a non-Muslim. Hatred of non-Muslims is part of their doctrine.

On Wednesday, One America News posted an article reporting:

According to government officials and local residents, a large mob of Muslim men vandalized eight churches and several homes following accusations of blasphemy against Islam in Pakistan’s most populous province of Punjab on Wednesday, escalating tensions between local majority Muslim and minority Christian communities.

In an update on Wednesday, the National Commission for Human Rights stated that the number of churches burned “has risen to eight,” calling the situation “sad and shameful.”

A police report obtained by the press said that two Christian men in the town of Jaranwala were charged by local police with allegedly “desecrating the holy Quran and abusing the Prophet Mohammed.” According to the report, the men were charged with “blasphemy” under Pakistani law.

Pakistani Christian communities are routinely persecuted under the country’s strict blasphemy laws, which activists claim have historically been used to persecute minority groups and isolate them from public life.

According to Yasir Talib, who works for the Center for Social Justice, the crowd also vandalized and set fire to the home of one Christian man accused of making blasphemous general comments about Islam.

Talib told the press that multiple churches, including the town’s Catholic Church, Salvation Army Church, Pentecostal Church, and the local Christian colony, had been vandalized and set on fire.

The article concludes:

Pakistan is one country where blasphemy is a capital offense that is punishable by death.

In 2013, angry Muslim men in Lahore’s Badami Bagh community set fire to more than 100 homes of Christians after police arrested a 20-year-old man accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammed.

Three years earlier, a mother of five from Punjab was found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to death for defiling the name of the Prophet Mohammed.

Asia Bibi was released from death row in 2018 after successfully appealing her conviction and death sentence.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It includes a video of a young Muslim man explaining that he hates Christians and Jews in the name of Allah. Remember that the planes that hit the World Trade Center were crashed into those buildings in the name of Allah.

Sharia Law In America

There are many aspects of Sharia Law that are different from American Constitutional law. One of the more obvious is the conflict between the concept of free speech and the penalty for blasphemy. On Tuesday, The American Thinker posted an article about a bill that was recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives that will move America in the direction of Sharia Law.

Congress.gov (you have to go to the site and put in the bill number as the specific link expires) describes HR 5665 as follows:

Passed House (12/14/2021)

Combating International Islamophobia Act

This bill establishes within the Department of State the Office to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia and addresses related issues.

The office shall monitor and combat acts of Islamophobia and Islamophobic incitement in foreign countries. The bill establishes the position of Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Islamophobia, who shall head the office.

The bill also requires certain existing annual reports to Congress about human rights and religious freedom in foreign countries to include information about Islamophobia, such as information about (1) acts of physical violence or harassment of Muslim people, (2) instances of propaganda in government and nongovernment media that attempt to justify or promote hatred or incite violence against Muslim people, and (3) actions taken by a country’s government to respond to such acts. The office shall coordinate and assist in preparing these portions of the reports.

No funds made available pursuant to the bill may be used to promote or endorse a boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement ideology (i.e., economic measures against Israel or Israel-related individuals or organizations) or used to promote or endorse a Muslim ban.

It is no surprise that the bill is sponsored by Ilhan Omar.

The American Thinker reports:

The actual text of the bill not only seeks to eradicate blasphemy against Islam around the world – and solely against Islam at that – but even requires the federal government to reorganize some portions of the State Department along the lines of an Islamic religious institution which will be responsible for interpreting the Quran.  For example, the text of the bill mandates that “[t]he Secretary of State shall establish within the Department of State an Office” and the “purpose” of the office is described as “[m]onitoring and combating acts of Islamophobia and Islamophobic incitement that occur in foreign countries.”  That is, the State Department is required to create an office that is a cross between George Orwell’s Big Brother and the Taliban.

The word ‘combat’ in the text of the law is problematic but fits in perfectly with the concept of waging violent jihad against the countries deemed to have committed blasphemy against Islam.  Almost every dictionary defines the word primarily as an action pertaining to war.  While the internet firm Google’s dictionary defines ‘combat’ as “fighting between armed forces,” Cambridge Dictionary defines the word as “a fight, especially during a war.”  According to Collins Dictionary, “combat is fighting that takes place in a war.”  This is no hyperbole as the State Department has a long history of supporting Islamic terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIS.  Former Assistant Secretary of State, Robin Raphel, ran her office as though it were an outpost of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and she lost her security clearance when she was investigated for counterintelligence activities.  Little wonder then that Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, used the term “Rogue State Department” and President Donald Trump described the State Department as the “Deep State Department.

This law is not consistent with our Constitution.

Why Immigration Matters

Immigration with assimilation is a wonderful thing. Immigration without assimilation is a threat to the national sovereignty of the country involved. Massive immigration without assimilation will eventually change the public policies of the country involved. We are currently seeing that change in Britain.

National Review posted an article today about the case of Asia Bibi. The article was written by Douglas Murray.

The article reports:

When I wrote The Strange Death of Europe, I wanted to highlight the sheer scale of change that immigration brings. Some people might be happy with it, others unhappy: but to pretend that the change doesn’t occur, or won’t occur, or isn’t very interesting so please move along has always seemed an error to me. For instance, as I noted then, an internal document from the Ministry of Defence that leaked a few years back said that Britain would no longer be able to engage militarily in a range of foreign countries because of “domestic” factors. It takes a moment to absorb this. We’re used to wondering about how immigration changes domestic politics. But foreign policy as well?

All of this is to say that the latest news from the U.K. is both thoroughly predictable and deeply disturbing. Readers of National Review will be familiar with the case of Asia Bibi. She is the Christian woman from Pakistan who has been in prison on death row for the last eight years. Her “crime” is that a neighbor accused her of “blasphemy.”

Because it is not safe for Ms. Bibi to remain in Pakistan because of her Christian faith, she is seeking asylum in various western countries. Britain has stated that it will deny Ms. Bibi asylum.

The article reports:

But today there are reports that the British government has said that it will not offer asylum to Asia Bibi. The reason being “security concerns” — that weasel term now used by all officialdom whenever it needs one last reason to avoid doing the right thing. According to this report, the government is concerned that if the U.K. offered asylum to Bibi it could cause “unrest among certain sections of the community.” And which sections would that be? Would it be Anglicans or atheists who would be furious that an impoverished and severely traumatized woman should be given shelter in their country? Of course not. The “community” that the British government will be scared of is the community that comes from the same country that has tortured Asia Bibi for the last eight years.

The article concludes:

In any case, if it is true that the British government has declined to offer Asia Bibi asylum for this reason, then it should lead to a huge national and international outcry. Among other things, it suggests that the British government has got its priorities exactly the wrong way around. For it is not Asia Bibi who should not be in Britain. It is anyone from the “communities” who would not accept Asia Bibi being in Britain who should not be in the country. Though I wouldn’t expect any British politician to express that simple truth any time soon.

Immigration without assimilation is not a good thing for any country.

 

Losing Our Moral Authority

In 2004, the country of Afghanistan set up a constitution. The idea of having a free state was encouraged by America, as we had a substantial number of troops there and were trying to establish a viable government.

The constitution Afghanistan set up to be the law of the land contained the following:

Article One

Afghanistan shall be an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Article Two

The sacred religion of Islam is the religion of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Followers of other faiths shall be free within the bounds of law in the exercise and performance of their religious rituals.

Article Three

No law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion of Islam in Afghanistan.

Article Four

National sovereignty in Afghanistan shall belong to the nation, manifested directly and through its elected representatives. The nation of Afghanistan is composed of all individuals who possess the citizenship of Afghanistan. The nation of Afghanistan shall be comprised of Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkman, Baluch, Pachaie, Nuristani, Aymaq, Arab, Qirghiz, Qizilbash, Gujur, Brahwui and other tribes. The word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. No individual of the nation of Afghanistan shall be deprived of citizenship. The citizenship and asylum related matters shall be regulated by law.

There is something here that is important–Article Three states that “no law shall contravene the tenets and provisions of the holy religion on Islam in Afghanistan.” In other words, Sharia Law is the law of the land according to the constitution of Afghanistan. We need to understand that Sharia Law and democracy (i.e. freedom) are incompatible. Sharia Law does NOT allow the free exercise of religions other than Islam. Sharia Law considers saying that Jesus is the Son of God as blasphemy, punishable by prison or possibly death. Sharia Law prohibits the sharing of Christianity–considering it blasphemy. There is no room for personal freedom in a constitution that upholds Sharia Law. That is the constitution that we allowed Afghanistan to write when we were trying to establish a viable nation. As bad as that was, we did something far worse.

On Thursday, The Hill posted an article with the following headline, “Watchdog: Troops say they were told to ignore Afghan child sex abuse.” I have another source that tells me that the troops were also told not to interfere with the poppy crop. Think about that for a minute. I understand that the poppy crop is the major industry of the country, but it is a major source of trouble around the world. Wasn’t there a way to retrain the farmers to plant something less harmful? I also understand that pedophilia is part of the Afghan culture, but it bothers me that we let it continue uninterrupted. If we were there helping the country get out from under the grip of the Taliban, didn’t we have a responsibility to uphold some sort of moral standard–regardless of the ‘cultural norm.’

I am ready for America to leave Afghanistan. However, if we choose to stay there, we have an obligation to help the people of the country find their way out of the fifth century. We can’t bomb them back to the stone age–they are already there. If we are going to continue to sacrifice money and American lives for the people of Afghanistan, we need to begin to change some of their basic customs. Pedophilia and poppy growing are ultimately moral issues. If we can’t stand for the moral issues in Afghanistan, we have no moral authority to be there.

This Is What Justice In A Muslim Country Looks Like

CNN is reporting today that Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama has been found guilty of blasphemy and has been sentenced to two years in prison.

The article reports:

Ahok was detained immediately after the verdict and taken to the Cipinang detention center in East Jakarta, local media reported. He said he would immediately appeal the court’s decision.
The Jakarta governor sparked controversy in late 2016 after quoting a verse from the Quran to prove to his supporters that there were no restrictions on Muslims voting for a non-Muslim politician.
Almost no one who has been charged under the blasphemy law has ever escaped conviction, associate professor of Indonesian politics at the Australian National University Greg Fealy told CNN.
“The blasphemy law has really been a blight on the rule of law and democracy in Indonesia for decades,” he said, adding that “the fact that Ahok was charged at all was really a product of massive street demonstrations that frightened the government into acting.”
This is one way free speech can be limited in a Muslim-majority country. In America, because blasphemy is not an everyday concept, the concept of ‘hate speech’ is being used to undermine our First Amendment rights. We also have the concept of ‘hate crime’ being introduced into our justice system. Technically a hate crime judges the motive of a criminal, which the courts have neither the authority or the means to judge. However, the concept has become a part of our justice system. That also can be used as a tool to limit free speech.