By Gary Gerofsky

When I got involved in activism (around the time of the events of 9/11), my efforts included a bit of writing and some reading on topics I had previously only a cursory knowledge. At the time, I had never anticipated to be confronted and tripped up by people who I assumed to be on “our” side. My assumptions were soon burst when I began to observe and understand that the “new” left-wing of mainstream Jewish groups were: a) more interested in suppressing anyone who was slightly to their right (especially on the question of Israel) than in dealing with hate from jihadists, defending Israel or working against the campus threats; b) focused like a laser on control over the agenda and keeping certain people in power forever as primary objectives; and c) craving recognition and praise from the general community for a dialogue advertising inclusivity but in actuality excluding a whole lot of people and appealing to those with a proven record of hated towards the Jewish community.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Freedom of speech and women’s rights just took a major hit in Denmark earlier today when the public prosecutor found Lars Hedegaard, the President of the Danish (and International) Free Press Society, guilty of “hate speech” under section 266b of the Danish penal code.

Hedegaard’s crime was to note “the great number of family rapes in areas dominated by Muslim culture in Denmark.”

The prosecutor’s crime is far greater. Now, courtesy of this prosecution, it is officially “racist” to tell the truth about sexual violence against women in Denmark, at least when that violence is perpetrated by Muslim fathers, uncles, or cousins.

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by David J. Rusin*

Law enforcement scrutiny, detainment by police, and a court date to answer trumped-up charges: these are the consequences of preaching Christianity to Muslims not only throughout much of the Islamic world, but sometimes even in America as well.

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by Hillel Zaremba*

Aaron Proctor, a Philadelphia-based libertarian writer, can count himself the latest victim of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that ironically claims to work for civil rights.

Proctor, a colorful commentator for the Philadelphia version of Examiner.com, had the temerity to investigate CAIR’s dubious background in connection with its Philadelphia branch’s planned fundraising dinner on March 12 at a municipal facility, the Springfield Country Club. CAIR-PA invited Johari Abdul-Malik to deliver one of the evening’s main addresses. Abdul-Malik works at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, which has the distinction of being the former base for an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and for Anwar al-Awlaki, mentor to Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hasan and underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

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by Phyllis Chesler

The information is in and I don’t like it one bit. On the other hand, if one remains flexible, realistic, and calm and persists in telling the truth, one may also prevail.

I am talking about the hoops one has to jump through in order to be heard on any subject having to do with Islam.

I am not talking about the Danish Mohammed cartoon controversy, the criminal trials of the heroically determined Dutchman, Geert Wilders, or the unexpectedly great Austrian, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff. I am not even talking about Lars Hedegaard of the Danish Free Speech Society, who was put on trial for making “racist” statements about Muslims, Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, or Lars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist, who has required 24-hour protection. I am not even talking about the high-profile and world-class beauty, Aayan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch-American feminist anti-Islamist.

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by Phyllis Chesler

Earlier this week, France put its 2010 law banning the veil into effect, spurring angry demonstrations in both Paris and London. Two women were arrested, not because they were wearing burqas but because they participated in an illegal demonstration. Parisian police arrested 61 people this past weekend for holding an outlawed protest on this issue.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

The now infamous Koran burning by Florida pastor Terry Jones has created hysteria in the Muslim world. In Afghanistan alone, some twenty people, including U.N. workers, have been killed and beheaded to screams of “Allahu Akbar!” Western leaders around the globe — including Obama and members of Congress — have unequivocally condemned Jones’ actions (without bothering to point out that freedom of expression is a prized American liberty). Many are even blaming the deaths in Afghanistan directly on Jones; Bill O’Reilley says he has “blood on his hands.”

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By Fern Sidman

Exceptionally heavy security prevailed at Brooklyn College on Thursday evening, March 10th, as conservative commentator, prolific author and founder of the FrontPage Mag web site, David Horowitz, delivered a lecture in response to the propaganda being promulgated by the organizers of Israeli Apartheid Week on campus.

Over 150 people gathered at the college library auditorium to listen to Mr. Horowitz’s speech entitled the “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Myths and Facts” and was sponsored and organized by Brooklyn College student Yosef Sobel and Mitchell Langbert, an associate professor in the department of business and economics. “Because the Hillel organization on campus was too afraid to sponsor me, I must thank those who had the courage to do so.” said Mr. Horowitz. Despite numerous warnings prohibiting verbal disruptions, bellicose Muslim student hecklers abounded and Mr. Horowitz’s remarks were often punctuated by the sounds of acrimonious, ad hominem attacks.

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Pakistan’s, “blasphemy law holds a death sentence for anyone who insults Islam. … Although no-one convicted under the blasphemy law has ever been executed, more than 30 accused have been killed by lynch mobs.” Today, Shahbaz Bhatti, the Pakistani government’s only Christian cabinet minister was, “shot dead by gunmen who ambushed his car in broad daylight in the capital, Islamabad. … In January, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who had also opposed the law, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards.”

Such savagery; such ignorance. The word “blasphemy” reeks of societal backwardness and smells of a total misunderstanding of free speech. Murder to silence free expression is anathema to everything the Western World has been built upon. Pakistani Minister Bhatti was not only savagely slaughtered, but he was set up by an increasingly bold Islamist movement in his home country:

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A Virginia man who encouraged the murder of Matt Stone and Trey Parker over an episode of “South Park” that portrayed the Muslim prophet Muhammed dressed as a bear was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday. …

Reuters, Feb. 24, 2011

I wouldn’t have been so kind to this savage Islamist who wished to silence all dissent — actually ANY discussion and free speech — ABOUT Mohamed. I have to put up with the “Piss Christ” and countless poisonous attacks against Jews. Muslims can put up with FREE SPEECH like the rest of us. I would’ve sentenced this guy to life and thrown the keys in the toilet. But at least our justice system DID take notice and hand down a relatively harsh sentence against this wannabe murderer of innocents. Here’s more about this poor excuse for a human:

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By Andrew Whitehead

A joint letter signed by CAIR, radical Islamist supporting groups, and several like-minded individuals has called on the Orange County District Attorney, Tony Rackauckas, to stop pursuing felony criminal charges against members of UCI Muslim Student Union (MSU). Members of the MSU planned and implemented a protest that interrupted a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at the University of California, Irvine in February 2010.

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by Phyllis Chesler

On January 24, 2011, the distinguished Lars Hedegaard, the President of the Danish Free Press Society and the International Free Press Society, will stand trial for telling the truth about Islamic gender apartheid.

Europe, once the birthplace of freedom, is fast becoming its graveyard.

True, the Church tortured and burned many geniuses as heretics; Dutch Jews excommunicated Spinoza; wars for religious supremacy raged for hundreds of years. Still, concepts such as free speech and individual human rights over and above the divine rights of Kings gradually ruled the European zeitgeist. Americans and other former colonists romanticized Europe as “the” place for artists, free thinkers, and free spirits.

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by Daniel Huff*

On December 29, Scandinavian authorities arrested five terrorists planning an attack in Denmark. Almost as interesting as what they targeted is what they spared and the lessons it holds for future counterterrorism efforts.

The plot was to storm the Copenhagen newsroom of Jyllands Posten and murder its staff. It was the fourth attempt this year by Islamic extremists to punish the newspaper that published the Mohammed cartoons. But the terrorists are guilty of selective prosecution. They have yet to strike Politiken, which also published the cartoons, even though its offices are literally next door.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

It’s good that an NPR executive resigned to “atone” for the attempt to silence Juan Williams’ free speech, but she wasn’t motivated by contrition, rather she was scapegoated by an organization trying to cover its collective rear end(s).

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Here… we… go… again… Attempted murder of innocent civilians over a frickin’ cartoon!

Police in Denmark and Sweden said they thwarted a terrorist attack possibly hours before it was to begin Wednesday, arresting five men they say planned to shoot as many people as possible in a Copenhagen building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Four suspects were arrested in the suburbs of Copenhagen, including a Tunisian, a man from Lebanon and an Iraqi asylum-seeker. A fifth suspect, a Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, was arrested in Sweden. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said it seized a submachine gun, a silencer and ammunition.

“An imminent terror attack has been foiled,” said Jakob Scharf, head of the service. He said three of the men were arrested as they left a suburban Copenhagen apartment, “either heading out to carry out the terror attack or to do some kind of reconnaissance.”

Scharf described some of the suspects as “militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks.” He said more arrests were possible. …

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