tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post3467270988305516530..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: Globalization of West's Hate Speech Against MuslimsRiaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-61163311833410143752020-11-18T10:42:09.586-08:002020-11-18T10:42:09.586-08:00#Amnestyinternational slams #French claims of bein...#Amnestyinternational slams #French claims of being champion of free-speech: "French government’s rhetoric on free speech is not enough to conceal its own shameless hypocrisy" #Macron #islamophobie<br />@TRTWorld https://www.trtworld.com/europe/amnesty-slams-french-claims-of-being-champion-of-free-speech-41462<br /><br />While the right to express views that may be perceived as offending religious beliefs is strenuously defended, Muslims’ freedoms of expression and religion usually receive scant attention in France, says Amnesty International.<br /><br />Amnesty International has said that the French government is not the champion of free speech that it likes to think it is.<br /><br />"French government’s rhetoric on free speech is not enough to conceal its own shameless hypocrisy," the UK-based organisation said in its report published on Thursday.<br /><br />"Freedom of expression means nothing unless it applies to everyone. The government’s free speech campaign should not be used for covering up the measures that put people at risk of human rights abuses including torture."<br /><br />Samuel Paty's killing<br /><br />The report said the way President Emmanuel Macron and his government responded to the killing of Samuel Paty, a French teacher who showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class, negates their claims of being supporters of free speech.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-62777947750731797172018-10-25T10:36:11.989-07:002018-10-25T10:36:11.989-07:00Insulting Prophet #Muhammad (PBUH) not '#FreeS...Insulting Prophet #Muhammad (PBUH) not '#FreeSpeech', Europe's Court of Human Rights rules. Defaming the Prophet Muhammad exceeds the permissible limits of freedom of expression, ruled the #ECtHR, upholding an #Austrian court’s decision. #Blasphemy #Islam http://sabahdai.ly/OyLmdP<br /><br />The decision by a seven-judge panel came as an Austrian national identified as E.S. by the court, had held seminars on Islam in 2008 and 2009 for the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) where she discussed the prophet's marriage to his wife Aisha, a child at the time, and implied that he was a pedophile.<br /><br />An Austrian court convicted her of disparaging religious doctrines in 2011 and fined her 480 euros (548 dollars), a judgment that was upheld on two appeals.<br /><br />Stating that the court had found that "the applicant's statements had been likely to arouse justified indignation in Muslims" and "amounted to a generalization without factual basis", the Strasbourg-based ECtHR said that the woman's comments could not be covered by the freedom of expression.<br /><br />The court said it "found in particular that the domestic courts comprehensively assessed the wider context of the applicant's statements and carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria."<br /><br />The statement also added that there had been no violation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, covering freedom of expression. "Relying on Article 10 (freedom of expression), E.S. complained that the domestic courts failed to address the substance of the impugned statements in the light of her right to freedom of expression."<br /><br />ES' statements "were not phrased in a neutral manner aimed at being an objective contribution to a public debate concerning child marriages," the ECtHR held, adding that the moderate fine imposed on her could not be considered disproportionate.<br /><br />The Austrian courts had drawn a distinction between pedophilia and child marriage, which was also a common practice historically in European ruling families.<br /><br />The ECtHR also underlined that it classified the 'impugned' statements as "an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam, which was capable of stirring up prejudice and putting at risk religious peace."<br /><br />It noted that the Austrian courts had held that ES was making value judgments partly based on untrue facts and without regard to the historical context.<br /><br />Religious beliefs must be subject to criticism and denial, the ECHR observed, but when statements about religions went beyond critical denial and were likely to incite religious intolerance, states could take proportionate restrictive measures, the court said.<br /><br />Austria, a country of 8.8 million people, has roughly 600,000 Muslim inhabitants. Lately, it has emerged as the leader of Islamophobia among European countries. The coalition government, an alliance of conservatives and the far right, came to power soon after Europe's migration crisis on promises to prevent another influx and restrict benefits for new immigrants and refugees. In April, Austria's far-right Chancellor Sebastian Kurz threatened to close one of the biggest mosques in Vienna and urged municipal authorities to be stricter regarding state subsidies for Muslim organizations in the city.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-23730450371110829192017-06-07T16:18:55.736-07:002017-06-07T16:18:55.736-07:00Religion Scholar K. Armstrong: #Islamist #violence...Religion Scholar K. Armstrong: #Islamist #violence is "in part a product of #Western disdain" #Islamophobia #terror<br /><br />https://en.qantara.de/content/interview-with-karen-armstrong-islamist-violence-is-in-part-a-product-of-western-disdain<br /><br />Armstrong: The Prophet has been caricatured in the West as a violent, epileptic, lecherous charlatan since the time of the Crusades in the Middle Ages; this distorted image of Islam developed at the same time as our European anti-Semitism which caricatured Jews as the evil, violent, perverse and powerful enemies of Europe. <br />So yes, the attack on the magazine was in part a product of Western disdain. The attack on the Jewish supermarket, which seems to have been backed by ISIS, was directed against Western support for Israel. Here too, there is an element of disdain: there has been little sustained outcry against the massive casualties in Gaza last summer, for example, which seems to some Muslims to imply that the lives of Palestinian women, children and the elderly are not as valuable as our own. <br /><br />Where do you see the roots of this disdain?<br />Armstrong: The Enlightenment ideal of freedom was, in practice, only for Europeans. The Founding Fathers of the United States, who were deeply influenced by the Enlightenment, proudly proclaimed that "All men are created equal" and enjoyed the natural human rights of life, liberty and property. But they felt no qualms about owning African slaves and driving the Native Americans out of their ancestral lands.<br />John Locke, the apostle of tolerance, wrote that a master had "absolute and despotical" rights over a slave, which included the right to kill him at any time. This continues: many of those who marched for freedom of expression in Paris were leaders of states that have supported regimes in Muslim majority countries that denied their subjects basic freedoms; Britain and the US, for example, continue to support the Saudi regime. Again, a disdain: our freedom is more important than yours.<br />Shouldn't we also look at certain Koranic verses and their interpretation throughout history to explain the phenomenon of Islamist terror?<br />Armstrong: "Throughout history", these Koranic verses have not inspired terrorist activities. Any empire depends upon force; this is true of the Indian, Chinese, Persian, Roman, Hellenistic and British empires and it is also true of the Islamic empires. Furthermore, until the modern period, Islam had a far better record of tolerance than Western Christianity. When the Crusaders conquered Jerusalem in 1099, they slaughtered the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants of the city in a massacre that shocked the Middle East, which had never seen such unbridled violence. And yet it was 50 years before there was any serious Muslim riposte. There is more violence in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament than there is in the Koran.<br />Most Christian theologians would disagree.<br />Armstrong: Those theologians who claim that there are no passages in the New Testament like Koran 2.191–93 have perhaps forgotten the Book of Revelation, which is the preferred text of many Christian fundamentalists who look forward to the battles of the imminent End Time that will destroy the enemies of God. They interpret these texts literally and quote them far more frequently than the Sermon on the Mount. The aggression towards the enemy commanded in Koran 2:191 concludes: "If they cease hostilities, there can be no further hostility." (Koran 2. 193). No such quarter is allowed those who fight the Word of God in the battles of Revelation.<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-91501030180731645402016-12-02T16:21:08.514-08:002016-12-02T16:21:08.514-08:00In a recent roundtable conversation with the New Y...In a recent roundtable conversation with the New York Times, a handful of showrunners and entertainment professionals were assembled to discuss the topic of Muslim representation on television. Quantico showrunner Joshua Safran said that it’s policy on his show to never feature Muslims as terrorists, and Howard Gordon, the co-creator of Homeland and an executive producer of 24, expressed his own concerns that his hit shows can enable regressive thinking and stoke xenophobic fears. When Gordon was asked if he was worried about Homeland being fodder for increased attacks against Muslims, Gordon said, “The short answer is, absolutely, yes,” before elaborating with the longer version.<br /><br />On Homeland, it’s an ongoing and very important conversation.<br />For instance, this year, the beginning of it involves the sort of big business of prosecuting entrapment. It actually tests the edges of free speech. How can someone express their discontent with American policy — even a reckless kid who might express his views that may be sympathetic to enemies of America, but still is not, himself, a terrorist, but is being set up to be one by the big business of government?<br />For me to answer, personally, that question, it’s a difficult one. 24 having been the launching point for me to engage in these conversations, which I have been having for 10 years, and being very conscious about not wanting to be a midwife to these base ideas. We’re all affected, unwittingly, by who we are and how we see the world. It requires creating an environment where people can speak freely about these things. It requires this vigilant empathy.<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/arts/television/can-television-be-fair-to-muslims.html?_r=1<br /><br />It has never been easy to put a Muslim character on American screens.<br /><br />Even in this TV renaissance, most characters are on shows that rely on terrorism — or at least, terrorist-adjacent — story lines. Other kinds of Muslim characters are woefully absent across the dial. Could that change now, after a divisive presidential campaign that included vows by Donald J. Trump to stop Islamic immigration? Or will it be more difficult than ever?Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-64194191854648399852016-05-17T21:46:20.067-07:002016-05-17T21:46:20.067-07:00Excerpts of an NPR Fresh Air interview with Viet T...Excerpts of an NPR Fresh Air interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize winning author of "The Sympathizer":<br /><br /><br />one of the first movies that I remember watching was "Apocalypse Now." I was probably about 10. And I think that was the first indication, also, that I had that there was something called this war and that this was how Americans saw this war as one that had divided them. And that was my first glimmering that there was something like a civil war happening in the American soul and that we as Vietnamese people were caught up in that because I watched that movie as a good, American boy who had already seen some American war movies - John Wayne in World War II.<br /><br />And I was cheering for the American soldiers until the moment in "Apocalypse Now" where they started killing Vietnamese people. And that was an impossible moment for me because I didn't know who I was supposed to identify with, the Americans who were doing the killing or the Vietnamese who were dying and not being able to speak?<br /><br />And that moment has never left me as the symbolic moment of my understanding that this was our place in an American war, that the Vietnam War was an American war from the American perspective and that, eventually, I would have to do something about that.<br /><br /><br />-------<br /><br />Their function is to literally just be stage props for an American drama. And my narrator understands this. And he understands it very intellectually and viscerally that what is happening here is that Hollywood is the unofficial ministry of propaganda for the Pentagon, that its role is to basically prepare Americans to go fight wars by making them focus only on the American understanding of things and to understand others as alien and different and marginal, even to their own histories, right?<br /><br />And so his belief is that he can somehow try to subvert this ministry of propaganda, this vast war epic that is going to continue to kill Vietnamese people in a cinematic fashion, which is simply the prelude to actually killing Vietnamese people in real life. So he believes that he can try to make a difference. And, of course, the humor and the tragedy is that he can't.<br /><br /><br />------<br /><br />you know, that the United States lost the war, in fact, in 1975. But for the very same reason that the United States was able to wage a war in which it lost 58,000 American soldiers, which is a human tragedy, but was able to create the conditions by which 3 million Vietnamese people died of all sides and 3 million Laotians and Cambodians died during those years and in the years afterwards.<br /><br />For the very same reasons that the industrial power of the United States is able to produce this vast inequity of death, that's the same reason that the United States, in the years afterward, through its incredibly powerful cultural industry, is able to win the war in memory because wherever you go outside of Vietnam, you have to deal with American memories of the Vietnam War. Inside Vietnam, you have to confront Vietnamese memories. But outside, wherever I've gone and talked about the Vietnam War and memory, one of the first questions that I get is what do you think of "Apocalypse Now?" So...<br /><br />---------<br /><br />Americans are preoccupied with their own experiences. That's an exact replication of the mindset that got us into Vietnam and that has now allowed Americans to remember the Vietnam War in a certain way that makes it an America war.<br /><br /><br />http://www.npr.org/2016/05/17/478384200/author-viet-thanh-nguyen-discusses-the-sympathizer-and-his-escape-from-vietnamRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-50582975900800277262016-01-15T09:35:47.962-08:002016-01-15T09:35:47.962-08:00#YouTube launches #Urdu version in #Pakistan even ...#YouTube launches #Urdu version in #Pakistan even though it’s still banned there <br /><br />http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/youtube-pakistan-launch-currently-banned/ … via @DigitalTrends<br /><br /><br />YouTube has launched a localized Urdu version of the site in Pakistan but there’s a catch: viewers who currently live in Pakistan aren’t able to access it. YouTube has been banned in Pakistan since 2012 when the world’s largest online video platform refused to take down a controversial American-made video which disrespected the Prophet Mohammed. The ban could be overturned soon, though, according to reports.<br />Google is hoping that the new site, youtube.com.pk, will convince the country’s Supreme Court to lift the ban. “We are in a very near-term sort of thing,” said an unnamed source to AFP (via Billboard). “The roadblocks have been removed.”<br />Related: EFF sides with YouTube, says T-Mobile is throttling video on its network<br />If the country reconsiders the ban, it would require Google to comply with removal requests. “The understanding is that on the localised version offensive and blasphemous content could be blocked by Google on the government’s request,” said a telecommunications authority in the country to the AFP.<br /><br />While it sounds like Google is willing to compromise with the country, a spokesman for the tech giant explained that it would continue to review requests before taking them down. “Government requests to remove content will continue to be tracked and included in our Transparency Report.”<br />Pakistan’s block of the video streamer in 2012 occurred after Google refused to take down an anti-Islam video called “Innocence of Muslims” which sparked deadly protests. Since that time, many locals have used proxies to access the site.<br />In addition to Pakistan, YouTube also launched country-specific home pages featuring local content in Nepal and Sri Lanka this week. The video streamer highlighted popular local content in the three countries in a blog post Tuesday. In the section on Pakistan, YouTube’s Asia Pacific director Gautam Anand said that Pakistanis “love YouTube’s diverse music offerings” like the Coke Studio series (above) which captures live performances of artists from across the country.<br /><br /><br />Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/youtube-pakistan-launch-currently-banned/#ixzz3xKrzicpN <br />Follow us: @digitaltrends on Twitter | digitaltrendsftw on FacebookRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-84387619378573211782015-09-16T22:00:05.139-07:002015-09-16T22:00:05.139-07:00#Google ponders purified #Pakistani #YouTube #Paki...#Google ponders purified #Pakistani #YouTube #Pakistan http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/17/google_ponders_purified_pakistani_youtube/ … via @theregister <br /><br />Pakistan's Standing Committee on Information Technology and Communications has recommended that the nation end its ban on YouTube.<br /><br />Pakistan was unhappy with YouTube for years, on grounds that it made it possible to view content considered blasphemous. Once the controversial film “Innocence of Muslims” made it to Google's streaming site in 2012, the nation blocked YouTube and plenty of other sites too.<br /><br />That ban has stood since 2012, largely thanks to the requirement that the nation's Supreme Court waive the decision. Pakistani citizens protested the ban with a widely-signed petition that, after being ignored for a couple of years, appeared on the agenda of a Tuesday meeting of the Standing Committee.<br /><br />Pakistani media reports suggest the outcome of that meeting was a recommendation that Pakistan lift the ban, as discussions between the nation and Google have reached the point at which search and advertising giant is willing to create a blasphemy-free version of YouTube just for Pakistani viewers.<br /><br />One report, from Daily Pakistan, says the ban stood for so long because Google asked Pakistan to pay for a blasphemous material filtering service.<br /><br />All reports agree that Google and Pakistan are talking with a view to getting YouTube switched back on on the nation. If that happens it will be another sign, if any are needed, of Google's enthusiasm for a strong presence in developing nations. Last week the company dropped the floor price for apps in India to just US$0.15, down from $0.75. Google's also pursuing Project Loon to bathe developing nations in broadband-from-balloons in order to hasten internet adoption in countries where even mobile networks aren't widespread. ®Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-31546388921098094242015-04-26T08:58:41.108-07:002015-04-26T08:58:41.108-07:00Famous Doonesbury Cartoonist Garry Trudeau on Char...Famous Doonesbury Cartoonist Garry Trudeau on Charlie Hebdo crossing the line "into the realm of hate speech" by its "vulgar drawings" of Prophet Muhammad:<br /><br />Apparently he crossed some red line that was in place for one minority but not another. By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voila—the 7 million copies that were published following the killings did exactly that, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world, including one in Niger, in which ten people died. Meanwhile, the French government kept busy rounding up and arresting over 100 Muslims who had foolishly used their freedom of speech to express their support of the attacks.<br /><br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2015/04/14/doonesburys-garry-trudeau-on-free-speech-responsible-satire-and-charlie-hebdo/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-42654813955953762642015-01-10T10:43:57.733-08:002015-01-10T10:43:57.733-08:00 The whole reason the concept of responsible satir... The whole reason the concept of responsible satire has been summed up as “punch up, don’t punch down”...... Muslims in France are clearly worse off overall than, say, Jean Sarkozy (the son of former president Nicholas Sarkozy) and his wife Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, but Charlie Hebdo saw fit to apologize for an anti-Semitic caricature of Ms. Sebaoun-Darty and fire longtime cartoonist Siné over the incident while staunchly standing fast on their right to troll Muslims by showing Muhammad naked and bending over—which tells you something about the brand of satire they practice and, when push comes to shove, that they’d rather be aiming downward than upward.....I mean, Muslims in France right now aren’t doing so great. The scars of the riots nine years ago are still fresh for many people, Muslims make up 60 to 70 percent of the prison population despite being less than 20 percent of the population overall, and France’s law against “religious symbols in public spaces” is specifically enforced to target Muslim women who choose to wear hijab—ironic considering we’re now touting Charlie Hebdo as a symbol of France’s staunch commitment to civil liberties.<br /><br />http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/09/trolls-and-martyrdom-je-ne-suis-pas-charlie.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-20310716487578789842015-01-10T09:22:01.997-08:002015-01-10T09:22:01.997-08:00Maurice Sinet, 86, who works under the pen name Si...Maurice Sinet, 86, who works under the pen name Sine in the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, faced charges of "inciting racial hatred" for a column he wrote in 2009. The piece sparked a slanging match among the Parisian intelligentsia and ended in his dismissal from the magazine.<br />"L'affaire Sine" followed the engagement of Mr Sarkozy, 22, to Jessica Sebaoun-Darty, the Jewish heiress of an electronic goods chain. Commenting on an unfounded rumour that the president's son planned to convert to Judaism, Sine quipped: "He'll go a long way in life, that little lad."<br />A high-profile political commentator slammed the column as linking prejudice about Jews and social success. Charlie Hebdo's editor, Philippe Val, asked Sinet to apologise but he refused in a very strictly manner.<br />Mr Val's decision to fire Sine was backed by a group of eminent intellectuals, including the philosopher Bernard-Henry Lévy, but parts of the libertarian Left defended him, citing the right to free speech.<br />As mocking young Mr Sarkozy converted to Judaism for money, Sine was accused of being Anti-Semitic and faced many preassures leading him to be fired from the weekly magazine. The same magazine published cartoons even insulting the Islam Prophet Muhammad and Muslims yet explained them as “freedom of speech.”<br />Charlie Hebdo published cartoons about Prophet Jesus and Chiristianity, too, causing the magazine being sued 12 times by Catholic Chuch.<br /><br />http://www.worldbulletin.net/world/152585/charlie-hebdo-fired-cartoonist-for-anti-semitism-in-2009Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-14064160190161650442015-01-10T09:16:55.899-08:002015-01-10T09:16:55.899-08:00Europe's history of mocking Islam and its prop...Europe's history of mocking Islam and its prophet is well documented in "Muhammad in Europe" by Minou Reeves....it covers everything from Dante's Inferno to Voltaire's Mahomet. The difference now is that the social media has made such anti-Muslim bigotry much more commerce-oriented and accessible to a globalized world<br /><br />------------<br /><br />Charlie Hebdo, the New Yorker now claims, “followed in the tradition of Voltaire.” Voltaire stands as the god of satire; any godless Frenchman with a bon mot is measured against him. Everyone remembers his diatribes against the power of the Catholic Church: Écrasez l’Infâme! But what’s often conveniently omitted amid the adulation of his wit is how Voltaire loathed a powerless religion, the outsiders of his own era, the “medieval,” “barbaric” immigrant minority that afflicted Europe: the Jews.<br /><br />Voltaire’s anti-Semitism was comprehensive. In its contempt for the putatively “primitive,” it anticipates much that is said about Muslims in Europe and the US today. “The Jews never were natural philosophers, nor geometricians, nor astronomers,” Voltaire declared. That would do head Islamophobe Richard Dawkins proud:<br /><br />The Jews, Voltaire wrote, are “only an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched.” When some American right-wing yahoo calls Muslims “goatfuckers,” you might think he’s reciting old Appalachian invective. In fact, he’s repeating Voltaire’s jokes about the Jews. “You assert that your mothers had no commerce with he-goats, nor your fathers with she-goats,” Voltaire demanded of them. “But pray, gentlemen, why are you the only people upon earth whose laws have forbidden such commerce? Would any legislator ever have thought of promulgating this extraordinary law if the offence had not been common?”<br /><br /><br />http://paper-bird.net/2015/01/09/why-i-am-not-charlie/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-4401914659775300252015-01-10T09:12:03.165-08:002015-01-10T09:12:03.165-08:00David Brooks in NY Times: "The first thing to... David Brooks in NY Times: "The first thing to say, I suppose, is that whatever you might have put on your Facebook page yesterday, it is inaccurate for most of us to claim, Je Suis Charlie Hebdo, or I Am Charlie Hebdo. Most of us don’t actually engage in the sort of deliberately offensive humor that that newspaper specializes in. We might have started out that way. When you are 13, it seems daring and provocative to “épater la bourgeoisie,” to stick a finger in the eye of authority, to ridicule other people’s religious beliefs. But after a while that seems puerile. Most of us move toward more complicated views of reality and more forgiving views of others. (Ridicule becomes less fun as you become more aware of your own frequent ridiculousness.) Most of us do try to show a modicum of respect for people of different creeds and faiths. We do try to open conversations with listening rather than insult."<br /><br />David Brooks: "I Am Not #CharlieHebdo" "A lot of people quick to lionize those who offend Islamists in France" http://nyti.ms/1xMYHGJ<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-45721940921762132082015-01-10T09:10:05.554-08:002015-01-10T09:10:05.554-08:00Kareem Abdul Jabbar: "When the Ku Klux Klan b...Kareem Abdul Jabbar: "When the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross in a black family’s yard, prominent Christians aren’t required to explain how these aren’t really Christian acts. Most people already realize that the KKK doesn’t represent Christian teachings. That’s what I and other Muslims long for—the day when these terrorists praising Mohammed or Allah’s name as they debase their actual teachings are instantly recognized as thugs disguising themselves as Muslims. It’s like bank robbers wearing masks of presidents; we don’t really think Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush hit the Bank of America during their down time". http://time.com/3662152/kareem-abdul-jabbar-paris-charlie-hebdo-terrorist-attacks-are-not-about-religion/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-34937024954885357232014-10-27T20:32:44.700-07:002014-10-27T20:32:44.700-07:00Assange believes #Google is an extension US govt a...Assange believes #Google is an extension US govt and instrument of US Policy. http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447 …<br /><br />From Newsweek by Julian Assange of Wikileaks:<br /><br />It was at this point that I realized Eric Schmidt might not have been an emissary of Google alone. Whether officially or not, he had been keeping some company that placed him very close to Washington, D.C., including a well-documented relationship with President Obama. Not only had Hillary Clinton’s people known that Eric Schmidt’s partner had visited me, but they had also elected to use her as a back channel.<br /><br />While WikiLeaks had been deeply involved in publishing the inner archive of the U.S. State Department, the U.S. State Department had, in effect, snuck into the WikiLeaks command center and hit me up for a free lunch. Two years later, in the wake of his early 2013 visits to China, North Korea and Burma, it would come to be appreciated that the chairman of Google might be conducting, in one way or another, “back-channel diplomacy” for Washington. But at the time it was a novel thought.<br /><br />I put it aside until February 2012, when WikiLeaks—along with over thirty of our international media partners—began publishing the Global Intelligence Files: the internal email spool from the Texas-based private intelligence firm Stratfor. One of our stronger investigative partners—the Beirut-based newspaper Al Akhbar— scoured the emails for intelligence on Jared Cohen.<br /><br />The people at Stratfor, who liked to think of themselves as a sort of corporate CIA, were acutely conscious of other ventures that they perceived as making inroads into their sector. Google had turned up on their radar. In a series of colorful emails they discussed a pattern of activity conducted by Cohen under the Google Ideas aegis, suggesting what the “do” in “think/do tank” actually means.<br /><br />Cohen’s directorate appeared to cross over from public relations and “corporate responsibility” work into active corporate intervention in foreign affairs at a level that is normally reserved for states. Jared Cohen could be wryly named Google’s “director of regime change.”<br /><br />According to the emails, he was trying to plant his fingerprints on some of the major historical events in the contemporary Middle East. He could be placed in Egypt during the revolution, meeting with Wael Ghonim, the Google employee whose arrest and imprisonment hours later would make him a PR-friendly symbol of the uprising in the Western press. Meetings had been planned in Palestine and Turkey, both of which—claimed Stratfor emails—were killed by the senior Google leadership as too risky.<br />---------<br /><br />Looking for something more concrete, I began to search in WikiLeaks’ archive for information on Cohen. State Department cables released as part of Cablegate reveal that Cohen had been in Afghanistan in 2009, trying to convince the four major Afghan mobile phone companies to move their antennas onto U.S. military bases. In Lebanon, he quietly worked to establish an intellectual and clerical rival to Hezbollah, the “Higher Shia League.” And in London he offered Bollywood movie executives funds to insert anti-extremist content into their films, and promised to connect them to related networks in Hollywood.<br /><br />---------<br /><br />If the future of the Internet is to be Google, that should be of serious concern to people all over the world—in Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the former Soviet Union and even in Europe—for whom the Internet embodies the promise of an alternative to U.S. cultural, economic, and strategic hegemony.<br /><br />A “don’t be evil” empire is still an empire.<br /><br />Extracted from When Google Met Wikileaks by Julian Assange published by OR Books. Newsweek readers can obtain a 20 percent discount on the cover price when ordering from the OR Books website and including the offer code word NEWSWEEK.<br /><br />http://www.newsweek.com/assange-google-not-what-it-seems-279447Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-63340541635221746262014-10-13T22:10:35.662-07:002014-10-13T22:10:35.662-07:00Five scary Christopher Columbus quotes that let yo...Five scary Christopher Columbus quotes that let you celebrate the holiday the right way<br /><br />1. Conquest: the perfect chaser for expelling Muslims and Jews. You don’t have to be an academic to link Spain’s colonial expansion abroad with its inquisition at home. Columbus made the connection himself. Of course he saw this as a good thing, not a bad one– a killer combo, if you will. He wrote to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain... <br /><br />YOUR HIGHNESSES, as Catholic Christians and Princes who love the holy Christian faith, and the propagation of it, and who are enemies to the sect of Mahoma [Islam] and to all idolatries and heresies, resolved to send me, Cristóbal Colon, to the said parts of India to see the said princes … with a view that they might be converted to our holy faith …. Thus, after having turned out all the Jews from all your kingdoms and lordships … your Highnesses gave orders to me that with a sufficient fleet I should go to the said parts of India …. I shall forget sleep, and shall work at the business of navigation, so that the service is performed.<br />2. These Natives are so nice, we’d be crazy not to enslave them! This excerpt from Columbus’ diary describes the Arawak people who greeted him and his men:<br /><br />They … brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded everything they owned… . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features…. They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane… . They would make fine servants…. With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.<br />3. I was right about how easy that whole subjugation thing would be! In another letter to King Ferdinand, Columbus wrote <br /><br />As soon as I arrived in the Indies, in the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force, in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts. And so it was that they soon understood us, and we them, either by speech or by signs, and they have been very serviceable. <br />4. Rape! Columbus was such a mensch, he would let his men do whatever they wanted with the natives they captured. One of his men and a childhood friend of Columbus, Michele da Cuneo, describes in a letter how he raped a native woman:<br /><br />While I was in the boat, I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me. When I had taken her to my cabin she was naked—as was their custom. I was filled with a desire to take my pleasure with her and attempted to satisfy my desire. She was unwilling, and so treated me with her nails that I wished I had never begun. But—to cut a long story short—I then took a piece of rope and whipped her soundly, and she let forth such incredible screams that you would not have believed your ears. Eventually we came to such terms, I assure you, that you would have thought that she had been brought up in a school for whores.<br />5. Not so Christian. But the anecdote captured above was not some isolated incident of cruelty. Ironically, but in no way surprisingly, the Spanish who came to save the “heathens” from their idolatry, weren’t very Christ-like in their behavior. In his book The Devastation of the Indies. Bartolome de las Casas, the priest who accompanied Columbus on his conquest of Cuba, detailed the abuse and murder of the native population:<br /><br />5. Not so Christian. But the anecdote captured above was not some isolated incident of cruelty. Ironically, but in no way surprisingly, the Spanish who came to save the “heathens” from their idolatry, weren’t very Christ-like in their behavior. ..<br /><br />http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/five-scary-christopher-columbus-quotes-that-let-you-celebrate-the-holiday-the-right-wayRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-45232177572264295392014-04-12T17:45:13.464-07:002014-04-12T17:45:13.464-07:00Ayan Hirsi Ali, who was dis-invited by Brandeis Un...Ayan Hirsi Ali, who was dis-invited by Brandeis University where she was to receive an honorary degree, tells Muslims to convert to Christianity by quoting verses in The Quran that she sees as encouraging violence and misogyny but she fails to see similar verses in The Bible....<br />Here are some verses from a Holy Book:<br />1. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”<br />2. “If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and worship other gods’ ... do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death.”<br />3. “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.”<br />Q. Are these from the Quran or the Bible?<br />A. From the Bible. Matthew 10:34, Deuteronomy 13:6-9, Numbers 31:17-18Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-79470844851319030862014-02-26T16:04:19.161-08:002014-02-26T16:04:19.161-08:00Youtube video ordered removed in an actress's ...Youtube video ordered removed in an actress's copy right lawsuit, not in response to #Muslim protests. http://reut.rs/1mBEUm1 via @reutersRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-8624073997122047482013-09-19T16:48:22.106-07:002013-09-19T16:48:22.106-07:00Here's a Christian Science Monitor report on Y...Here's a <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2013/0919/Pakistan-s-YouTube-ban-1-year-later" rel="nofollow">Christian Science Monitor</a> report on Youtube ban's first anniversary in Pakistan:<br /><br /><i>YouTube has been banned in Pakistan for a year now, underscoring the rising influence of Islamist hardliners and intolerance for free speech in the country.<br /><br />The ban came after YouTube refused Pakistan's demand that it remove “the Innocence of Muslims” clips, outtakes from an attempt at making an anti-Islamic film that enraged many Muslims, from its website. <br /><br />Islamists, backed by different religious parties came out to protest in the thousands, and started riots across Pakistan, leaving at least 20 people dead. Protestors also attempted to attack the US Embassy in Islamabad. The government eventually blocked access to YouTube last September, appeasing the protestors. A year later, despite calls to end the ban from free speech activists and business interests, the ban remains.<br /><br />“The Pakistani government has been blocking Internet content under the pretext of national interest, religion, and morality,” says Hassan Belal Zaidi at the independent Internet rights advocacy group Bytes For All, based in Islamabad. “But it is actually trying to block any parallel discourse on the Internet and curtail freedom of expression of minorities... both political and religious, which speak against their persecution that happens quite often in Pakistan, and are not covered by mainstream media."<br />----------<br />Youtube hasn’t been the only case of social media censorship in Pakistan. Facebook and Twitter have been banned for hosting what the government deemed blasphemous material. And websites promoting separatism in the restive province of Balochistan and those criticizing the powerful Pakistani Army are also regularly blocked.<br /><br />It’s not a complete crackdown: Internet rights activists say many Pakistanis are getting around the ban in new and creative ways.The digital block can easily be circumvented, they say, by using proxies and virtual private networks.<br /><br />“Software such as Hotspot Shield, Spotflux, or TOR Browser as well as a host of online proxy servers are being used to access YouTube in the country. Many Pakistan-specific mirror sites have also been set up to allow people here to access content on Youtube, directly and indirectly,” says Mr. Zaidi.<br /><br />Though university students who cannot access proxies while on university servers are losing out, everyone from Internet experts to the former president’s son provide advice online on how to circumvent the ban.<br /><br />“Anyone using iOS and looking to get around the YouTube ban I suggest downloading VPN One Click,” tweeted the former president's son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, chairman of the Pakistan People's Party, the party that was in power when the YouTube ban was enforced last year.<br /><br />One possible silver lining, say some observers, is that the ban and problems associated with using proxies has prompted a rise in alternative local websites. One example is www.tune.pk, which now has more than 25,000 registered users. “We cannot beg someone to erase the videos we do not like, instead we made our own space,” reads a statement on the website run as a private enterprise out of Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan. The website says the site regularly monitors content and removes any material that it feels is not suitable for a Pakistani audience. <br /><br />That self-censorship is not satisfying to activists. Bytes For All, the advocacy group, has filed a lawsuit against the government's YouTube ban in the Pakistani courts, saying it curtails the fundamental rights of Pakistanis. The group's lawyer says the case is slow going because the government is terrified of inflaming religious sentiments and the possibility of more violence.</i><br /><br />http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2013/0919/Pakistan-s-YouTube-ban-1-year-laterRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-53254427936822890042013-09-18T09:57:59.235-07:002013-09-18T09:57:59.235-07:00Internet censorship helps shape the views of 180 m...Internet censorship helps shape the views of 180 million Pakistanis on militancy, democracy and religion. Online debates dissect attacks by U.S. drone aircraft, the uneasy alliance with the United States and prospects for peace with arch rival India. But activists say liberal voices are increasingly silenced while militants speak freely. They worry customized filters from the Canadian firm Netsweeper will only deepen that divide. <br /><br /> http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/18/pakistan-testingpowerfulinternetfilteringsoftware.htmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-10072585030380500592013-02-27T21:44:09.597-08:002013-02-27T21:44:09.597-08:00QUOTE: "If Muslims kill non-Muslims, they see...QUOTE: "If Muslims kill non-Muslims, they seem strangely unconcerned; when Muslims kill Muslims, as in Sudan, they turn their eyes away. It is only when non-Muslims kill Muslims, that they wake up and start complaining and pointing to their general state of victimhood."<br /><br />READMORE: http://alturl.com/bupmvHopewinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885301987622998733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-73530788460072930552013-01-31T10:51:54.572-08:002013-01-31T10:51:54.572-08:00Here is another example of the FREEDOM the Europea...Here is another example of the FREEDOM the European Hypocrites always lecture the world about...<br /><br />http://alturl.com/qfz2y<br /><br />This kind of law would have been unthinkable in the US.Hopewinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07885301987622998733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-48575033340473412052012-10-10T09:10:28.230-07:002012-10-10T09:10:28.230-07:00I don't understand why the Muslim destroy ther...I don't understand why the Muslim destroy there own neighborhoods. The film was not good I agree, but why riot destroy property and kill your own people. Makes no sense. Sure there was outrage, but what was accomplished. Dead muslims, buildings set on fire, police shooting at protesters. Its like looking in the mirror and beating your self up/ The rest of the world looks at you like savages. You know they make movies that mock and say bad things about Jesus. I do not like this. I dont kill people or riot. I hate it, But Jesus say pray for these people they may change and turn to him. If they dont change and ask for repentence God will avenge Jesus not his followers. God's wrath is more horrible than what any human can do to them.edwardnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-90783699617423200352012-10-03T09:59:53.149-07:002012-10-03T09:59:53.149-07:00http://www.theblaze.com/stories/conservative-pamel...http://www.theblaze.com/stories/conservative-pamela-geller-to-expand-anti-jihad-campaign-with-new-bus-ads-in-nyc-see-exclusive-images/#Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-80085252045705642822012-10-02T10:46:07.039-07:002012-10-02T10:46:07.039-07:00Here's another Salon.com piece on Islamophobia...Here's another <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/10/02/first_amendment_isnt_a_license_to_insult_muslims/" rel="nofollow">Salon.com</a> piece on Islamophobia in the West:<br /><br /><i>Three hurtful words, scrawled in black circles under the eyes of a ballplayer named Yunel Escobar: Tu ere[s] maricón. The message, conveyed in the eyeblack of the Toronto Blue Jays shortstop during a recent game, means, You’re a faggot. That’s hate language, and reaction was swift and stern. Major league baseball launched an investigation, the Blue Jays suspended Escobar for three games and enrolled him in “sensitivity training,” and he gave the obligatory apology in front of the microphones. Few if anyone publicly complained that, hurtful or not, homophobic or not, Escobar’s free speech rights trumped the concerns of others wounded by his words. No one said Escobar should be able to continue displaying the slur.<br /><br />“Given the reaction of the offended community, Escobar’s punishment was absolutely justifiable and necessary to maintain order in society,” wrote Stacie Brown on policymic. In other words, the community came together and shut Escobar up, due to a collective sense of mutual respect for the rights of others not to be hurt by hateful speech. Society has forged standards of respect and unacceptability about racial, ethnic, anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs. Rightly or wrongly, the message is: use certain hateful words in public, and you’ll pay the price. So why is there a different set of values at work when it comes to the hurt caused Muslims by hateful, Islamophobic characterizations of the Prophet Mohammed, or denigrations of Islam?<br />----------<br /> Here in the States, try advocating assassination, running an explosives seminar, defending the 9/11 attacks, or even making a charitable donation to the wrong group in the wrong conflict zone, and see how far you get. Some of these restrictions emanate from the USA Patriot Act, but others have been in place for decades. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, writing for a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in 1919, argued that “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.” As Sarah Chayes points out in an LA Times op-ed titled “Free Speech or Incitement?”, “The Innocence of Muslims” was provocative by design, and therefore may fit U.S. case law that prohibits “specifically advocating violence.” She quotes Anthony Lewis, former New York Times columnist and eloquent free speech champion: “If the result was violence, and violence was intended, then it meets the standard” for a criminal act.<br /><br />The second problem in the blanket free speech defense is its unequal application to Muslims and Arabs. “I come from a land, from a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam,” went the Disney film “Alladin”’s opening song, “where they cut off your ear if they don‘t like your face. It‘s barbaric, but hey, it‘s home.” Is there any other group in America for whom this kind of slur would not be roundly condemned, its offenders forced to apologize before being sent into the corner like Yunel Escobar?<br />----------</i><br /><br />http://www.salon.com/2012/10/02/first_amendment_isnt_a_license_to_insult_muslims/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-82048640842614793852012-09-30T19:39:06.079-07:002012-09-30T19:39:06.079-07:00Here's an Al-Arabya report on Google business ...Here's an <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/12/237573.html" rel="nofollow">Al-Arabya</a> report on Google business in Pakistan:<br /><br /><i>Pakistan is soon to become the next market bubble for Google in Asia, according to executives at Google Pakistan who discussed their market potential at a public event earlier this week.<br /><br />“Pakistan is Google’s next big market in the region,” Google’s head of Emerging Market Development, Southeast Asia, Jana Levene told a gathering of IT experts, bloggers, businessmen and reporters in Karachi.<br /><br />Google has deepened its operations in Pakistan by getting involved in many projects in the country, particularly involving with the Punjab government. The Government of Punjab launched an “Innovation Punjab” campaign through its IT board with support from Google. This project is one example where Google has partnered with Punjab Information Technology Board.<br /><br />The project also highlighted the case studies of successful entrepreneurs, called “innovation heroes.” It has also launched a social innovation fund – in collaboration with Pakistan Software Houses association, also their partner for the event – to support young entrepreneurs struggling to get their ideas public.<br /><br />Other pundits point to Google’s success is its choosing to invest in a potentially growing number of users in Pakistan.<br /><br />“To enter a market, the first thing we look at is its demographics – number of internet users in that country,” Levene told the Pakistan-based The Express Tribune, explaining why Google is interested in Pakistan.<br /><br />“Twenty-two million internet users is a huge number. It’s more than Australia’s whole population. That’s why we are here,” she added.<br /><br />Google is also taking into consideration the market size. “Pakistan is a $400 to $500 million market for Google,” Levene told the Tribune. Statistics shows that four of the top 10 most popular websites in Pakistan are Google’s sites.<br /><br />Regulatory framework is another area of Google’s interest.<br /><br />“The laws regarding internet censorship, the security of our employee etcetera are the things we take into account. Aside from the 22 million internet users that include two million broadband users, seven million Facebook users, one million Twitter users and 1.2 million LinkedIn users. Of the total mobile phones sold in Pakistan 6 percent are smart-phones,” Levene said.<br /><br />As a result, the government was able to reach 800,000 people.<br /><br />The most search topics by Pakistanis are related to finding solutions for social problems, political debates, business establishments, entertainment, as well as social networking groups. Meanwhile, Pakistanis used Google Earth and Google Maps to track which areas were affected in 2010 floods.</i><br /><br />http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/12/237573.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.com