The UK has a proud free speech tradition going back to
John Milton
in the 17th century.
In many ways,
Britain pioneered free speech for the entire modern world.
Unfortunately, many currents in modern thought, both left-wing and right-wing,
are causing modern British politicians, civil servants and police to suppress free speech
in the face of the onslaught of a confident and aggressive religion from the third world.
Islam should be legal, of course.
But its place in modern Britain should be the same as any other religion or belief system
- subject to indifference, dislike, criticism, ridicule, mockery, parody and insult.
Islam should receive no respect under the law - merely tolerance.
The same goes for all religions.
But then, I believe in the great Western Enlightenment.
The people allowing sharia into the UK don't.
Censorship in the UK
- The UK has a range of appalling laws that criminalise "offensive" speech of various kinds.
Many of these awful, vaguely-worded laws
can (and are) used to implement sharia-friendly restrictions on speech.
They may be anti-sharia, but they are compromised by their spokesperson,
the anti-American, anti-Israel communist
Maryam Namazie.
Cover of
Areopagitica
(1644) by John Milton.
The influential argument for free speech of the early Western Enlightenment.
Flawed and limited by modern standards, but it still helped lead to a great flowering of Western freedom.
How sad Milton would be to see modern Britain's
inability to defend free speech against the primitive religion of Islam.
"Hate speech"
Boris Johnson's "letterbox" and "bank robber" comments about the burqa
are an example of the kind of "hate speech"
that sharia advocates in Britain want to ban by law.
Suriyah Bi, a conservative Muslim (she wears hijab), is a lecturer in cultural geography at the University of Oxford.
She says that Boris' speech must be punished by law.
The Salman Rushdie affair, 1989.
The inability of many British figures to defend Rushdie in 1989
was the start of the writ of Islamic law
running in Britain.
In 1994,
gay protesters
against the gay-hating,
Jew-hating
Islamofascists of
Hizb-Ut-Tahrir
were arrested
under the Public Order Act.
The gays were arrested - not the Islamists!
The gays correctly said:
"These arrests have undermined attempts to improve relations between the police and the lesbian and gay community.
The police appear to be siding with those who want to kill us."
Run by the sinister
Muslim Arbitration Tribunal,
which absurdly believes that an alleged "holy book"
should govern British law.
"Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system
...
Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi .. said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.
Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law,
provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case."
Domestic violence against women now legalised.
"In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.
In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police"
Comment:
"Leaving a substantial number of (nonwhite) British women to the mercies of this antique barbarism seems to me both sexist and racist, but what do I know?"
The Gateshead foster mother case - UK social workers trying to enforce sharia law.
"council officials allegedly accused [the foster mother]
of failing to 'respect and preserve' the child's faith and tried to persuade the girl to reconsider her decision."
Of course, it is the council officials who are failing to respect the girl's religious faith.
What are the bets that these "council officials" are Muslim?
"council officials told the girl that she should not attend any church activity for six months, so that she could reconsider the wisdom of becoming a Christian."
These officials should be named, and we should be told if they are Muslim.
The foster parent
"received a phone call from the fostering manager who was 'incandescent with rage' that the baptism had gone ahead."
Is the fostering manager a Muslim?
We should be told.
The foster parent is reinstated, July 2010.
The girl was put in foster care in the first place after she was
"threatened with an arranged marriage and faced violence from her family."
She "had been assaulted by a family member."
And now she has Gateshead Council attacking her religious freedom.
Christianity Has Been Demoted By The Political Class, 11 Dec 2009, by Theodore Dalrymple (an atheist), notes the official hostility to Christianity:
"By far the most significant thing about the case against Benjamin and Sharon Vogelenzang was that it reached a court of law in the first place.
...
For myself I do not much care to be buttonholed by religious enthusiasts but in a free country that is a situation with which citizens must be expected to cope on their own without resort to the courts."
A Religious Studies teacher at
Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire
in March 2021 showed his class a Muhammad cartoon as part of a discussion of the Charlie Hebdo case and blasphemy laws.
A mob of maniacs arrived at the school gates to threaten everybody.
The school suspended the teacher and the two other teachers in the Religious Studies department.
Shameful appeasement of a mob that should be dispersed with water cannon.
The Lady of Heaven
The Shia
Islamic devotional film
The Lady of Heaven
was released in Britain in late 2021.
Ironically perhaps, this film was met with
furious protests
in 2022 from religious Sunni Muslims,
who accused it of blasphemy
for some reason or another.
Out of fear for their safety, many UK cinemas cancelled it.
And so the march of sharia continues.
Christian preacher (and former Muslim)
Hatun Tash
has been arrested by British police for criticising Islam at Speakers' Corner in London.
She was awarded compensation for wrongful arrest.
Bradford City Council uses taxpayers' money to promote Islamic theology, Nov 2011.
Above was an anti-litter leaflet they planned for "Muslim areas".
They used taxpayers' money on a leaflet that offensively claims that:
"The whole of the Earth has been declared by Allah as a place of prayer for the Muslim."
The leaflets were not used.
In March 2022, a Colchester Royal Grammar School teacher was
suspended
for having this "Jesus And Mo" mug.
The Daily Mail pixellated the mug in its story!
Here is the image of the terrifying mug that must be pixellated.
From here.
Above is the cover and an extract of "The Sick Face of Islam",
the
Autumn 2005 issue
(also here).
The London-wide
Race Hate Crime Forum
said in 2006 they
wanted to prosecute
Gay & Lesbian Humanist
for its attack on Islam.
Without defending everything the issue said,
what I want to focus on is the idea that they could be prosecuted partly for
calling Islam
"this barmy doctrine".
Such a statement, about any belief, must always be legal.
To make such a statement illegal is sharia.
Nick Griffin
of the neo-Nazi
BNP
was arrested in 2004
for an attack on Islam.
He was prosecuted.
Above (click to play) is his
attack on Islam,
which was filmed secretly for a BBC documentary.
Now
the BNP is an obnoxious neo-Nazi group.
I can't stand them, and
their supporters hate me.
But, without defending everything (or anything) Griffin said,
what I want to focus on is the idea that he could be prosecuted partly for
describing Islam as follows:
"this wicked, vicious faith has expanded
from a handful of cranky lunatics about 1,300 years ago".
Such a statement must always be legal.
It should be perfectly legal to describe any religion
(or any other belief system such as communism or capitalism) as evil.
To make such a statement illegal is sharia.
The prosecution failed. In 2006 a jury cleared him of all charges.
Sebastian Faulks, Sunday Times, August 23, 2009, speaks about Islam.
He is shocked after reading the Koran for the first time:
"it has no ethical dimension like the New Testament, no new plan for life. It says 'the Jews and the Christians were along the right tracks, but actually, they were wrong and I'm right, and if you don't believe me, tough - you'll burn for ever.' That's basically the message of the book.
...
Jesus, unlike Muhammad, had interesting things to say. He proposed a revolutionary way of looking at the world: love your neighbour, love your enemy, be kind to people, the meek shall inherit the Earth. Muhammad had nothing to say to the world other than, 'If you don't believe in God you will burn forever.'"
"Oh, Sebastian!
If Islam was a forgiving, understanding religion that allowed freedom of speech and freedom of opinion, then this grovelling humiliation of an apology wouldn't be necessary, now would it?"
"What a backdown. Threats? Fear? His book being burned? It simply confirms the view of many that Islam is an unforgiving religion that cannot tolerate even the mildest of criticisms".
Though I sympathise with
this comment:
"I can't say that I blame. The way of the anti-jihadist is hard and not for every infidel. I think it is safe to assume that only his first comments were honest."
And this:
"He's not married to his opinion. He's certainly not going to jeopardise his life and the lives of his family, friends and colleagues. He doesn't want to turn his back on his current lifestyle and live in safe houses waiting for Islam reform.
So he issues a hasty retraction. Honestly, who wouldn't? Robert, Daniel, Pamela, Hugh and Geert. That's who. And that's part of the reason why I admire them."
His research was for his novel
A Week in December (2009),
which, by the way, is a fine book.
It's not particularly daring,
though I did like the fact that the jihadis planned to attack a London hospital.
In an outrageous abuse of British state power,
a man called Neil Phillips was arrested in Dec 2013 for "offensive" Internet comments.
See:
Man arrested for joking about Nelson Mandela, 9 Dec 2013.
A leftie site
says it wasn't just about Mandela.
It was also about Islam.
But they can't find any really bad comments.
The worst comments they can find are the following:
On parents not wanting their kids to go to a mosque, saying: "Fair play to the parents, I [wouldn't] want my kids brainwashed either."
Posting a photo
of a slaughter of Shia Muslims by the Taliban and tastelessly saying: "Next Halal Takeaway, No Thanks..."
Posting a mild joke about people claiming to be disabled.
Posting a mild joke
about Saint Nelson Mandela.
According to the left, some or all of the above comments should be illegal in Britain!
By the way, I've no problem if you dislike the above, or if you de-friend someone for posting them.
Call him an unfunny tosser. Block him on Twitter. No problem at all.
My problem is only with the law getting involved.
Christian pastor
James McConnell
was prosecuted for this sermon
about Islam in Belfast in May 2014.
Transcript:
"Today we see powerful evidence that more and more of Muslims are putting the [Quran's] hatred of Christians and Jews alike into practice.
Now people say there are good Muslims in Britain - that may be so - but I don't trust them.
Enoch Powell was right and he lost his career because of it. Enoch Powell was a prophet and he told us that blood would flow in the streets and it has happened.
Fifteen years ago Britain was concerned of IRA cells. Right throughout the nation they done a deal with the IRA because they were frightened of being bombed.
Today a new evil has arisen - there are cells of Muslims right throughout Britain - can I hear an amen?
Right throughout Britain and this nation is going to enter into a great tribulation and a great trial.
To judge by some of what I have heard in the past few months, you would think that Islam was little more than a variation of Christianity and Judaism. Not so. Islam's ideas about God, about humanity, about salvation are vastly different from the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Islam is heathen, Islam is satanic, Islam is a doctrine spawned in hell."
Nasty stuff. And deeply stupid.
But illegal?
Everyone has the right to call any idea evil.
This is basic free speech.
I wouldn't touch this guy with a bargepole.
But prosecuting him is outrageous.
He is only being prosecuted because it is Islam:
If a speaker attacked Tories as evil, or capitalists as evil, or Zionists as evil, he would not be prosecuted.
Those ideas do not get protection.
National Secular Society:
"We question whether your decision would have been taken were Islam not the subject of the 'offending' aspects of his sermon.
If the word 'atheism' were substituted, we find it extremely improbable - even unimaginable - that the PPS would have pursued this reckless course of action."
Suzanne Breen, 6 Aug 2015:
"Freedom of speech should mean that he has every right to lambast Islam, as Islamic clerics have to lambast him and Christianity if they so choose.
...
And yet the silence from civil liberties and human rights organisations here has been deafening.
...
Shame on them for either sitting on the fence or being on the wrong side of it.
In any democracy worth its salt, freedom of speech isn't a luxury for your friends, it's a necessity for your enemies."
Jan 2016: Pastor McConnell acquitted.
The judge says his speech was merely "offensive", not "grossly offensive".
This is not very reassuring.
Whether speech is legal or not seems totally arbitrary, and depends on how the judge is feeling that morning.
ASDA supermarket
sacked a man in June 2019 for sharing the following Billy Connolly comedy about Islam
on his private Facebook.
Supermarkets are enforcing sharia law now!
Outrageous. This is sharia law.
No free, secular society should
care if a person does this.
No free, secular society should respect any alleged "holy" book.
It seems clear now in Britain that
the Bible can be desecrated but not the Koran
- despite the fact that
the Koran inspires 100 times more bloodshed, terror, war, rape and oppression than the Bible
(in the modern world at least).
Despite this, the Koran still cannot be desecrated as a protest against the
ocean of blood
spilt by its followers every year.
One suspects that it is
because of that ocean of blood
that it cannot be desecrated.
Owens was reported to the police by Britain's dhimmi Sunday newspaper, The Observer.
Some "liberal" newspaper this is!
"Archbishop Cranmer"
points out that a desecrated Bible is on display in Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art,
while a man is arrested for desecrating the Koran.
"we are reminded time and again that the burning of the Qur'an is one of the most offensive acts to Muslims that could be imagined.
Certainly, it is sacred to many millions
... And yet, for millions more non-Muslims, it is nothing but a book, and for some of these millions, a vile book indeed. Certainly - how shall His Grace put it? - not everyone agrees that it is 'God's guidance' on any matter whatsoever.
...
The doctrine of the state is compelling respect and enforcing reverence for that which the majority may consider profane. That is not only an offence against democracy: it is an offence against the conscience and a negation of .. religious liberties".
Comment on the previous:
"Given the rapid progress in technology, your communicant is compelled to wonder how Muslims would react to a ceremonial deleting of the Koran from a hard drive or a flash drive. Even burning a CD-Rom of the Koran rather lacks the imagery of burning a book.
...
Would it be a criminal offence to publicly delete the Koran from one's hard drive?
It seems important to get a definitive answer to this question."
Thanks to the police, and The Observer,
the lives of Owens and his partner are in danger:
"Sion and Joanne were told by police officers that their lives are in serious danger following the issuing of a fatwa against them in Pakistan. They were advised to leave home and go into hiding."
I don't like these people,
but everyone has the right to free speech, even the unintelligent.
Burning the Koran is illegal?
This is sharia.
Andrew G. Bostom, September 23, 2010, describes this as:
"self-imposed dhimmitude of the non-Muslim majority under Sharia-based tenets
... craven abandonment of free speech".
Christians upset about the desecration of a Bible in Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art.
But oddly, the police don't care.
They will only arrest people when a Koran is desecrated.
If the Christians used violence maybe the police would support them.
That seems to be the principle here.
The defaced Bible.
Written on it is
"Facist God" (sic)
and
"Fuck the Bible".
This is "art" and so is ok.
But do this to a Koran and you get arrested.
From here.
Some of the above are shrill,
some are nutcases.
Some are heroes.
But none preach violence.
Whether you agree with any of them or not,
denying them entry to the UK is an incredible abuse of state power.
For all of the above, the state's arguments as to why Britons cannot invite them to speak in the UK
are weak and pathetic,
and could be used to ban just about
anyone remotely controversial from the UK.
"Apparently believing that such violence is an Islamic imperative is just fine with the British Home Office as long as one does so approvingly: Mohammed al-Arefe was just last week admitted into Britain without any difficulty. If one believes that such violence is an Islamic imperative but opposes it, however, watch out
...
Thus Britain has not actually banned the truth about Islam. You can get into Britain if you believe that Islam mandates warfare against unbelievers. You just have to think warfare against unbelievers is a fine thing to pursue."
Spencer was banned from the UK by the Tory Home Secretary
Theresa May.
Some "conservative" she is.
Following the dictates of
hatchet-job reports
produced by
radical socialist groups.
Paul Goodman, former Tory MP, now editor of "ConservativeHome", supports banning Spencer from UK, 27 June 2013.
Some anti-jihadist he is.
What a fraud "ConservativeHome" turns out to be.
The message from Theresa May and Paul Goodman is simple:
Don't vote Tory.
Vote UKIP.
While we're here, Spencer should really pay attention to the fact that no thoughtful anti-jihad Brit
supports the
EDL:
The Commentator, 27 June 2013:
"Let me clarify something from the outset of this blog, so you are not confused by what I am about to say. I am no fan of Pamela Geller (Sorry Pam).
...
Robert Spencer, while sadly recently attracted to the thuggish English Defence League
..
has a far more academic and rigorous approach to his work. Don't get me wrong, flirtation with the EDL reflects ignorance and rightly arouses suspicion - but does it require a curtailment of the freedom of travel and freedom of speech? I don't think so.
Even an Imam had to recently admit that Spencer knew his stuff."
"I do not support the approach taken by either Geller or Spencer to the problem of Islamic extremism. Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic.
The result has been a serious blow to the credibility of these two writers, with particular damage being done to Spencer whose scholarship in itself is scrupulous.
...
Personally, I believe the EDL is not a respectable platform to join."
She is incredulous at the claim that Geller and Spencer will be dangerous to have at the EDL rally.
"The implication is that they will incite violence or disorder. But all the two of them do is criticise Islam, condemn jihadis and warn against the west's failure to take seriously their machinations.
One may think they go too far, that some of their views are unpleasant or offensive or wrong; but that is surely no reason to ban them from the country. What on earth have we come to, after all, when the British Home Secretary is banning people on the basis that they criticise Islam and warn against jihadi violence?"
Spencer floats the theory that the educated counter-jihad Brits
dislike the drunken uneducated EDL mobs
because of British "class" snobbery.
Seriously, it's not about class. It's that they fight with the police.
Middle-class twats fighting with the police would be equally unattractive.
Question for Spencer:
Do you support groups that fight with the police in the USA?
I signed this.
I am signer #3215.
I said the following:
"Ludicrous. Inciting terror?? Spencer writes books. He has the best ongoing news coverage of Islamic terror of any writer in the world. What is the Tory party doing listening to hatchet-job reports produced by commie groups?
Thought Tories had more sense than that."
June 2013: Tony Lloyd (yes, the same man)
calls for anti-jihadist Robert Spencer to be banned from the UK.
This man, who pals around with Hamas terrorists, calls the anti-jihadists Spencer and Geller
"hate preachers".
The Manchester Gazette libels Spencer and Geller, absurdly calling them
"two fascists",
and making wild claims about them,
without providing any evidence these claims are true.
(Not to mention the irony of a newspaper calling for the suppression of speech.)
Spencer replies.
An actual fascist and an actual hate preacher, one of Tony Lloyd's pals:
Hamas Deputy Minister of Religious Endowments, Feb 2010, describes the Jews as sub-human bacteria.
Hate speech against Christianity:
"They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the Messiah, son of Mary. The Messiah (himself) said: O Children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord. Lo! whoso ascribeth partners unto Allah, for him Allah hath forbidden paradise. His abode is the Fire. For evil-doers there will be no helpers.
They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no God save the One God. If they desist not from so saying a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve."
What book contains such hate speech?
It must surely be banned.
It's, um, the Quran.
"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful."
-
Quran 9:5
calls on Muslims to fight the unbelievers until they believe.
If you point this out, you might get banned from the UK.
"Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah
nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger,
and follow not the Religion of Truth,
until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low."
-
Quran 9:29
calls on Muslims to fight the unbelievers until they pay the "protection money".
If you point this out, you might get banned from the UK.
(also here).
