Posted on 06/14/2006 6:36:26 PM PDT by Firefigher NC
Renowned Italian author Oriana Fallaci is facing charges of 'defaming Islam' after the publication of her book "The Force of Reason."
The trial opened Monday in Bergamo, Italy, and quickly was adjourned, according to the Associated Press. It is set to resume June 26. The 75-year-old Fallaci, who also suffers from cancer, faces a possible three-year prison term. Italian law prohibits "outrage" toward religion.
Although not as well known in the U.S., Fallaci has been recognized as an illustrious journalist in Europe for decades. Known for her aggressive interviews of Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat and Ayatollah Khomeini, her books have sold millions.
Italian judge Armando Grasso agreed to hear the case after Adel Smith, president of the Muslim Union of Italy, charged the book is "offensive to Islam and Muslims." Smith also wants the court to conclude the book incites religious hatred.
This is the first time a judge has ordered a trial for "defamation of Islam," and some other judges are concerned.
On his website, Jihad Watch founder and researcher Robert Spencer lists quotes from the book that have angered Smith and his group:
Over the last twenty years, terrorists have killed six thousand people 'to the glory of the Quran in obedience to its verses.'"
"The mutilation that the Muslims force on little girls to prevent them, once they are grown … from enjoying the sexual act. It is a female castration that the Muslims practice in twenty-eight countries of Islamic Africa and because of which [millions] die each year from sepsis or loss of blood. …"
The revolting, reactionary, obtuse, feudal Right is found today only in Islam. It is Islam."
"The Force of Reason" asserts that by not defending its identity, Europe is giving in to an invasion of Islam. Fallaci discusses how the political history of Europe has caused complacency toward the growing Muslim population. She believes leaders are making accommodations in the name of multi-culturalism, citing stunning accounts of officials looking the other way when Muslim men beat their wives and the allowance of Muslim women to take ID photographs with their heads covered.
Another Fallaci book, "The Rage and the Pride," is a post-9/11 account of why Muslims are determined to conquer the West, with approval from Europe.
In response to Fallaci's books, the Italian Islamic Party has put together a pamphlet, "Islam Punishes Oriana Fallaci," with little outcry from the public.
Some intellectuals in her home country also have expressed contempt toward Fallaci. A Milan art gallery featured a portrait of a decapitated Fallaci in a recent exhibit of Giuseppe Veneziano's "American Beauty," a series of paintings designed to highlight the "weakness and perversity of the American way of life."
Spencer calls the display an illustration of the "deep affinity between the Left and the forces of global jihad."
Fallaci, who lives in the U.S., refuses to attend her trial.
This trial is an affront to freedom of speech. Where's the ACLU?
Truth, to Muslims and Leftists, is like a crucifix to a vampire.
Europeans don't have the same guarenteed freedom of speech that we do. It's why the elite Europeans can pass laws banning "hate speech" (i.e.- believing that homosexuality is a sin). Of course I'm sure many on the extreme left would love to pass a similiar law here.
Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated out of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing -- with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second and third place.Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love, 1973
I give you the Left wing version of free speech. Where people are punished for criticism of PC protected groups. :)
Just telling the truth is bad enough!
How can you defame satanism anyway? Accuse it of being islamist?
Perhaps the court decided to cool it a bit after the recent favorable New Yorker article.
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