Pakistani Govt Declares Friday Day Of Protest Over Mohammed Movie, Don't Accept FOS Argument

Weasel Zippers ^ | September 19, 2012

[NYer]

Then again, it’s not like they wouldn’t have already been protesting, today thousands are rampaging across Pakistani cities.

(LA Times) — Pakistan continued to seethe Wednesday over the release in the U.S. of a movie trailer mocking Islam, as legions of protesters rallied in several large cities for a sixth day and the government signaled its own discontent by declaring Friday as a national day “of peaceful protest.”

Officials said the move was meant to show the government’s solidarity with the Muslim world and its anger over the film, which depicts the prophet Muhammad as a womanizer and a thug. Friday will be observed as a national holiday, and protests are expected to be held across the country.

“The message we want to convey to the international community by observing Friday as a protest day … is that we cannot tolerate any kind of blasphemy against the prophet Muhammad,” said Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira.

Though U.S. leaders have denounced the film, Pakistanis have continued to channel their anger toward the American government. Throngs of protesters in Karachi and Lahore in recent days have tried to reach U.S. consulates in those cities.

On Wednesday, a group of Pakistani lawyers broke through a gate leading to a heavily secured enclave in Islamabad that houses the U.S. Embassy and other foreign missions. The lawyers burned American flags and staged a short sit-in on an enclave road, but were kept by police from marching on the embassy compound.

The pace of protests has picked up steadily in recent days. On Wednesday, thousands of demonstrators rallied in Karachi, Lahore and the northwest city of Peshawar as well as smaller cities in protests that were largely nonviolent. The gatherings have for the most part been organized by right-wing religious groups, including the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami.

Though officials in Islamabad endorsed protests as a means of expressing anger about the film, they also urged Pakistanis to demonstrate without violence.

“I call upon the people of Pakistan to register their protest peacefully, observe restraint and refrain from damaging their own property,” Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said during a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

Kaira acknowledged Washington’s condemnation of the film, but he also urged the U.S. and other nations to enact laws to prevent the release of blasphemous material in the future. “We cannot accept any sort of argument that the blasphemous film is … freedom of expression or freedom of speech,” Kaira said.

[NYer]

Meanwhile ....

Obama Leaves Jay-Z And Beyonce Fundraiser With A Whopping $4 Million In His Pocket…

Thanks one-percenters, now it’s back to around the clock class warfare.

Via Washington Times:

After enduring a little ribbing on “Late Show With David Letterman” in New York on Tuesday, President Obama collected $4 million at a fundraiser hosted by Jay-Z and Beyoncé at their lounge bar, Manhattan’s 40/40 Club.

About 100 donors who paid $40,000 each to attend the event sat on sofas in a large, glass room, according to the pool report.

Jay-Z and Beyoncé gave only brief remarks, letting Mr. Obama bask in limelight.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

FOS

I asked Patrick Henry..

from the "other side"

. . . in proportion to the magnitude of the subject [there must] be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that [you] can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should [you] keep back [your] opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, [you] should consider [your]self as guilty of treason towards my country[!]

[tomkat]

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.

The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

  Churchill

[Emperor Palpatine]

This could be a good thing.

Maybe a few more ‘Slimes will suffocate to death burning Old Glory like that Darwin Award winner in Krapistan yesterday.

[EBH]

Blasphemy laws violate the First Amendment on Speech and that the government can make no law respecting religion....

AND such cases have gone to the Suprmes Court and been ruled unconstitutional already.

Settled law in this country.

‘Course we do have 0bama for President...

[Delta 21]

And by peaceful protest, it is meant to be as extreme as you can up to and including:

[papageo]

Make’s you wonder what they would be doing if they had lied about Mohammed in the film.