Free Republic

Iran orders paper director's arrest for 'insulting' president Jul 1, 2008 TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's judiciary on Tuesday ordered the arrest of the director of a leading reformist newspaper over an article attacking President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his remarks on the Shiites' "hidden imam." Mohammad Javad Haghshenas, director of Etemad Melli newspaper, has been issued with an order for arrest and investigation on charges of spreading lies and publishing "an insulting piece", a spokesman for Tehran public and revolutionary courts told the ISNA student agency. The spokesman said the "insulting" article was written by mid-ranking cleric Rasoul Montajab-Nia in Tuesday's...

"We sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed." That sounds like the statement of a victor in a war, dictating terms to the vanquished. And it may well be: free speech is under attack in Canada -- the prosecution of Macleans Magazine and author Mark Steyn -- and in the United States as well by Islamic governments and groups whose goal is to end free speech when it is aimed at exposing the truth about Islamic terrorism and its roots. Their goal is positively Orwellian. Replace "Big Brother" with the "Organization...

Freedom of the press is on trial in Canada. The trial is before a court with the Orwellian title of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. The accused are Maclean's magazine and author Mark Steyn. The crime: In mocking and biting tones, they wrote that Islam threatens Western values. Had Steyn written that, given the Crusades, colonial atrocities in Africa and the slave trade, Christianity had been on balance a curse, he would not be in the dock. In the United States, these charges would have been tossed out by any federal judge, who would have admonished the plaintiffs that,...

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A U.S. lawyer was charged in a Singapore court on Monday for allegedly insulting a judge in an email and on his website, court documents showed. Gopalan Nair, who runs a law firm in California and was previously a Singapore citizen, was arrested last Friday and charged on Monday for "threatening, abusing or insulting a public servant" in an email he circulated and posted on his blog, singaporedissident.blogspot.com, official documents showed. Nair was not sentenced and will be held in custody for 7 days pending further investigations, his lawyer Chia Ti Lik said. Under this charge, Nair...

Case – American Flag Burning Problem: Rebellious people burn the American flag. This is the same flag, that millions of Americans have sacrificed their lives for in war. There are many other ways for rebellious people to demonstrate their hate for America, desecrating or burning the American flag is not demonstrating freedom of speech, it’s an insult and nullifies the sacrifices of million of Americans. Burning the flag is not enough for the hate America crew, they can’t stand to see the flag fly, at any place, at any time. Sometimes these characters wind up on the board of directors...

Dutch political cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot was arrested on suspicion of violating the country’s so-called “hate speech” laws. It took a police team of 10 to accomplish the apprehension of Nekschot at his home, where he declined to resist arrest, much to the dismay of several of the officers. Police also seized his computer, sketches, CDs, DVDs, pencils, paper and telephone. The presence of several “unclean” comestibles—a can of Spam and a bag of fried pork rinds in his larder was also noted. Nekschot’s cartoons have mainly mocked leftists and Muslim extremists, though the spokeswoman for his publisher said “any strong...

AMSTERDAM, 17/05/08 - Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin has attracted sharp criticism from a large part of the Lower House following the surprise arrest of cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot. He is facing charges of discrimination. The arrest took place last Tuesday. The well-known stand-up comedian Hans Teeuwen, a friend of Nekschot, said on TV programme Pauw en Witteman that around 10 police dragged the cartoonist out of his home in Amsterdam in a brutal manner. His computer and telephone were seized, according to a furious Teeuwen. The Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) in Amsterdam confirmed that Nekschot ('Neck Shot') was arrested for...

Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot was arrested when his house was raided by ten police men. He spent a night in a police cell and was then released. It is unclear if Nekschot is to be prosecuted. The raid apparently happened because of complaints by fundamentalist imam van de Ven, a Dutch Islam convert who once said that he'd like to see critics of Islam like Geert Wilders to be dead. Nekschot is a controversial cartoonist who criticizes multi cultural society and religions. Although his work is not exactly an example of fine taste sometimes his arrest raised protests. The raid...

Arrests, Jailings Of Political And Rights Activists Continue April 14, 2008 Radio Free Europe/RadioLiberty Farangis Najibullah The Iranian authorities this month have added several more names to the list of political activists, human rights campaigners, and journalists who have been imprisoned for voicing dissent. The leader of the unregistered Democratic Party of Iran, Abbas Khorsandi, is among the latest targets of the Iranian security services. Khorsandi was sentenced last week to eight years in prison after being found guilty of threatening Iranian state security by setting up "an illegal political group." A 50-year-old economics professor in the northern town of...

The attack on freedom of speech courtesy of Richard (I was picked on as a kid) Warman and his partner in crime, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, has drawn opposition from all sides of the political spectrum with pundits on the left and the right condemning the taxpayer-funded lawsuit (read: witchhunt) against Canadian conservative writers....

The Ontario Human Rights Commission announced Wednesday it had dismissed a complaint about allegedly Islamophobic articles in Maclean's magazine because it lacked jurisdiction over printed material. At the same time, however, the commission denounced the newsweekly for publishing articles that were "inconsistent with the spirit" of the Ontario Human Rights Code, and doing "serious harm" to Canadian society by "promoting societal intolerance" and disseminating "destructive, xenophobic opinions." "When the media writes, it should exercise great caution that it's not promoting stereotypes that will adversely impact on identifiable groups," chief commissioner Barbara Hall said in an interview. "I think one needs...

THE HAGUE, 08/04/08 - MP Geert Wilders does not incite to hatred or violence against Muslims. His comparison of Islam with Fascism is permissible, a district court in The Hague ruled yesterday. The Netherlands Islamic Federation (NIF) had put forward a number of statements by the Party for Freedom (PVV) leader in a summary injunction. The NIF considered that Wilders had broken the law by comparing Islam with Fascism, calling the Koran the Islamic version of Hitler's Mein Kampf and the Prophet Mohammed a barbarian. All remarks are legal, the court decided yesterday. The foundation demanded that Wilders take back...

A court has refused to ban an internet-based film criticising the Koran. A group representing Dutch Muslims had sought an injunction banning right-wing politician Geert Wilders' film "Fitna," which links terror attacks by Muslim extremists with texts from the Koran. In a written judgment a civil judge at The Hague District Court said Mr Wilders' right to free speech allows him to criticise radical Islam and passages from the Muslim holy book. Mr Wilders put the film on the internet the day before lawyers representing the Netherlands Islamic Federation argued it should be outlawed because it was insulting to Muslims.

Western and Muslim nations clash at UN body over free speech April 01, 2008 18:19 EDT GENEVA (AP) -- Muslim and Western nations are at odds over adding monitoring of religious prejudice to the duties of a U.N. free speech expert. The change passed 32-0 by the United Nations Human Rights Council last Friday. It refers to acts of "racial or religious discrimination" that constitute what it calls "abuse of the right of freedom of expression." It's seen as a move against forms of expression that have offended Muslims, such as Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Canada and...

It seems the Islamic world will do anything to continue to prove the point that the Dutch parliamentarian was making with his new film "Fitna." The film showed a number of verses in the Koran interspersed with Islamic sermons, footage of terrorism, and Dutch newspaper headlines. It started with liveleak.com, the first website to share the video, pulling the video from their website after only one day because of serious threats to their staff. As LiveLeak put it, "in the end the price was too high." So the response to a video showing an Islamic prediliction toward violence and terrorism...

Earlier this week, I argued that Canada's human-rights censors have managed a seemingly impossible task: They've found a way to rehabilitate the image of neo-Nazis, transforming them from odious dirtbags into principled free-speech martyrs. Case in point: At this week's much-anticipated human-rights hearing in Ottawa, a team of journalists and bloggers were campaigning openly in support of hatemonger Marc Lemire. The villains were Canadian Human Rights Commission (HRC) investigator Dean Steacy and the other apparatchik who've made a career out of parsing Lemire's phobic Web postings. Tuesday's hearing probably won't change the outcome of the case against Lemire: Like a...

UTRECHT, 18/03/08 - Anyone has the right to criticise, ridicule or insult Judaism. Muslims should follow the example of the way in which Christians and Jews deal with criticism, suggests director Ron Naftaniel of the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI). Naftaniel made a plea for freedom of speech at the University of Utrecht, in a debate on Article 1 (the ban on discrimination) of the Dutch constitution. "It is a free choice to be religious. And criticising someone's choice is a fundamental right in our democracy. You must be able to say that Judaism is a backward...

Text of report by Iranian Tabnak news website on 16 March Tehran 16 March - Iran bans six publications under provisions of Article 11 of the press law. According to an informed sources a suspension order has been issued for the following publications: Doya-e Tasvir [World of Images]; Haft [Seven]; Besoy-e Eftekhar [Toward dignity]; Talash [Effort]; Neday-e Iran [The Call of Iran] and Shoka. [Article 11 of the press law states: The Press Supervisory Board is responsible for examining applications for press licenses and the competency of the applicant and the managing director.] Source: Tabnak news website, in Persian 0850...

THE HAGUE, 14/03/08 - The Netherlands will not ask for an EU statement that explicitly defends freedom of expression. This freedom in fact has limitations, suggested Premier Jan Peter Balkenende in the Lower House. The Netherlands is seeking support from the EU in relation to the possible consequences of the Koran film that MP Geert Wilders wants to show on or around 28 March. The formal Dutch position is that both freedom of expression and freedom of religion must be respected. The Netherlands hopes that its view can be incorporated in a joint EU statement if the film leads to...

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal. The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site. Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted. If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that. Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down...

Iran Cracks Down on Student Protesters Anuj Chopra February 21, 2008 TEHRAN, IRAN—Babak Zamanian, a lanky 23-year-old student of mining engineering, vividly remembers the last time he bellowed slogans denouncing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "Death to the dictator!" he chanted vociferously on a freezing winter day in December 2006, leading a crowd of Iranian students as the Iranian leader delivered a speech at Amirkabir University of Technology, a hotbed of student protests in Tehran. A few weeks later, Zamanian was blindfolded by authorities and tossed into Section 209, the notorious solitary confinement block in Evin Prison run by the Iranian Ministry...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) ― Danish police said Tuesday they have arrested three people suspected of plotting to kill one of the 12 cartoonists behind the Prophet Muhammad drawings that sparked a deadly uproar in the Muslim world two years ago. Two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan origin were arrested in pre-dawn raids in western Denmark, the police intelligence agency said. The Dane was suspected of violating Danish terror laws but likely would be released after questioning as the investigation continues, said Jakob Scharf, the head of the PET intelligence service. The two Tunisians would be expelled from Denmark, he...

Iran bans women's magazine Jan 29, 2008 Iran has withdrawn the publication licence of a leading women's magazine after it highlighted crimes against women by publishing a monthly toll, the semi-official Fars news agency has reported. "The licence of the magazine Zanan ('Women') managed by Shahla Sherkat has been cancelled as the monthly published articles undermining public confidence in law and order by leading people to believe that the Islamic republic was unsafe for women," the news agency reported citing an official it did not name. Ms Sherkat said she had not been notified of the decision by the culture...

Suicide by toleranceLorne Gunter, National Post  Published: Monday, January 28, 2008 Walt Kelly, the cartoonist and satirist once had his famous character Pogo say, "We have met the enemy and he is us."In the clash between the West and Islam, that is increasingly true. We are our own worst enemy.Those of us who care about the survival of Western civilization occasionally rage about the way Muslim organizations feign outrage in the media at the tiniest slight. We grind out teeth when those organizations file human rights complaints against the writings of the likes of Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant. We...

Suspicious Death in Iran Prison January 22, 2008 The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) FIDH The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Iranian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LDDHI) urge the Iranian authorities to investigate the death in prison of Mr. Ebrahim Lotfollahi. FIDH and LDDHI furthermore express their deep concern over the increasingly frequent arrests of student activists and women’s rights defenders over the past months. Mr. Ebrahim Lotfollahi, a Kurdish law student, died in the prison of Sanandaj, in Iran’s Kurdish northwestern region, on January 15th, 2008. Mr Lotfollahi was arrested, for unknown...

Night after night, from her cell in solitary confinement, Mehrnoushe Solouki could hear the anguished crying of fellow inmates in Tehran's Evin prison. When the French-Iranian filmmaker asked her guards about it, they were clear: The cries were not from hardened criminals but female activists, artists, and intellectuals locked up for nothing more than their political beliefs. Since January 18, Solouki has been back in Paris, safe in the warm embrace of family and friends -- and far from Evin prison. Yet it still haunts her. A doctoral film student at Canada’s University of Quebec, Solouki traveled to Tehran in...

A senior Iranian lawmaker warned the Netherlands on Monday not to allow the screening of what it called an anti-Islamic film produced by Dutch politician, claiming it "reflects insulting views about the Holy Koran." Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, promised widespread protests and a review of Iran's relationship with the Netherlands if Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders' work is shown. "If Holland will allow the broadcast of this movie, the Iranian parliament will request to reconsider our relationship with it," Boroujerdi said, according to IRNA, the official Iranian news agency. "In Iran, insulting Islam...

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(CNSNews.com) - Members of Congress are seeking more information regarding the firing of a top terrorism expert at the Pentagon following reports that he was dismissed for being too critical of Islamic law. Earlier this month, the Pentagon Joint Staff told Stephen Coughlin, a specialist on Islamic law at the Pentagon, that his contract would not be renewed in March. The firing apparently resulted from pressure by pro-Muslim officials working in the Department of Defense, according to numerous news reports. Meanwhile, members of Congress have not had much success in getting answers from the Pentagon either, said Rep. Sue Myrick...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The early reviews are in, and three federal judges appeared in agreement Thursday that a movie lambasting Hillary Rodham Clinton seemed an awful lot like a 90-minute campaign advertisement. Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, is challenging the nation's campaign finance laws, which require disclaimers on political advertisements and restrict when they can be broadcast. The group argues ''Hillary: The Movie'' and related television advertisements are not political advertising even though the New York senator is in the presidential race. Attorney James Bopp argued that they should be considered ''issue-oriented'' speech because viewers aren't urged to vote...

This website is dedicated to telling the totally true story of John Ziegler's experience at KFI in Los Angeles. John realizes that the creation of this website probably ends any chance that he will ever again hit the highest levels of talk radio and may very well end his talk radio career totally. But he is at peace with that potential consequence because he feels there are certain truths that are worth the risk to tell, especially when you are really the only person in the world in a position to do so. This website is devoted to one of...

I am copying the whole shooting match from Lionheart in case it vanishes sometime soon. I do not know Lionheart personally but know him to be a very sincere religious man with deep convictions. We have not always agreed on everything but have been united in our fight to make our fellow True Brits aware of the dangers of Islam. Since I started blogging, I have always expected the knock on the door and still do. That knock may now have come for Lionheart. British police have been charged with arresting me I am currently out of the Country and...

Pro-life Women Jailed for Having Begged an Abortionist to Quit a Decade Ago One faces five months in jail while another has been sentenced to serve eight months behind bars. LINCOLN, Nebraska, January 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-life activists Shari McKee and Melissa Abbink were jailed on December 28th, 2007, for speaking to Lincoln abortionist Winston Crabb on two occasions in front of his home 10 years ago. Abbink faces five months in jail while McKee has been sentenced to serve eight months behind bars. According to Operation Rescue, in February, 1998, both were charged with violating the "focused picketing"...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has brought its concerns about the detention of a well-known blogger to the Saudi Arabian government at "a relatively senior level," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Thursday. McCormack, speaking at his regular midday briefing, said the message delivered "was pretty clear." "The U.S. stands for freedom of expression," he said. "It is an important element of any thriving society. It's a cornerstone of any democratic society. Wherever people are seeking to express themselves, via the Internet or via other areas, whether in Saudi Arabia or elsewhere in the world, we stand with that...

SAN FRANCISCO — The humbling of Don Imus last spring over his remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team has done nothing to quiet Michael Savage, a radio host with a far bigger following and far more checkered track record. Mr. Savage, whose program reaches an estimated eight million listeners a week on nearly 400 stations, suggested over the summer that a group of college students on a hunger strike in support of easing immigration restrictions should “fast until they starve to death.” In October the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, the city from which Mr. Savage often broadcasts,...

Dear FRiends It really pains me to see some of those vicious anti-Mormons attacks we see on Free Republic disguised under the “freedom of speech. Attacking people based on their Mormon faith is really disgusting and it is an insult to this great forum. People who do not like Governor Mitt Romney based on his positions are free to express their opinion as such, but people who attack him because he is a Mormom should be ashamed of themselves and must not be allowed to do so. I greatly hope that Free Republic members and moderators will get together and...

A peculiarly Canadian institution, the Human Rights Commission attracted attention beyond Canada’s borders last week when the Canadian Islamic Congress filed several complaints against author and commentator Mark Steyn, and Maclean’s, the newsweekly that excerpted his bestselling America Alone last year. There is no substance to these complaints, but that is no impediment in the eyes of British Columbia’s commission, which has agreed to investigate the case. The degeneration of Human Rights Commissions into forums for nuisance suits, and their current abuse by the CIC, among others, is indicative of the growing political and cultural gulf between the U.S. and...

Late yesterday I stumbled across an article about a "human rights complaint" filed by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) against Maclean’s, Canada’s most widely-read news magazine, for running a "flagrantly Islamophobic" excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. At least two Canadian Human Rights Commissions have agreed to hear these complaints. Only then did I find Steyn’s too-easily-missed late-night post from Wednesday on the controversy. This is a big deal. The blogosphere has so far largely missed it, but this attack on Mark Steyn is very much our business. There may be an impulse to dismiss this assault on Steyn,...

Listen up SAVAGE fans.........thanks to MrCFdovnh for the following heads up..... click here for link

Well, our school gained infamy awhile ago with the "don't tase me bro" incident. Definitely an embarrassment to our school. Well, some people just don't learn from history and their mistakes. Several weeks ago, the Law School Republicans, of which I'm a member, UF Jewish Student Org. along with couple other student groups sponsored a showing of "Obsession." The flyers said, "Radical Islam Wants You Dead." Is this not true? Of course its true. Well, the school admin attempted to prosecute us for it. Now, they want us to publicly apologize for it and provide "clarification." The letter below was...

What else is there to do on Thursdays besides FReep and listen to TSN?! C'mon, eat, drink, breathe SAVAGE?

A well-known art group has ruffled the Catholic Church’s feathers by portraying John Paul II as a paedophile. Artist group Surrend has again achieved its goal of provoking the establishment through two displays on a Polish website depicting the late Pope John Paul II as a paedophile, reported public broadcaster DR last week. The webpage, placed on the vaticansex.pl website, shows an image of the late pontiff lifting the gowns of two alter boys while saying: ‘I’m against homosexuality, but all for paedophilia.’ The second image is of the former pope burning in the flames of hell. The webpage was...

Sweden's largest direct marketing company has joined the national postal service in refusing to distribute a political newspaper containing a caricature of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Earlier this week Posten decided not to distribute SD-Kuriren - a newspaper produced by the far-right Sweden Democrats - in Svedala in southern Sweden. As the newspaper contained a reproduction of Lars Vilks's controversial illustration of Muhammad as a dog, the postal service said that to distribute the publication would constitute a security risk. "We want to protect the safety of our mail carriers. This illustration has provoked reactions that have led to death...

Seven human rights groups including Amnesty International have urged Iran to set aside a prison sentence for women's rights activist Delaram Ali. She has been ordered to begin her sentence of two-and-a-half years in prison and a flogging on Saturday. Ms Ali, 24, joined a protest last year calling for greater legal rights for Iranian women. Dozens of journalists and activists have been detained or jailed recently, accused of acting against the state. Police broke up the demonstration Ms Ali was part of last year which called for greater rights for women in Iran's Islamic legal system. Ms Ali says...

What actually happened when a Swedish newspaper published a picture of the prophet Mohammed as a dog? The Swedish Emergency Management Agency wants to find out, and is to give funding to Örebro University to look at reaction to the controversial publication. The university will also compare the reactions around the world to what happened following a similar publication by a Danish newspaper 2 years ago, but which reached much larger proportions. And the artist that first drew the pictures of Mohammed is taking his own look back at the controversy, by writing a musical about the events. Lars Vilks...

The decision by the Danish Folkeparti (People's Party) to use the highly controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed in their election campaign has resulted in terrorist threats. The Islamist terrorist organization the al-Aqsa Brigade threatened the DF in an interview with Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. "This party is dealing in the blood of the Danish population. It is dangerous," said al-Aqsa Brigade spokesman Khaled al-Jabbari. "We do not wish to see the Danish people as an enemy, but this could lead to actions." DF Party leader Pia Kjærsgaard told Jylland-Posten that they would not give way to terrorists under any circumstances,...

During the week of October 22-26, David Horowitz and his Freedom Center held a series of events at 100 campuses for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, intended to counter standard academic nitwitery about the war on terrorism ("America is evil," "We brought it on ourselves," "9/11 was a Republican conspiracy"). Admirable though this was, attention must be called to an even more imminent threat. By the authority vested in me (by myself), I hereby designate the week of November 5th Left-Fascism Awareness Week -- a time to consider the clear and present danger to free speech emanating from the left, from academic...

This week Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called elections for November 13, and today Danish People’s party announced that they will place election posters around the country with a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. They do not hide that they are inspired by the cartoon crisis in 2006 that put Denmark in the headlines around the world. Demonstrations and violence in the Muslim world erupted. The cartoon is drawn from a portrait of the prophet from a book about Islam by Alexander Ross published in 1683. Ross was behind the first translation of the Koran into English (1649)....

TEHRAN, Oct. 22 — Students at one of the most politically active universities in Tehran demonstrated Monday amid high security to protest jail terms for three student activists, an Iranian student news agency reported. Students from different universities gathered at Amir Kabir University to protest sentences of up to three years issued last week for the activists, Ehsan Mansouri, Majid Tavakoli and Ahmad Ghassaban, the student news agency, ISNA, reported. Authorities accused the three, all from Amir Kabir University, of publishing articles insulting to Islam in student publications. The students denied the charges and said their publications had been forged...