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Sunday, 1st November 2009

Freedom of expression is Rose's war

Daniel Korski 3:29pm

Last week, Denmark discovered that two US-based men were plotting a terrorist attack against Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that outraged hard-line Muslims by publishing the infamous Muhammad cartoons in 2005. Allegedly, the two men planned to target cultural editor Flemming Rose and cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. 

The mild-mannered Flemming Rose is back in the spotlight. Asked if he regretted publishing the cartoons, Rose insisted that bowing to such pressure would not yield less extremism, but more. He went further - the cartoons have not been re-issued, which amounts to the sort of self-censorship that moved him to commission the cartoons originally. Rose's target was neither Islam nor Muslims. He wanted to challenge the idea that anyone or anything could be above criticism and ridicule. In this respect, he talked about how, in the last couple of years, legitimate criticism was censored and even outlawed. 

Though he mentioned the Organization of the Islamic Conference's desire to make defamation of religions and prophets “inconsistent with the right to freedom of expression”, Rose invoked the case of M F Husain: an Indian painter whose works depicting Hindu deities in the nude incited protest and threats, and forced the artist into exile. The 94-year-old painter used the same style for decades, but only recently has it become insulting to Hindi nationalists. 

That is Rose’s point. The fight is to ensure that freedom of expression is not against Islam, Muslims or any other religion, but against those who would wish to curtail free debate, free thought, and even the freedom to criticise. That, not a supposed 'Clash of Civilisations', is Rose’s War.  

For as the think-tank Legatum says in its 2009 Prosperity Index, “while some nations seek to allow one aspect of freedom while restricting other aspects, prosperous nations respect freedom in all of its dimensions: economic, political, religious, and personal.”
 

Filed under: Denmark (7 more articles) , Freedom of speech (47 more articles) , Ideology (1 more articles) , Islam (56 more articles) , Terrorism (289 more articles) , World politics (51 more articles)

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Comments Post comment

Beer Moth

November 1st, 2009 3:48pm Report this comment

Daniel is in Denial.

Stop poncing around, we all know what the problem is.

Verity

November 1st, 2009 3:53pm Report this comment

Last week, Denmark discovered that two US-based men were plotting a terrorist attack. Gosh, Daniel. Do they have any clues as to who these "two US-based men" might be? Anything at all to go on? Even if their names cannot legally be revealed, any clues as to their loyalties or ethnicity or religion at all?

I mean, there are a lot of US-based men in the United States.

Andy Leeds

November 1st, 2009 4:51pm Report this comment

Yup that's it. So you can make a stand and publish the cartoons.

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

November 1st, 2009 4:55pm Report this comment

Verity - that would be two US-based men belonging to the blushing violet religion that dares not mention its name for fear of mistaken assumptions on the part of those that are in the habit of mistaking violets for roses that do not smell so sweet?

The Gateless Gate

November 1st, 2009 5:04pm Report this comment

More posts on Neatherworld please - it's a big world out there: time for the Speccie to stand up and be counted.

logdon

November 1st, 2009 5:51pm Report this comment

The more we read the more we learn.

The more we learn the more we understand.

The more we understand the more we realise that government and MSM is not on our side but that of Islam.

Here's yet more evidence.

http://www.thethirdjihad.com/911stream/911stream.php

logdon

November 1st, 2009 6:01pm Report this comment

Verity
November 1st, 2009 3:53pm

A bit like the vice which will not state it's name, Muslims are always 'Asian' or some other bullshit catchall.

James

November 1st, 2009 6:06pm Report this comment

The next freedom of expression to be curtailed will be criticism of the new religion of climate change. Already its supporters are trying to put opponents into the same bracket as Nazis. Climate change 'denial' will become a crime and those that express it will be punished. Wait and see.

strapworld

November 1st, 2009 6:59pm Report this comment

Verity, I know two men in the USA. You dont suppose this could be relating to them?

The Coffeehouse is suffering from ecoli!

Steve L

November 1st, 2009 7:43pm Report this comment

Hey, Gate..... did you see the Times comment piece today? At least someone is addressing the issue!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article6898174.ece

John_R

November 1st, 2009 8:15pm Report this comment

The New York Post has more detail:
CHICAGO — Two Chicago men are charged with plotting terrorist attacks against overseas targets, including at a Danish newspaper that sparked outrage throughout the Muslim by publishing cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

David Coleman Headley, 49, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, were charged in separate complaints filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

Prosecutors said Headley traveled to Denmark to identify potential targets for a terrorist attack and that Rana helped arrange Headley's travel.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/chicago_cops_plotted_mohammed_blow_Wt4685su3EnpUzHD3if4IJ

old fogey

November 1st, 2009 8:24pm Report this comment

Are there any other "communities" or movements in this country that are engaged in assaulting or restricting our freedom of speech apart from Islam and its apologists and defenders ( though this includes our quisling politicians).

logdon

November 1st, 2009 8:26pm Report this comment

Steve L
November 1st, 2009 7:43pm

Good article.

Did you read the posts? Almost 200, which for the Times is a good score. Talk about wind of change?

I liked the one about how Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are escaping the onslaught. If true why?

Is it because we is English?

But back to her article, not much equivocation there. One snowball does not make an avalanche but it can cause one.

Dixon

November 1st, 2009 8:46pm Report this comment

"Verity
November 1st, 2009 3:53pm

Report this comment

Last week, Denmark discovered that two US-based men were plotting a terrorist attack. Gosh, Daniel. Do they have any clues as to who these "two US-based men" might be? Anything at all to go on? Even if their names cannot legally be revealed, any clues as to their loyalties or ethnicity or religion at all?

I mean, there are a lot of US-based men in the United States."

I think you will find they were "youths".

Dixon

November 1st, 2009 8:48pm Report this comment

The placard says "take a lesson from 9/11"

Yes. 9/11 1683!

logdon

November 1st, 2009 8:52pm Report this comment

The BBC aired a programme presented by Flemming Rose.

Called Bloody Cartoons, it time-lined in precise detail all the mendacity, subterfuge, idiocy and the incendiary flammability of knee jerk Islam in action.

And where did those Gazans get all those Danish flags? Have they got warehouses full, just in case?

This is the trailer.

http://www.whydemocracy.net/film/11

Here's the lowdown on the whole affair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy

And the whole thing.

http://www.documentary-log.com/d307-bloody-cartoons/

If anyone wants a snapshot of Huntingdon's Clash of Civilisations this documentary will provide it.

2trueblue

November 1st, 2009 8:56pm Report this comment

James, it is already disallowed to speak against the new religion, climate change. Those who do are barred from the meetings, and the tragedy is, THEY are the only ones with real knowledge. The noodles who are producing the info for us have been looking back over that past 150yrs. Those who have real expertise have been looking back thousands of years, but are not singing form the chosen hymn sheet, so do not even get allowed, never mind invited to the gathering of the great.
The climate change movement is simply a great new way to part us, worldwide, from more of our money.

Augustus

November 1st, 2009 9:41pm Report this comment

The EU's 'Equal Treatment Directive' (approved last year), which still needs the approval of the Council of Ministers to become law, is apparently so broad, in it's definition of discriminatory harassment, that every objection to Muslim or homosexual
practices will be considered unlawful.

Augustus

November 1st, 2009 9:52pm Report this comment

Dixon, Nov.1st,8.48pm - Good point!

A very old war!

Kalmar Unionist

November 1st, 2009 9:55pm Report this comment

For good measure, the terrorists also planned to attack a Copenhagen synagogue...

Verity

November 1st, 2009 10:40pm Report this comment

2TrueBlue - The climate change movement is simply a great new way to part us, worldwide, from more of our money.

No. Or at least not as the primary purpose. The primary purpose is Common Purpose One Worlderism, promoted with enthusiasm by Tony 'n' Dave (although Cameron makes a poor show of pretending otherwise.

2trueblue

November 1st, 2009 11:14pm Report this comment

Veity, can't agree with you. It has not advanced that far yet, and right now it is all about the money. Just watch who really signs up. Promises are not proof of belonging. Look at the promises Bliar/Brown made to us.
We know that you can't resist hitting Cameron, so carry on.

Austin Barry

November 2nd, 2009 12:04am Report this comment

If all Western media, including the craven BBC, were to publish the cartoons on a given day the guns of the preposterous, murderous Islamists would be spiked. Never ever appease these people. They will be encouraged by our weakness and soon the choice will be either kneeling before them in orange jump suits waiting for the saw of the heavy-bladed knife and the cries of Allahu Akbar or submittimg to the Caliphate.
Our spineless masters may be prepared to countenance the latter but I hope we have the guts to risk the former.

Janus

November 2nd, 2009 8:13am Report this comment

Verity, for the record, the two US-based (Chicago) men are 'well-known' to the authorities; their names have been made public and they have confirmed their target to be the Danish cartoonist.

michael

November 2nd, 2009 9:06am Report this comment

Outrageous behaviour in the name of Mohammed.

This method of wealth creation and power taking is all very rent-a-mob

logdon

November 2nd, 2009 10:12am Report this comment

Here’s how it goes.....

Muslims Murdered His Son; Connecticut Town Tells Father to Shut Up About It
2009 November 2

Although James Gadiel was just 23 years old, he was a young man with promise. Hailing from the small town of Kent, Connecticut, James Gadiel had already landed his dream job with Cantor Fitzgerald, the global financial services powerhouse, and by all accounts was heading for a very successful career with that firm.

On September 11, 2001, James Gadiel’s life—along with the lives of nearly 3000 others—came to an abrupt end when Muslim terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, where James worked on the 103rd floor of the North Tower.

James’s father, Peter, grief-stricken, tried to move on with his life, but as the years passed, something began to trouble him: he was coming to the realization that people were starting to forget exactly who it was that attacked us on the morning of September 11, 2001. He doesn’t want people to forget his son or the other victims, but he especially doesn’t want people to ever forget who, exactly, was responsible for the heinous acts of that day: Muslim terrorists.......

The Town Board has rejected Peter Gadiel’s wording for the proposed plaque, deeming it as being “offensive,” and unless Gadiel changes the plaque’s wording, they will not allow it to be erected.

The wording of the plaque, the language of which the Town finds so offensive, is:

James Gadiel: Murdered by Muslim terrorists.

To Peter Gadiel, this is the central fact of the events of September 11, 2001, which he does not want glossed over.

Peter Gadiel: This isn’t a fact that is just overlooked—it’s suppressed. It’s simply wrong to imply that people just died; the buildings just collapse; they didn’t just fall down. We were attacked-by people with a specific agenda and for a specific purpose.

The city doesn’t want to offend Muslims.....

Ruth Epstein: We perceive ourselves as a very warm, loving Town, and to disparage any one ethnic group is against everything that we stand for here…we have at least one Muslim family here—with children—and it would be just awful to have them see something like that.

Read it all

newsrealblog.com/2009/11/02/muslims-murdered-his-son-connecticut-town-tells-father-to-shut-up-about-it/

Frank P

November 2nd, 2009 10:36am Report this comment

logdon

Fox has featured this Badiel story for two days. O'Reilly ran it on the factor. Can someone explain why Sky is a paddle-boat, when it's sister ship is a real destroyer?
Andrew Neil?

Frank P

November 2nd, 2009 12:16pm Report this comment

sorry about that rogue apostrophe in 'its'. Little bastards creep in when you are not paying attention (or pissed off because the editor of this magazine is still hiding under his brolly in this Neather-weather.

logdon

November 2nd, 2009 1:31pm Report this comment

Frank P
November 2nd, 2009 10:36am

Because it's a US story?

However it seems that the misplaced sentiment infects anywhere other than Islamoville. This part is what got to me.

"we have at least one Muslim family here—with children—and it would be just awful to have them see something like that."

One Muslim family?

Awful that their ever so delicate sensitivities are faced with what their co-religionists do in the name of that religion? How about the absolute desolation of a grieving father? Does he not count?

Seemingly Muslims can now incinerate 3000 people to kingdom come and the only ones offered any solace are other Muslims who must be protected at all cost from the reality of what their people do.

This is reaching denial ad absurdum. Newspeak in living glowing technicolour.

Is Ms Epstein aware of what would happen to her if she and her family were to resettle in Pakistan?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Pakistan

Is she aware that the Mumbai killers deliberately sought out the Chabad House because it was Jewish?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1041834.html

I really do despair.

Frank P

November 2nd, 2009 11:40pm Report this comment

logdon

"Because it's a US story?"

Probably. Except there's only really one story: the East v the West; Islam v Judeo-Christianity; Civilisation v Medieval barbarity. And you and I know which side is losing - and losing bad.

But I've still got my Uncle's pitchfork, which, as I said elsewhere, he gave me in 1940 when I was six and said, "This is for you boy, just in case!" :-)

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