The Danish witch-hunt

John Steadman

"Read Hedegaard's speech, and weep for Europe."
Yes indeed.
Too much to ask, I suppose, that somebody at the BBC - or, indeed, to be fair, in the media at large - is not also reading it.

Mary

Never mind europe I weep for my country and its people, here in Britain, my heart breaks when I think of all the people past and present who have laid down their lives to keep this country free. The traitors in parliament have a lot to answer for, free speech what free speech, shouted down as a racist or biggot everytime someone dares to raise the subject of immigration or islam, why do we let these lefists get away with it, time to ignore the bl--dy lot of them.

150 Wat Tyler

Melanie, Steyn & co seem to have omitted both Guramit Singh and Stephen Lennon from the roster of the politically persecuted.

Is this because neither is a middle class intellectual?

Ian Miller

From what Hedegaard's lawyer says, it seems that it wasn't the facts he was expressing that was the problem. So presumably it was the language he used to express those facts.

Consider two statements. One is a simple, accurate and innocuous statement of fact about Judaism. The other is states the same facts but using the most foul ethnophaulisms through-out. The former is innocuous, the latter clearly hate-speech.

If Hedegaard is being prosecuted for the way he said it rather than the facts he was presenting, as the lawyer's statement implies, then I fail to see what the problem is.
These matters can still be freely debated without risk of prosecution, provided you do so with a modicum of tact.

david elder

I am traumatised, insulted and vilified. Somebody criticised the Australian cricket team. Something Must Be Done!

cityca

Melanie, like you, I grew up as a Jew in the UK during the 50s and 60s. My finer feelings were never considered by the general public and nor would I expect them to be.

Food served in our schools was not Kosher and representations of pigs were not hidden in case they offended me or my co-religionists.

Christmas trees and nativity scenes were unexceptional and certainly caused me no insult or upset.

More recently, the New Statesman had no hesitation putting out a front cover that would not have been out of place on the Nazi magazine Dr Sturmer.

So how is it that in the UK and Europe of today, we must bend over backwards or be prosecuted if we dare to voice our considered thoughts about the Muslim religion?

On another of your blogs today you write about Ted Honderich who apparently believes that terrorism is justifiable against Israelis and you ask whether he is likely to be prosecuted for supporting terror.

Will Jews in the UK receive the same level of concern about their finer feelings as do Muslims throughout Europe? If not, why not?

Steve

It's a shame that attention to these 'witch hunts' or, if you will, 'heresy trials' has to be brought to us by self-declared believers in ridiculous mono-theistic religions. The sound of them (Christians in particular) bleating about the imposition of unwanted beliefs and behaviours is really unsavoury and merely diminishes the vital point at stake.

lucien

In the same way that back in the anti vietnam sixties. the progressive left embarked on its long march through Britains institutions, Islam aided by their little helpers are now also well on their way. Its Gramscian subversion of human rights organisations, media, international finance, educators and the justice system is well advanced.
its amazing how all the pillars that have upheld western democracy are being torn down by the leftists who will be only too happy to position at the top of the pile of subhumans when this country caves in to the new supremacism. to paraphrase a great Englishman : never has so much harm been inflicted on so many by so few

Carlos Perera

In re Ian Miller's comment, "These matters can still be freely debated without risk of prosecution, provided you do so with a modicum of tact," I would like to know, who is the proper arbiter of tactfulness? And what objective standards must be followed in order to exhibit "a modicum of tact"?

I have a modest counterproposal to Mr. Miller: Free men and women can say what they damn well please without having to answer to a panel of Ian Millers for their lack of "tact."

Karin Hasselby

For most ideologues who hate 'truth' when it's inconvenient, it has become a myth, despite its' reality. However, the real myth is justice and equality! The silent majority have done their level best to believe. Why we're so outraged is that those selling us to the wolves get paid with our taxes! Ian Miller - Hedegaard fully deserves prosecution for his heartfelt and courageous response to the way Muslim men treat females!?

AY

no thanks. I'd better read Fjordman and Sultan Knish and make preparations for err, bowling.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/09/future-of-war-on-terror-is-war-on-islam.html

Patrick

Thank you Mr Perera.

Augustus

"Many today call the tactics of European multiculturalists a
'soft' totalitarianism. However,
the willingness of governments to put people in jail or deprive them of their livelihoods for disagreeing with
government policies can hardly be characterized as soft. It should be recalled that in its last thirty years the Soviet Union rarely murdered opponents,
but used tactics similar to the ones being used today in Europe.
A world without borders would be one without refuge from despotic rule. Despotic governance was the rule throughout most of recorded history, and is still the rule today for the majority of the world's citizens...Whether people would be better off without independent nation states, living under the rule of a world government, or in large supranational blocks such as the EU is by no means clear.
In fact, history and reason suggest that just the opposite would be the case. Most utopian
dreams when implemented have, in fact, been real-life nightmares for the vast majority. One is hard-pressed to think of an exception."
- Byron M. Roth (P.53. The Perils of Diversity: Immigration
And Human Nature)

Mike Wood

AY
January 27th, 2011 8:22am

I totally agree. A brilliant profound and analysis by sultanknish.

Bart Roozendaal

It remains to be seen if the new Wilders trial, which starts February 7, will not simply end in a full aquittal of the Freedom Party leader.
The trial was clearly politically motivated from day one, with a public prosecutor's office dragging its feet, but being pushed along without doubt by christian democrat circles in The Hague who loathe the idea of being robbed of their protected status as a religious group, should Wilders manage to enforce secularity in the public domain.
Wilders' attorney already filleted the motives behind the trial, and forced a retrial by having the judges held incompetent last October.
We can but hope.

Celato

Carlos Perera:

You ask: '...what objective standards must be followed in order to exhibit a "modicum of tact"?'

A starting point might be to substitute a group of people you belong to/admire/love for the group being 'threatened, insulted or denigrated'.

In the Hedegaard case, his full text was: 'They [Muslims] rape their own children. It is heard of all the time. Girls in Muslim families are raped by their uncles, their cousins or their fathers.'

Now imagine a Muslim was making that statement about 'Jews' or 'Christians' or 'the British' and ask yourself if the wording is acceptable...

Hedegaard himself acknowledges that his use of the plural 'Muslims' was a mistake, but even if rewritten as (for eg), 'Some Jews rape their own children...etc', it would still stink pretty nastily of anti-Semitism in the context of an Islamic diatribe against Israel.

So what about Hedegaard's 'truth' defence? Do you really think it would have stood up?

Some Muslim men indeed rape their own children - but so do some Jewish, Christian and British men. It is 'heard of all the time' if you look at reports by child-abuse agencies. Why, then, single out Muslims in such a way?

In searching for an 'objective standard' I would certainly consider all the above points before opening MY big gob on a free-speech platform!

Ian Miller

Carlos Perera:

What is being high-lighted here is the genuine and unavoidable conflict between freedom of speech and freedom from bigotry. The problem with your "modest proposal" is that far from being modest, it is a bigot's charter.

Regretably there is no objective standard that can be applied. Ultimately it is up to governments to set the rules and the courts to make the case-by-case judgments.

I have no wish to be on the panel making such judgments, although as I am eligible for jury service, I could be.

Tilly

cityca

I wonder what kind of memories a 21st century Muslim child living in a Denmark unfettered by Article 266b would have...

Cheery Christian schoolchums chanting the freely-spoken words of Lars Hedegaard, 'Muslim dads are rapists, Muslim men are rapists' might be rather more painful than a bruising of finer feelings.

Augustus

Lars Hedegaard has noted that Jews in Malmo, Sweden's third largest city, can no longer walk the streets if they openly show signs of their religion. But the country in Europe with the worst anti-Semitism and Muslim immigration problem is definitely France. Perhaps no other incident so vividly portrays France's predicament as the horrific murder of 23-year-old Ilan Halimi in 2006.
Halimi was a Jewish Parisian who was kidnapped by a gang of
Muslim immigrants who named themselves 'The Barbarians'. For three weeks Halimi was systematically tortured by his Muslim captors. According to the Wall Street Journal, the gang phoned the family on several occasions and made them listen to a recitation of verses from the Koran while Ilan's screams could be heard in the background. The screams must have been dreadful because the torture was especially brutal: The thugs cut bits of flesh off the young man, they cut off his fingers and ears, they burned him with acid, and in the end they poured petrol over him and set him on fire.

Of course, Islamic violence and intimidation isn't limited only to the Jews. In 2004 Dutch political columnist and film maker Theo van Gogh was murdered for his Islamophobia while bicycling to work in the centre of Amsterdam. His crime?
He had made a short TV film about Islam's misogynistic treatment of women called Submission. So is there hope for
Eurabia, or is it slowly committing suicide? One can indeed only weep.

Peter

Many years ago I learned the maxim ...'the greater the truth, the greater the libel'

It seems it still applies.

cityca

Tilly
I don't understand your point.

Neil Saunders

cityca -

I understand Tilly's point: the truth can hurt.

Celato

cityca and Neil Saunders:

The point I was making, cityca, was that the childhood experiences you describe clearly did not include being subjected to hatred and ridicule. (Otherwise you most certainly WOULD have been caused 'insult or upset'.)

In the context of this discussion, an influential figure - Lars Hedegaard - made remarks which went well beyond offending the 'finer feelings' of an ethnic/religious group. He was stereotyping Muslims as incestuous rapists.

Had he said the same thing about Jews when you were at school, and his right to express this view legally sanctioned, it would have legitimated anti-Semitism as an 'exercise of free speech' and the repercussions felt in every playground.

Children capitalise very heavily on stereotyping as an excuse to bully; and what better excuse to gang up on Jewish pupils can you imagine than a widely-publicised assertion that girls of that particular faith are routinely raped by their fathers and uncles?

Neil Saunders - you (sarcastically, I assume) interpret what I was saying as 'the truth can hurt'.

Sure it can. But so, too, can half-truths and lies.

In Hedegaard's case he was perpetrating a lie: that Muslims are markedly more prone to incestuous rape than any other cultural group. He had absolutely no evidence for this and would almost certainly have fallen flat on his face if he'd tried to argue such a point in court.

In much the spirit of a playground bully, Hedegaard was stereotyping a minority group and relying on ignorance and bigotry to 'vindicate' himself.

Incest is a recognised problem in ALL cultures, despite being a universal taboo. It is a covert practice which inflicts a sense of deep shame on its victims. Reluctant to report their ordeals, the true facts and figures are simply unknown - not to the police, not to child-abuse agencies...and not to the ineffable Mr Hedegaard.

Mladen Andrijasevic

Pat Condell on the Lars Hedegaard Show Trial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEkelAsmcf4

Tilly

cityca & Neil Saunders

My last post to you was dictated to friend and dispatched under her "Celato" pseudonym in error. So sorry for confusion!

roy darroch

europes favorite word now is appeasement ,havent learnt much since 1939 have we