Archive for April 1st, 2009
Quote from Infidels Are Cool
The UN is looking more and more like the old SS in 1903’s Germany. Consider that if one insults Jesus, Christianity, Judaism, God, etc… no one really cares. You might hear the usual hellfire and brimstone speech from a pastor, affirming that God is not mocked, but you don’t have Christians or Jews or Hindu rioting in the streets, burning, and blowing themselves and others up to defend allah and islam’s honor.
UN body OKs call to curb religious criticism
GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s top human-rights body approved a proposal backed by Muslims nations Thursday urging the passage of laws around the world protecting religion from criticism.
The proposal by Pakistan had drawn strong criticism from free-speech campaigners and liberal democracies.
A simple majority of 23 members of the 47-nation Human Rights Council voted in favor of the resolution. Eleven mostly Western nations opposed it and 13 countries abstained.
The resolution urges states to provide “protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from defamation of religions and incitement to religious hatred in general.”
“It is individuals who have rights and not religions,” said Canadian diplomat Terry Cormier. Canada’s criticism was echoed by European Union countries, all of which voted against the proposal.
The council is dominated by Muslim and African countries. Muslim nations have argued that religions, in particular Islam, must be shielded from criticism in the media and other areas of public life. They cited cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as an example of unacceptable free speech.
“Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism,” the resolution said.
A coalition of more than 100 secular and faith groups had called on governments to oppose the resolution, warning that it could lead to accusations of defamation among different faiths.
The United States did not vote on the resolution because it is not a member of the council. The Bush administration announced it was virtually giving up on the body and would participate in debates only if absolutely necessary because of the council’s anti-Israel statements and its failure to act on abuses in Sudan and elsewhere.
India, which normally votes along with the council’s majority of developing nations, abstained in protest at the fact that Islam was the only religion specifically named as deserving protection.
India’s Ambassador Gopinathan Achamkulangare said the resolution “inappropriately” linked religious criticism to racism.
Quote from Infidels Are Cool
Funny how muslims never bat an eyelash when one of their own inbred f*cktard imam’s calls Jews the sons of apes, or Christians dirty animals. But call a muslim terrorist a muslim terrorist and they cry like a bunch of 6 year old girls (with apologies for insulting 6 year old girls). Free speech is enshrined in our Constitution, so the UN and the Organization of the islamic council can suck a kielbasa.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has backed a law that the United Nations Development Fund for Women claims legalizes rape within marriage and forbids women from leaving the house without permission, The Telegraph reported Tuesday.
According to the U.N. the law, which has not been released publicly, says women cannot seek work, education or doctor’s appointments unless their husband approves.
The law also allegedly gives sole custody of children to fathers and grandfathers. Opponents of the law accuse Karzai of pandering to the Shia minority whose swing vote is crucial.
While the Afghanistan constitution guarantees equal rights for women, it says the Shia population can settle cases based on Shia law.
Afghanistan would not let the U.N. see a copy of the bill, and a Karzai spokesperson would not comment.
Ezra Levant
National Post
On Jan. 11, 2008, I was summoned to a 90-minute government interrogation. My crime? As the publisher of Western Standard magazine, I had reprinted Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad to illustrate a news story. I was charged with the offence of “discrimination” and made to appear before Alberta’s Human Rights and Citizenship Commission (AHRCC) for questioning. As crazy as it sounds, I became the only person in the world to face legal sanction for printing those cartoons.
“In an investigation interview,” my interrogator, Shirlene McGovern, said, “I always ask people [their intent] … what was the intent and purpose of your article with the cartoon illustrations?” That one sentence summed up the commission’s illiberal nature. The idea that the government could haul in a publisher and force him to answer questions about his political beliefs didn’t seem extraordinary to this woman. Apparently, it was all in a day’s work.
And what was my intent and purpose? I’ve been asked that question a hundred times since I published the cartoons, and I always answer the same way: The images — and the reaction they caused — were newsworthy. As a magazine publisher, I am in the news business. My colleagues and I wanted to show our readers what the fuss was about. But when a government officer demanded to know why I’d dared publish the cartoons, that matter-of-fact answer just didn’t seem appropriate.
The Atlantic
In an interview conducted shortly before he was sworn in today as prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu laid down a challenge for Barack Obama. The American president, he said, must stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—and quickly—or an imperiled Israel may be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities itself.
“The Obama presidency has two great missions: fixing the economy, and preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told me. He said the Iranian nuclear challenge represents a “hinge of history” and added that “Western civilization” will have failed if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
In unusually blunt language, Netanyahu said of the Iranian leadership, “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”
History teaches Jews that threats against their collective existence should be taken seriously, and, if possible, preempted, he suggested. In recent years, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has regularly called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” and the supreme Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, this month called Israel a “cancerous tumor.”
But Netanyahu also said that Iran threatens many other countries apart from Israel, and so his mission over the next several months is to convince the world of the broad danger posed by Iran. One of his chief security advisers, Moshe Ya’alon, told me that a nuclear Iran could mean the end of American influence in the Middle East. “This is an existential threat for Israel, but it will be a blow for American interests, especially on the energy front. Who will dominate the oil in the region—Washington or Tehran?”
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