Maryland court denies validity of Islamic divorce!

A small victory against the creeping sharia initiatives of the stealth jihadists.

"Court denies Islamic divorce: Man's attempt to circumvent state law is rejected," by Nick Madigan for the Baltimore Sun (thanks to all who sent this in):

Saying "I divorce thee" three times, as men in Muslim countries have been able to do for centuries when leaving their wives, is not enough if you're a resident of Maryland, the state's highest court ruled yesterday.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeals rejected a Pakistani man's argument that his invocation of the Islamic talaq, under which a marriage is dissolved simply by the husband's say-so, allowed him to part with his wife of more than 20 years and deny her a share of his $2 million estate.

The justices affirmed a lower court's decision overturning a divorce decree obtained in Pakistan by Irfan Aleem, a World Bank economist who moved from London to Maryland with his wife, Farah Aleem, in 1985.

Both of their children were born in the United States.

In 2003, Aleem's wife filed for divorce in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

When he filed a counterclaim, he did not object to the court's jurisdiction over the case, according to the ruling. But before the legal process could be completed - and without telling his wife - Aleem went to the Pakistani Embassy in Washington and invoked the talaq, in effect attempting to turn jurisdiction of the case over to a Pakistani court that later granted him a divorce.

When they were married in Karachi in 1980, Farah Aleem was 18 and had just graduated from high school. Irfan Aleem was 29, a doctoral candidate at Oxford University in England. As is customary, the couple signed a marriage contract. It obligated Aleem to give his wife the equivalent of $2,500 in the event of their divorce. When they split, he did so, and claimed he owed her nothing more.

Maryland's highest court disagreed.

"If we were to affirm the use of talaq, controlled as it is by the husband, a wife, a resident of this state, would never be able to consummate a divorce action filed by her in which she seeks a division of marital property," the judges wrote in their decision.

They said the talaq "directly deprives the wife of the due process she is entitled to when she initiates divorce litigation." [...]

Experts in Islamic law and religion who are based in the U.S. said they agreed with the court's ruling. Abdullahi An-Na'im, a Muslim scholar and law professor at Emory University in Atlanta, said "there can only be one law of the land."...

Indeed.

The New York Times spits in Israel's eye on its 60th

In "After 60 Years, Arabs in Israel Are Outsiders," by Ethan Bronner, the New Duranty Times (thanks to Michael) laments the plight of the Arabs displaced from Israel in 1948.

Not mentioned, unsurprisingly:

1. The fact that most of the Arabs left because they were told to do so by their leaders, with the promise that they would return soon, after the Arab states had obliterated Israel.

2. The fact that hundreds of thousands of Jews were expelled from Muslim countries at the same time.

3. The fact that refugee problems in Europe and India in the wake of World War II were settled within a few years, but that the Palestinian refugee problem has been artificially kept alive by the Arab states as a stick with which they could beat Israel -- no Arab state offered the Palestinians citizenship after 1948 except Jordan.

4. The fact that Jews in an Islamic state ruled by Islamic law would be relegated to second-class dhimmi status.

And on and on. Par for the course, really.

San Quentin Prison imam chokes wife with electrical cord, is not suspended from job

Is no one at San Quentin uncomfortable with the idea of this imam preaching among prison inmates? Some of those inmates are probably doing time for crimes committed in similar circumstances. "Prison chaplain still on duty pending assault inquiry," by Gary Klien for the Marin Independent Journal, May 5 (thanks to JT):

San Quentin State Prison chaplain accused of choking his wife with an electrical cord will remain on duty pending the outcome of the investigation, a state spokeswoman said.

The investigation should not stop there. Prison officials should look into what he is preaching. Indeed, it is an opportunity to reconsider a great deal about the chaplaincy program, concerning who is hired, and what inmates are hearing and reading.

Rafeeq Hassan, 66, was arrested April 24 after an incident at his home on the prison grounds. Police determined that Hassan choked his wife with his hands and an electrical cord during an argument over "household issues," according to the sheriff's department.

Hassan, in a phone interview, said he was shaving at the time and was fending off his wife during a "ruckus."

Prosecutors are still reviewing the allegations, said Deputy District Attorney Charles Cacciatore. Hassan, who is free on bail, was assigned a May 12 court date to find out whether he will be charged.

Hassan, a full-time Muslim chaplain who makes $59,000 a year, has not been placed on suspension by prison officials.

"They need to wait until they receive all the documentation and reports until they make a decision about suspending him," said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the state correctional department.

The prison employs five chaplains - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Native American. Hassan pays about $800 a month to rent his home at the prison, Thornton said.

He may yet get a place for free.

Indonesia: "Islamic Defender Front" threatens to tear down church as officials withhold worship permit

Islamic Tolerance Alert. Where are all the moderates in Modern, Moderate Indonesia, not only to condemn verbally, but demand meaningful action to stop the official corruption and jihadist mobs at the center of this story? And for that matter, where is the condemnation from Islamic groups in the West? "Indonesia: Islamists threaten to tear down church," from Compass Direct:

JAKARTA, May 6 (Compass Direct News) – Muslim extremists and local government authorities last week threatened to tear down a church building under construction in North Sumatra even though church leaders met requirements of Indonesia’s draconian law on worship places, the church’s pastor said.

Emboldened by local authorities’ unwillingness to grant a church building permit to Protestant Bataks Christian Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestan, or HKBP), some 100 Muslim extremists accompanied by government officials on April 29 tried to destroy the building under construction in Jati Makmur village, North Binjai, 22 kilometers (14 miles) from the provincial capital of Medan.

The Rev. Monang Silaban, HKBP pastor, said about 100 members of the Islamic extremist Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defender Front, or FPI), some armed with “sharp weapons,” arrived at 4:30 p.m. accompanied by Binjai municipal officials, who brought a bulldozer. Church members quickly gathered to defend the building, with women anxiously crying, “Please God protect us.”

The groups nearly came to blows in the rain as some Islamic extremists made their way into the structure, which was about 40 percent completed. Brigadir Mobil (Brimob) security forces and Binjai reserve police arrived and were able to bring calm, with the mob eventually calling off the assault.

Binjai officials have been unwilling to grant HKBP a permit even though it has complied with recent government regulations requiring it to provide information on 90 adult members and the written consent of 60 neighbors. Rev. Silaban said the church had provided the required information on 90 church members and collected 69 signatures of area residents giving their consent for the church building.

A Joint Ministerial Decree issued in 1969 and revised in 2006 requires an official permit for any place of worship – whether Muslim, Christian or otherwise – operating throughout Indonesia. The requirements of the revised decree – 90 adult members and 60 neighbors’ written consent – leave many small Christian churches easy targets for Islamic radicals and hostile local governments, but the Jati Makmur’s HKBP is one of the few Indonesian churches actually able to comply with it.

Police met with church and Muslim extremist group leaders following the confrontation and reached an agreement that construction on the building would cease until the permit is approved – something that hasn’t happened in the two years since HKBP applied.

At the meeting, held at the mayor’s office in Binjai, G.T. Siregar, a member of the church construction committee, complained that officials have obstructed efforts to obtain permission to construct the church building.

“We’re tired of trying to obtain the permit, because it always fails,” he said. “The local government actually has to grant us the permit, because we have done as the revised decree has asked.”

California: Muslim polygamist goes on trial for imprisoning, abusing 3 wives and 19 children

And he justified his actions based on Islamic law, including beating his wives (Qur'an 4:34), and forbidding them to leave the house, which Muhammad endorsed according to a hadith quoted in the jurisprudence manual 'Umdat al-Salik (The Reliance of the Traveler):

The husband may forbid his wife to leave the home because of the hadith related by Bayhaqi that the Prophet ... said: "It is not permissible for a woman who believes in Allah and the Last Day to allow someone into her husband's house if he is opposed, or to go out if he is averse" (m10.4).

But many unanswered questions remain. Someone had to know about Mansa Musa Muhummed's activities; why did they not report him for abusing his wives and children, and for welfare fraud? And why didn't anyone take him to task for, as some will certainly allege, misunderstanding his religion so terribly?

"Long-awaited trial begins in case of man accused of imprisoning 3 spouses, 19 children," from SignOnSanDiego, May 5:

MURRIETA – A man starved the 19 children under his roof, beat some of them and their mothers and made the youngsters and two of his three so-called wives virtual prisoners in their own home, a prosecutor told jurors Monday as the defendant's long-delayed trial got under way.

Mansa Musa Muhummed, who was arrested in 1999, faces eight counts of torture – each of which carries a potential life sentence – 11 counts of willful injury to a child, five counts of inflicting corporal injury on a spouse and two counts of false imprisonment.

Marva Boddie, the woman who was legally married to Muhummed under state law – the other two were not – was arrested along with him nine years ago and pleaded guilty in 2000 to one count of willful injury to a child. [...]

Muhummed allegedly kept two of his three so-called wives and 19 children – his and theirs – prisoner in their home, torturing seven of them, prosecutor Julie Baldwin told jurors in her opening statement.

“He would beat their feet ... to the point where they could hardly stand or walk,” she said.

When authorities went into the home in the 49000 block of Sweepstakes Lane on April 6, 1999 – they were alerted by someone who managed to escape and go for help – some of the children were underweight, undernourished and stunted because of lack of food, the prosecutor said.[...]

One of Muhummed's so-called wives, Laura Cowan, testified that in 1995, Muhummed and his 13 children and Boddie moved into the San Bernardino condominium where she lived with her infant daughter and toddler son. Her husband had just recently gone to prison.

She tried, but failed to keep her family's restaurant and bookstore businesses going, and everyone moved to a house in Perris, Cowan said.

“In the beginning, it was still good,” she said.

But soon, she said, she saw a different side of the defendant.

“His temperament, the way he treated the children, his demeanor started to change,” Cowan testified.

Boddie, the defendant's legal wife, was already on welfare and Cowan said she had to go on public assistance, as well. The defendant did not work or contribute to the combined family's finances, she said.

He convinced Cowan that they could wed, under Islamic law, because her own husband was away, she said. The moment she married the defendant, he forced her to close all her bank accounts and credit cards and assumed control of her finances and her life, she testified.

“He said I no longer had outside affairs,” Cowan said. “I was told that nothing else I would do alone.”

The defendant also forbade Cowan to work outside the home or go to school, she said, and refused her money for the children's clothing, personal items such as toothbrushes and hair products. He bought everything for the household himself, ruling the home with an iron hand, Cowan said. [...]

“I wanted to take my children and move,” said Cowan, who said she was Muslim when she became involved with the defendant but had never heard of some of the rules he imposed on her, in the name of Islam and Sharia. Cowan said she became an object of his physical abuse.

MILF jihadists withdraw from plundered Christian area, claim leaders had not approved of land seizure

Withdrawing from the area does not undo the damage. Rather, it only completes an act of intimidation, whereby the Christian farmers, if they choose to stay, are on notice that neither they nor their property are safe, and remain subject to the whim of their jihadist overlords. The MILF jihadists may return at any time with more demands, and have demonstrated the capability of driving them off of their lands. In other words, the land seizure was a gesture toward the intended future status of the Christian residents as dhimmis, unless and until they are expelled altogether.

More on this story. "Muslim rebels in the Philippines withdraw from village, allow Christians to return," from the Associated Press, May 5 (thanks to Sheik Yer'mami):

MANILA, Philippines: Muslim separatist rebels withdrew from a southern Philippine village and allowed about 1,000 Christian farmers to return after tensions flared over a land dispute, a military official said Monday.

The standoff in the coastal village of Sangay highlighted the fragile situation in the southern Philippines, where mediator Malaysia announced it was pulling out cease-fire monitors amid a lack of progress in settling a decades-long Muslim insurgency.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas entered the village in Sultan Kudarat province last Wednesday demanding food, confiscating rice and sending Christian residents fleeing, Mayor Rolando Garcia said.

Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said the occupation occurred because of competing claims to the land, but the action had not been approved by rebel leaders.

About 300 rebels withdrew over the weekend following talks with the provincial government, said Col. Danilo Garcia, a regional military commander.

"It's all about a land conflict," he said, adding the rebels claimed that Christian settlers had no right to be there.

It was not clear how the dispute was resolved, but such incidents have fueled the struggle of minority Muslims for self-rule.

"Such incidents have fueled the struggle of minority Muslims for self-rule." Or rather, the Islamic imperative to establish the rule of Sharia law has been the catalyst for open-ended jihad, and the resulting "land disputes."

MILF drives 1,000 Christians from their land

An update on this story.

"Mindanao, Islamic rebels drive more than a thousand Christians from their land," by Santosh Digal for AsiaNews, May 3 (thanks to Cindy):

Cotabato (AsiaNews) - The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has forced about 1,200 Christian farmers to flee from a village in the southern province of Mindanao. This is confirmed by the local police, who withdrew from the area in order to avoid an armed conflict with the rebels. These have been seeking for about 40 years to obtain a sort of administrative and sectarian independence from Manila.

This situation deteriorated last week, when Malaysia withdrew its mediators from the province, the stronghold of the Muslim Filipinos. According to a peace agreement signed by the rebels and the government, in fact, an autonomous Muslim region was supposed to have been created this year with the supervision of neighbouring countries, called to oversee the cease-fire.

But dialogue between the two parties was abruptly interrupted, in spite of appeals from Catholic and Muslim religious leaders, and the fear of new sectarian violence forced many Christians in the south to flee to safer areas.

Garcia, a local farmer, recounts: "The Islamic Front arrived suddenly and claimed their forefathers owned the land we are farming, and at gunpoint told us to leave. Police were not allowed entry, so they backed off to avoid bloodshed".

European Commission President: Islam is part of Europe

"We can be a European citizen being a Christian, being Jewish or Muslim or having no religion." Yes, and because of you and people like you, Barroso, eventually only Muslims will be European citizens, with Jews and Christians reduced to dhimmi status.

"Barroso: Islam is part of Europe," from Khabrein.info, May 5 (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

BRUSSELS , May 5: The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, underlined here Monday that Islam is part and parcel of Europe and he also condemned the concept of clash of civilisations.

"Islam today is part of Europe. It is important to understand this.One should not see Islam as outside Europe. We already have an important presence of Islam and Muslims among our citizens," Barroso told a press conference this afternoon after an informal dialogue between EU leaders and around twenty high-level representatives of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in Europe.

"We can be a European citizen being a Christian, being Jewish or Muslim or having no religion," he noted.

On his part, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dr.Mustafa Ceric, said Islam is indeed part of Europe but unfortunately Turkey is not yet part of Europe.

"Following this logic Europe has to prove that Islam is part of Europe by not delaying the acceptance of Turkey to the EU," Ceric told the joint press conference....

Pakistan: Grow your beards or else

So said Taliban commander Maulvi Faqir Mohammad at a mosque. Why didn't the Vast Majority of Peaceful, Modern, Moderate Muslims rise up and denounce his threat as un-Islamic?

"Pakistan Taliban leader gives beard warning: residents," from AFP, May 5 (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) — A Pakistani Taliban leader has warned local tribesmen to grow beards within the next two months in accordance with Islamic teachings or face harsh punishment, residents said Monday.

The threat came amid an apparent increase in incidents of militants trying to enforce Islamic Sharia law in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where the new government is trying to make peace with hardliners.

"Men must grow beards and stop shaving within the next two months," residents quoted senior Taliban commander Maulvi Faqir Mohammad as telling dozens of people at a mosque in Khar, the main town in Bajaur tribal district. [...]

"It is un-Islamic to shave beards. Harsh punishments will be awarded to all violators," added Mohammad, the central vice chief of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban Movement) and also a Muslim cleric.

The group is an umbrella organisation of Taliban factions in Pakistan's tribal belt. Its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, has been accused of masterminding the slaying of former premier Benazir Bhutto in December....

Sam Harris: Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Sam Harris speaks truth to power with a defense of free speech and Fitna at, of all places, HuffPo.

[...] The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.

There is an uncanny irony here that many have noticed. The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we will kill you. Of course, the truth is often more nuanced, but this is about as nuanced as it ever gets: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we peaceful Muslims cannot be held responsible for what our less peaceful brothers and sisters do. When they burn your embassies or kidnap and slaughter your journalists, know that we will hold you primarily responsible and will spend the bulk of our energies criticizing you for "racism" and "Islamophobia."

[...]

Nature, arguably the most influential scientific journal on the planet, recently published a lengthy whitewash of Islam (Z. Sardar "Beyond the troubled relationship." Nature 448, 131-133; 2007). The author began, as though atop a minaret, by simply declaring the religion of Islam to be "intrinsically rational." He then went on to argue, amid a highly idiosyncratic reading of history and theology, that this rational religion's current wallowing in the violent depths of unreason can be fully ascribed to the legacy of colonialism. After some negotiation, Nature also agreed to publish a brief response from me. What readers of my letter to the editor could not know, however, was that it was only published after perfectly factual sentences deemed offensive to Islam were expunged. I understood the editors' concerns at the time: not only did they have Britain's suffocating libel laws to worry about, but Muslim physicians and engineers in the UK had just revealed a penchant for suicide bombing. I was grateful that Nature published my letter at all.

In a thrillingly ironic turn of events, a shorter version of the very essay you are now reading was originally commissioned by the opinion page of Washington Post and then rejected because it was deemed too critical of Islam. Please note, this essay was destined for the opinion page of the paper, which had solicited my response to the controversy over Wilders' film. The irony of its rejection seemed entirely lost on the Post, which responded to my subsequent expression of amazement by offering to pay me a "kill fee." I declined.

I could list other examples of encounters with editors and publishers, as can many writers, all illustrating a single fact: While it remains taboo to criticize religious faith in general, it is considered especially unwise to criticize Islam. Only Muslims hound and hunt and murder their apostates, infidels, and critics in the 21st century. There are, to be sure, reasons why this is so. Some of these reasons have to do with accidents of history and geopolitics, but others can be directly traced to doctrines sanctifying violence which are unique to Islam.

[...]

It is perverse for the western media to lament the lack of an Islamic reformation and willfully ignore works such as Wilders' film, Fitna. How do they think reformation will come about if not with criticism? There is no such right as 'the right not to be offended; indeed, I am deeply offended by the contents of the Koran, with its overt hatred of Christians, Jews, apostates, non-believers, homosexuals but cannot demand its suppression.

It is time we recognized that those who claim the "right not to be offended" have also announced their hatred of civil society.

All of this essay is excellent. Read it all.

Fitzgerald: How dumb do we have to be, and for how long?

SAN'A, Yemen - A bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up amid a crowd of worshippers leaving Friday prayers at a mosque in a rebel stronghold of northern Yemen, killing at least 18 people and wounding about four dozen, officials said. – from this news article

Shi'a and Sunnis at it again. Yes, of course, the American government must do what it can to try to stop this kind of internecine warfare among Muslims, in Yemen as in Iraq. Otherwise there might be a "catastrophic" situation. Otherwise there might be "chaos" in the Middle East.

And somehow this "chaos" and this "catastrophe" that will ensue will, we are told, be bad for us, in ways always unspecified, as if we are simply to accept the conclusion of our betters -- you know, the people in the government who pick up their news just as you and I do, but who lack the time, and the inclination (unlike you, unlike me) to spend the time to read about Islam, to read the texts of Islam, to learn what the Western students of Islam (not the espositos but the real thing) have said about the contents of Islam.

Bangladesh: Leader of Islamic Law Implementation Committee threatens to "paralyze" country if women's rights measures are approved

Those measures could lead to outrageous, horrible, unthinkable, and obscene things like equal property rights.

An update on this story. "Amini threatens to paralyse nation if women policy executed," from The Daily Star (Bangladesh), May 5:

Leaders of Islamic Law Implementation Committee (ILIC) yesterday threatened to paralyse the country if the government does not scrap what they termed as 'anti Islamic provisions' in the National Women Development Policy (NWDP) 2008.

Led by Islami Oikya Jote's Fazlul Huq Amini, ILIC leaders declared a three-point programme including a rally at city's Paltan maidan on July 18 to press for their demand.

"The caretaker government won't survive if they implement this anti-Islamic law," Fazlul Huq Amini told the ILLC representatives from across the country who attented the conference at the Engineers Institute in the city.

He called on the armed forces to withdraw its support from the government, saying that the present government couldn't last if the armed forces withdraw their support.

The radical leader at one stage of his speech termed those who support NGO's as non-Muslims (kafer). He sought pledges from his followers to be ready to sacrifice their lives to 'save' the holy Quran.

Others termed the advisers non-Muslims for having formulated NWDP.

Muhiuddin Khan, senior vice-president of a faction of Islami Oikkya Jote, said that his faction was ready to sacrifice anything to press for their demands.

ILIC will hold seminars and meetings at district headquarters to mobilise public support against the NWDP.

"They preach that girls’ education leads to obscenity and vulgarity": Girls' school torched in northwest Pakistan

"Militants encourage girls’ education in religious seminaries and even collect donations for this purpose. However, they strongly oppose teaching girls modern disciplines such as science, geography, social sciences and mathematics."

So, for example, does geography lead to obscenity and vulgarity, or is it one or the other? "Islamists Torch Girls’ School in NW Pakistan," by Shaheen Buneri for The Media Line, May 4:

[Peshawar] Unidentified attackers set fire to a girls’ high school and planted bombs in its science laboratory in the Charbagh area of the conflict-ridden Swat district in North West Pakistan.

School watchman, Toti Gul, said that 40-50 men entered the school at midnight and used gasoline to set ablaze nine rooms of the only girls’ high school in the area.

“The faces of the armed men were covered and they were chanting slogans. They directed me to take away all the copies of the Holy Quran from the school building. When I did that they set the school on fire and also planted bombs in the science laboratory. The bombs were later diffused by the bomb disposal squad,” he said.

The watchman said the school library was burnt to ashes due to the raging fire, adding that the militants were bold enough to stay there for 25-30 minute observing the fire until it engulfed the whole building.

As annual examinations for the Secondary School Certificate are in progress in North West Frontier Province, it is feared that in the wake of the recent terrorist attack hundreds of girls will miss their examinations.

The principal of the school said she was not sure whether tomorrow girls would be able to take their exams.

“I have repeatedly informed high officials in the district about the security concerns of the school teaching staff and the volatile situation in the area, but received no satisfactory response. Really, I feel very frustrated,” she added.

A district official said, on condition of anonymity, that attacks on girls’ educational institutions had intensified over the last year in Swat valley.

“We are investigating the matter and will bring the people responsible to justice,” he said.

The police have taken Toti Gul into custody for further interrogation.

Maulana Fazlullah, a militant leader and chief of the Taliban Movement’s Swat chapter, has discouraged girls’ education in his sermons through his unlicensed radio station and has forbidden parents to send their daughters to school.

Secretary of the Swat Private School Association, Zia-ud-Din, explained that girls’ education was the main casualty of the conflict between militants of hardliner cleric Fazlullah and Pakistan security forces.

“About 1,200 educational institutions have been closed due to the conflict in the valley. They have bombed girls’ schools in different areas and even killed female teachers. They preach that girls’ education leads to obscenity and vulgarity, therefore it should be discouraged. This is very wrong perception of Islam,” he said.

Militants encourage girls’ education in religious seminaries and even collect donations for this purpose. However, they strongly oppose teaching girls modern disciplines such as science, geography, social sciences and mathematics.

More than 20,000 Pakistan security forces are fighting Fazlullah’s militants, but have yet to prevent terrorist incidents in the once peaceful, paradise-like tourist district of the Frontier Province.

Locals say that despite the government’s peace deal with Maulana Sufi Muhammad, chief of the Movement for the Enforcement of Shari’a – commonly known as Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Muhammadi – violence is on the rise in the valley.

The battle for secularism in Turkey

Henrik Ræder Clausen reports on the ongoing battle between secularists and Sharia supremacists in Turkey:

Largely underreported in Western media, a significant constitutional battle is taking place in Turkey these days. On March 14th 2008, the Chief Prosecutor filed suit in Constitutional Court demanding the closure of the incumbent AKP party:

... as it is understood that the party became center of acts against the principle of secularism.

This is a very serious charge. 24 have been shut down since the 1960s, including the AKP’s predecessors, and this could very well happen again. Not one of the 11 constitutional judges voted against accepting the case. To many, this indicates that the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

EU reactions to the case were swift - and openly negative - to the court's decision to accept the case:

European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn voiced renewed concern on Monday after court's decision. Rehn said he would report to the European Commission on the case on Wednesday, saying it showed a "systemic error" in the Turkey's constitutional framework.

Olli Rehn said that the court case was a mistake. Both he and Javier Solana have indicated that if the constitutional court banned the AKP, the accession negotiations would be off – or at least that is how the Turkish press have interpreted their statements.

http://www.kerkuk.net/haberler/haber.aspx?dil=2057&metin=2008040112

In the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament, he added that it is unimaginable that a legal, popular political party which does not use or propagate violence, would be banned.

[Actually, this is not true, as such a ban took place in Belgium in 2004. Olli Rehn ignores this.
http://europenews.dk/en/node/9402]

Other EU officials and institutions have made similar statements, on the obvious assumption that this court case constitutes some sort of illegitimate political coup against the current government of Turkey. However, in doing so the EU system falls into another trap, that of not respecting the integrity and validity of the Turkish Constitutional Court.

Dutch museum removes controversial Muhammad exhibit after death threats

I don't like "art" like this. I don't approve of "art" like this. But do not be deceived: if Sooreh Hera had exhibited a series of photographs of homosexual men wearing masks of Jesus and the Apostle John, no one would be issuing death threats, John Voll, associate director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, would not be pontificating about limits to free speech, and the papers would instead be full of editorials about the dangers of censorship and the growing power of the Christian Right.

John Voll asks: "Can you imagine what would happen if John McCain used the n-word about Obama while campaigning? There are consequences. Free speech is not absolute."

What would happen, Dr. Voll? Would McCain be executed? No. Murdered? Probably not. Threatened with death? Again, probably not. Jailed? No. Vilified in the national press? Certainly. Would he lose the election? Almost certainly.

And that's the key difference. Sooreh Hera is being threatened with death, and the Dutch museum is kowtowing in the face of those threats, bowing to violent intimidation. If they declined to host her work because they found it tasteless and offensive, they would have a case. They have no obligation to host it. But Sooreh Hera should be free to exhibit it wherever she can find a place willing to do so, without having to hide behind a pseudonym and live in constant fear of being murdered. If McCain says something stupid that derails his campaign, Dr. Voll, that's his loss, but it is not illegal to say that word, and should not be, and he should not have to live in fear of being killed if he were to say it.

I say in the article: "The ultimate goal of people making threats is to make it illegal or too dangerous or both for anybody to say anything considered to be insulting to Muhammad or Allah." That is why everyone who does not wish to live under Sharia should stand against violent intimidation from jihadists, wherever and whenever it manifests itself.

"Iranian Artist Fights to Have Muhammad Art Displayed in Dutch Museums," by Jana Winter for FoxNews, May 3 (thanks to James):

For the third time in four months, the controversial work of an Iranian artist has been suddenly yanked from a Dutch museum exhibition.

The artist, who goes by the alias Sooreh Hera and who lives in exile in the Netherlands, said she received death threats after attempting to show her series of photographs entitled "Adam & Ewald, Seventh-Day Lovers."

Some of the photographs include depictions of the Prophet Muhammad and his son-in-law Ali in poses that would likely upset any believer in any religion.

That is, for those of you who may still not be Muslim, the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

The most controversial images feature gay men posed in various stages of undress. In one, a man wears leather chaps with his buttocks exposed, wearing a mask of Ali, the son-in law of the prophet Muhammad. In other photo two men are shirtless wearing masks of both Ali (on the left) and Muhammad (on the right).

Museum directors initially planned to display the work of the 35-year-old artist. But now, citing fear of reprisals and political pressure, they've changed their mind, much to her dismay.

Hera says she is fighting for freedom of speech and freedom of expression in a nation that once was known for its tolerance and peace, but now is a hotbed of religious and social tension.

"Freedom of expression has become an illusion in Europe," she told FOXNews.com in a phone interview from a home where she is currently in hiding. "We think we have freedom of expression, but in fact we live under a sort of hidden censorship."

But John Voll, associate director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, said Hera's works cross the line and are offensive.

He said freedom of speech does not mean that one has the freedom to be as insulting as possible.

"It isn't as if we have absolute freedom in the United States to be offensive and insulting just to be different," Voll said in an interview.

"Can you imagine what would happen if John McCain used the n-word about Obama while campaigning? There are consequences. Free speech is not absolute," he said.

[...]

Hera said a fatwa, or religious pronouncement, of death has been issued for her as a result of her exhibit. "The fatwa was printed in the Iranian newspapers; they said they would kill me," she told FOXNews.com, and saying she can't go out now in public. She's declined television interviews to answer her critics, and won't even attend her own art exhibition.

"I will not be attending [Art Amsterdam] due to safety reasons," she said. "It's like being forbidden to go to your own wedding."

She said her work is a direct response to the threats made by radical Islamists against her and against the Dutch government.

"I did this to answer the Iranian government," Hera said. "I made some new work. In one of these photos the deceased spiritual leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, is in leather trousers, half naked."

She says the point of this is to expose the hypocrisy in Islam about homosexuality and to get everyone talking about the freedom of expression and speech in the Western world.

"I'm hoping my work will arouse discussion," she said. "The thing that endangers the Netherlands is succumbing to fear and keeping silent about threats and not being alert in regard to freedom of expression," she says.

"The Netherlands is very much a flashpoint right now. It looks as if there is going to have to be some hard choices made about whether we're going to defend our civilization or not," Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch told FOXNews.com.

Did I really say "there is going to have to be some hard choices made"? I doubt it, but if I did, I just hope my seventh-grade English teacher doesn't read this.

Spencer says this sort of pressure by Muslim groups "who don't hesitate to traffic in violent intimidation" will continue to undercut freedom of speech until it no longer exists.

"The ultimate goal of people making threats is to make it illegal or too dangerous or both for anybody to say anything considered to be insulting to Muhammad or Allah, to impose the Islamic code, which is the goal of Usama bin Laden, upon the West," he said.

"It's time to take a stand and say we believe in freedom of speech and that means some people will be offended."...