Some welcome and surprise news from the UK. “Britain has called on its NATO allies to stay united in defending the values of tolerance and free speech,” as well as to challenge Turkey. The starting point of challenging Turkey should be to throw Turkey out of NATO.
A chorus of Islamic countries has been justifying Paty’s murder on grounds that the Muhammad cartoons constitute an intolerable “offense”; meanwhile, they present Islam as having nothing to do with terrorism. In the minds of Sharia-adherent Muslims, it is actually not terrorism to murder for a range of “offenses” including blasphemy and apostasy.
In calling for solidarity among NATO members, the UK also needs to prepare itself for Muslim outrage and possible violence, particularly if it does seriously pursue the protection of its free society and freedom of speech. However, whether Britain actually does anything remains to be seen: avoiding the label of “Islamophobia” has become the top priority in Western countries, which has provided fertile soil for Islamization and the violence associated with it, whenever Muhammad is offended.
“UK Urges NATO Allies to Defend Free Speech as France, Turkey Spar Over Cartoons”, by Alexander Zhang, Epoch Times, October 28, 2020:
As the dispute over depictions of Prophet Mohammad intensifies between France and Turkey, Britain has called on its NATO allies to stay united in defending the values of tolerance and free speech.
Turkey has reacted angrily to French President Emmanuel Macron’s defense of the right to publish and display caricatures of Prophet Mohammad, following the beheading of a French history teacher by an 18-year-old radical Islamist on Oct. 16.
Samuel Paty was beheaded in broad daylight outside his school in a middle-class Paris suburb by a teenage Chechen refugee, who had sought to avenge his victim’s use of the Mohammad caricatures in a class on freedom of expression.
“The UK stands in solidarity with France and the French people in the wake of the appalling murder of Samuel Paty,” UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said in a statement. “My thoughts remain with his family. Terrorism can never and should never be justified.”
Macron has vigorously defended the cartoons as protected under the right to free speech.
“We won’t renounce the caricatures,” he said at a memorial for the teacher last week. On Oct. 25, he wrote on Twitter in both Arabic and English, “We will not give in, ever.”
Macron’s attitude has angered some Muslim countries, including France’s NATO ally Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Macron needed a mental health check and led calls for a boycott of French goods. France responded by recalling its ambassador to Turkey and warned its citizens in the country to take extra caution to ensure their personal safety.
In response to the escalating dispute, Raab said, “NATO allies and the wider international community must stand shoulder-to-shoulder on the fundamental values of tolerance and free speech, and we should never grant terrorists the gift of dividing us.”
But the rancor is showing no signs of abating. Turkey said on Oct. 28 that it will take legal and diplomatic steps in response to a caricature of Erdogan in the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which officials called a “disgusting effort” to “spread its cultural racism and hatred.”….