Muslim Nations Make Another All-Out Effort to Compel the West to Abandon Free Speech
And many in the West would be only too happy to oblige.
[Make sure to read Robert Spencer’s contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
Morocco World News reported on Sept. 24 that Dutch human rights activist Edwin Wagensveld, whom it predictably called a “far-right Dutch extremist,” had once again torn a copy of the Qur’an “in a new provocative Islamophobic act” in from of Turkey’s embassy in the Netherlands. This was just one of many recent instances of desecration of the Qur’an, most of which have taken place in Denmark and Sweden. Several Islamic states are using them to attempt once again to intimidate the West into abandoning the freedom of expression and adopting Sharia blasphemy laws. This time, given the Left’s notable hatred for the freedom of speech, it just might work.
Morocco World News added that Wagensveld’s act “stirred outrage and frustration from many Muslim communities, who have repeatedly called on the international community to intervene to end such provocative acts.” Indeed. Turkey’s Daily Sabah reported on the same day that “in a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that Ankara condemns the spread of these “provocative attacks,” which are allowed to be carried out in European countries under the guise of freedom of expression.” The Foreign Ministry stated that “the countries where such attacks have taken place must now take effective measures against these provocations, which are recognized by the United Nations as acts of religious hatred and violations of international law.”
The Jordanian Foreign Ministry issued a statement of its own, condemning these “irresponsible acts that provoke the feelings of two billion Muslims around the world, fuel hatred and threaten peaceful coexistence.” It added that religious symbols must be respected, and that this was a “collective responsibility that everyone must adhere to.”
In response to an earlier act of Qur’an desecration, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry declared: “This senseless and provocative Islamophobic act hurts the religious sensitivities of over 1.5 billion Muslims around the world.” It insisted that such acts were “not covered under any legitimate expression of the right to freedom of expression or opinion, which carries responsibilities under international human rights law, such as the obligation not to carry out hate speech and incite people to violence.”
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah said the burning “hurts Muslims’ sentiments across the world and marks serious provocation.” He said that the world should “shoulder responsibility by stopping such unacceptable acts and denouncing all forms of hatred and extremism and bringing the perpetrators to accountability.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said that Europe invokes the freedom of speech in order to “allow extremist and radical elements to spread hatred against Islamic sanctities and values.” He said that the burning was a “clear example of spreading hatred and fueling violence against Muslims” and had “nothing to do with freedom of speech and thought.”
Such responses demonstrate a superficial (at best) understanding of the freedom of speech, but as they come from Muslim countries, they’re understandable. Less forgivable was a recent statement of the High Representative of the UN Alliance of Civilizations, Miguel Angel Moratinos. His office said: “While the High Representative stresses the importance of upholding the freedom of expression as a fundamental human right, he also emphasises that the act of Quran-burning, amounts to an expression of hatred towards Muslims. It is disrespectful and insulting to the adherents of Islam and should not be conflated with freedom of expression.”
In other words, the High Representative of the UN Alliance of Civilizations does not really believe in the freedom of expression as a fundamental human right at all. He believes that when someone threatens to kill you over your expression, you should adopt a respectful silence. In other words, he wants the West to submit to Sharia blasphemy restrictions.
Moratinos and others issued these condemnations in the first place because of jihad violence. That’s the only reason. If someone burned a Bible, would the act make any headlines at all? No. Would any ambassadors be summoned? No. Would the High Representative of the UN Alliance of Civilizations start huffing and puffing about how the burning of the Bible was “disrespectful and insulting to the adherents of Christianity”? No.
What’s the difference? If you burn a Bible, Christians won’t kill you. If you burn a Qur’an, some Muslims will want very much to kill you. If you give in to them and curtail your activities accordingly, you’ll end up encouraging more such violent intimidation. Once the jihadis see that the West will give them what they want if they threaten violence, they’ll threaten ever more violence. That’s why Miguel Angel Moratinos is a fool who deserves the condemnation of all free people.
Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 26 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest books are The Critical Qur’an and The Sumter Gambit. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Reader Interactions
Paying Iranian Terrorists Billions in Ransom
What's the going rate for an American hostage these days?
The going rate for an American hostage these days is around $1.3 billion. That’s what the Biden administration paid out for five Americans in a prisoner swap with the Islamic Republic of Iran this week. And with little overhead, it’s mostly profit for the mullahs.
But don’t let the term “prisoner swap” insinuate that there is any moral equivalence. These are not two normal countries trading spies or combatants. No, this is just old-fashioned extortion.
The Iranians released political hostages, snatched off the streets of Tehran after unwisely returning to visit family or attending funerals or protests. Many of them were reportedly thrown into the notorious Evin Prison for the crime of having dual citizenship. Some, like Siamak Namazi, were put in solitary confinement for over two years.
Conversely, the United States released a bunch of spies, most of them caught trying to send military and nuclear equipment back to Iran — all of them given the benefit of due process.
Having a moral imperative to retrieve American citizens from these fascist regimes is admirable. Incentivizing more kidnappings is not. So, it’s one thing for the Biden administration to contend, “we did what he had to do” and quite another for them to celebrate as if they had just signed the Peace of Westphalia.
Last week, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan tweeted out a triumphant picture of the Biden team and the released hostages, writing, “seven Americans on their way home from Iran alongside a world class group of American diplomats.”
The fact that Iran, a far weaker state with little leverage, walks away with its spies and $6 billion in sanctioned cash in exchange for five innocent people does not strike me as a great diplomatic coup … at least not for the United States.
Mullahs, and others, feel quite comfortable taking American hostages, which speaks poorly of our world standing, and confoundingly of the Democrats’ soft touch with Iran. “Hey, that’s a nice military base you have there, it would be a shame if it ended up like the shredded corpse of Qasem Soleimani,” is what the vile mullahs should be hearing. The same Democrats who are gung-ho to fight proxy wars against nuclear powers will almost never utter a word that might offend the supreme leader of Iran.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, trying to manage the political fallout, contends that the United States is “working every single day to take steps to make this practice (hostage taking) more and more difficult and more and more of a burden on those countries that engage in it.” They say the same thing every time. And it is never true.
For a long time, stated U.S. policy was to never pay ransom for hostages taken by terror groups. The Justice Department objected to former President Barack Obama’s midnight cash payments to Iran because it ignored those existing guidelines. This is why Washington now uses diplomatic euphemisms like “wrongfully detained” rather than “hostage.” And the U.S. not only still considers Iran a state sponsor of terrorism but it has designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the group that reportedly seized these very people we just liberated, a terror organization.
Which is also why the White House claims that “under terms that provide confidence, the funds will be spent only on a limited category of humanitarian trade: food, medicine and agricultural products. That’s it.”
Is it, though? There is absolutely no way to ensure that the Islamofascists in Qatar, the nation “brokering” the deal, will hold their friends in Iran accountable, or that it even matters. Before all the funds were even transferred to Iranian accounts, “President” Ebrahim Raisi had told NBC News that his country would spend $6 billion “wherever we need it.” Of course, even if the mullahs bought only “food, medicine and agricultural products” with it, that specific money is, as everyone knows, fungible.
Iran boosters will tell you the ransom money is actually Iran’s to begin with — funds held by South Korea due to American sanctions. It shouldn’t be. The Iranian government, companies and officials still owe American citizens at least $53 billion in outstanding judgments. Legislation passed in 2015 granted up to $4.44 million to every American held hostage by Iran in 1981 — $10,000 per day. Then there are the families and relatives of 9/11 victims, who also won tens of millions in judgments against Iran, which not only gave safe harbor to Sunni terror groups but also helped transit al-Qaeda members out of Afghanistan before 9/11, including some of the hijackers.
Maybe we needed to make this deal, maybe not. But giving another $6 billion to a nation that attacks U.S. interests around the world, one that is responsible for the murders of hundreds of our soldiers, is nothing to brag about.
The going rate for an American hostage these days is around $1.3 billion. That’s what the Biden administration paid out for five Americans in a prisoner swap with the Islamic Republic of Iran this week. And with little overhead, it’s mostly profit for the mullahs.
But don’t let the term “prisoner swap” insinuate that there is any moral equivalence. These are not two normal countries trading spies or combatants. No, this is just old-fashioned extortion.
The Iranians released political hostages, snatched off the streets of Tehran after unwisely returning to visit family or attending funerals or protests. Many of them were reportedly thrown into the notorious Evin Prison for the crime of having dual citizenship. Some, like Siamak Namazi, were put in solitary confinement for over two years.
Conversely, the United States released a bunch of spies, most of them caught trying to send military and nuclear equipment back to Iran — all of them given the benefit of due process.
Having a moral imperative to retrieve American citizens from these fascist regimes is admirable. Incentivizing more kidnappings is not. So, it’s one thing for the Biden administration to contend, “we did what he had to do” and quite another for them to celebrate as if they had just signed the Peace of Westphalia.
Last week, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan tweeted out a triumphant picture of the Biden team and the released hostages, writing, “seven Americans on their way home from Iran alongside a world class group of American diplomats.”
The fact that Iran, a far weaker state with little leverage, walks away with its spies and $6 billion in sanctioned cash in exchange for five innocent people does not strike me as a great diplomatic coup … at least not for the United States.
Mullahs, and others, feel quite comfortable taking American hostages, which speaks poorly of our world standing, and confoundingly of the Democrats’ soft touch with Iran. “Hey, that’s a nice military base you have there, it would be a shame if it ended up like the shredded corpse of Qasem Soleimani,” is what the vile mullahs should be hearing. The same Democrats who are gung-ho to fight proxy wars against nuclear powers will almost never utter a word that might offend the supreme leader of Iran.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, trying to manage the political fallout, contends that the United States is “working every single day to take steps to make this practice (hostage taking) more and more difficult and more and more of a burden on those countries that engage in it.” They say the same thing every time. And it is never true.
For a long time, stated U.S. policy was to never pay ransom for hostages taken by terror groups. The Justice Department objected to former President Barack Obama’s midnight cash payments to Iran because it ignored those existing guidelines. This is why Washington now uses diplomatic euphemisms like “wrongfully detained” rather than “hostage.” And the U.S. not only still considers Iran a state sponsor of terrorism but it has designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the group that reportedly seized these very people we just liberated, a terror organization.
Which is also why the White House claims that “under terms that provide confidence, the funds will be spent only on a limited category of humanitarian trade: food, medicine and agricultural products. That’s it.”
Is it, though? There is absolutely no way to ensure that the Islamofascists in Qatar, the nation “brokering” the deal, will hold their friends in Iran accountable, or that it even matters. Before all the funds were even transferred to Iranian accounts, “President” Ebrahim Raisi had told NBC News that his country would spend $6 billion “wherever we need it.” Of course, even if the mullahs bought only “food, medicine and agricultural products” with it, that specific money is, as everyone knows, fungible.
Iran boosters will tell you the ransom money is actually Iran’s to begin with — funds held by South Korea due to American sanctions. It shouldn’t be. The Iranian government, companies and officials still owe American citizens at least $53 billion in outstanding judgments. Legislation passed in 2015 granted up to $4.44 million to every American held hostage by Iran in 1981 — $10,000 per day. Then there are the families and relatives of 9/11 victims, who also won tens of millions in judgments against Iran, which not only gave safe harbor to Sunni terror groups but also helped transit al-Qaeda members out of Afghanistan before 9/11, including some of the hijackers.
Maybe we needed to make this deal, maybe not. But giving another $6 billion to a nation that attacks U.S. interests around the world, one that is responsible for the murders of hundreds of our soldiers, is nothing to brag about.
No comments:
Post a Comment