In this mailing:
- Giulio Meotti: France Quietly Reintroducing the Crime of Blasphemy
- Amir Taheri: A Man of a Thousand Faces Wears a New Mask
by Giulio Meotti • February 9, 2020 at 5:00 am
Today, in France, using freedom of expression to criticize Islam is clearly an extremely dangerous act, even if you, like Mila, are a child.
France is rapidly going from laïcité (secularism) to lâcheté (cowardice); from freedom of expression to unconditional surrender. France keeps trying to procrastinate while Islamism thrives on the elites' rapidly abandoning their Judeo-Christian values.
Feminist organizations, so quick to denounce "toxic masculinity" and "patriarchal structures of domination", were also silent.
Today, in France, the country of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which always sanctified freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion and ideologies, some within the justice system.... are quietly and de facto reintroducing the crime of blasphemy.
Today, in France, the country that always sanctified freedom of expression and the right to criticize religion and ideologies, some within the justice system are quietly and de facto reintroducing the crime of blasphemy. (Images source: iStock. Image is illustrative and does not represent any person named in the article.)
France had just come out of the fifth anniversary of the massacre at its satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo than it was plunged into a similar case. On January 18, Mila O., a 16-year-old French girl, made insulting comments about Islam during an Instagram livestream.
"During her livestream, a Muslim boy asked her out in the comments, but she turned him down because she is gay. He responded by accusing her of racism and calling her a 'dirty lesbian'. In an angry follow-up video, streamed immediately after she was insulted, Mila responded by saying that she 'hates religion'".
Mila continued, saying among other things:
by Amir Taheri • February 9, 2020 at 4:00 am
In the meantime, conscious of the fact that Iranians are suckers for real or fake academic titles, to enhance his persona, Rouhani enrolled in a British college in Glasgow to obtain a PhD in Islamic law. Thus, in a few years' time, he was able to rebrand himself as Dr. Hassan Rouhani, the "moderate reformist with Western education."
By the 1990s, in Western policy circles, Rouhani had acquired the reputation of "a man with whom we can work".
Rouhani's message, peddled by cronies including Foreign Minister Muhammad-Javad Zarif, is that the internal opposition and foreign powers worried about Iran should be patient and help "moderates" re-orient the storm-stricken ship of the regime towards calmer waters.
Will Rouhani's scenario, for easing Khamenei off his pedestal, work? I doubt it. Rouhani may be a talented man of a thousand faces, but 40 years of experience has shown that every one of those faces turned out to be a mask.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani may be a talented man of a thousand faces, but 40 years of experience has shown that every one of those faces turned out to be a mask. (Photo by Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images)
Whatever one might think of Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, one thing is certain: had things gone differently in Iran 40 years ago, he might have become a writer of penny-dreadfuls with provincial themes. Rouhani's talent for fiction writing is demonstrated by the way he has reinvented himself over the decades.
In 1977, when the first rumbles of revolution roared in Iran, he was a student, going by the name of Hassan Fereidun, in England, seeking a degree in textile design.
A few months later, he re-named himself Rouhani, meaning spiritual or clerical. Fereidun was a Persian nationalistic name and would not do for a man plotting to cast himself as a champion of faith.
by Soeren Kern • February 8, 2020 at 5:00 am
The emails indicate that Prime Minister Mark Rutte himself was involved in the decision to prosecute Wilders.
"Minister Van der Steur has deliberately withheld those documents, as is apparent from these documents. Moreover, it appears that another Justice Minister, Minister Opstelten, lied..." — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020
"Mr. Presiding Judge, the Minister of Justice interfered in detail with my conviction. The documents even state that the Ministry of Justice instructed the public prosecutor — you will find the word 'instruct' in the documents...." -- Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020
"And every day that this trial continues and you do not punish the conspiring prosecution, and the Ministry of Justice for their lies and haggling with the principles of an independent, fair and balanced trial, by declaring them inadmissible, every day this trial continues is a black day in the history of Dutch justice." — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020
"In the Wilders case, we certainly do not have to rely on the judge to agree with Wilders and to reach the conclusion that there has been a political trial, which is therefore not legally valid.... Wilders case appears to have been pre-cooked in the cabinet itself.... [Prime Minister] Rutte himself was involved.... The lying and spinning must stop somewhere.... This rule of law, in which judges and prosecutors receive instructions by the politicians on how to act, is rotten from within." – Joost Niemöller, Dutch Journalist, Ongehoordnederland.nl, February 5, 2020
Newly released documents show that senior members of the Dutch government — including the former prime minister and justice minister — applied political pressure on public prosecutors to indict Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom for "hate speech." Pictured: Wilders (left) sits next to current Prime Minister Mark Rutte at a meeting of political party leaders at the Dutch House of Representatives on March 16, 2017 in The Hague. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
Newly released documents show that senior members of the Dutch government — including the prime minister and two former justice ministers — applied political pressure on public prosecutors to indict Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV), for hate speech for comments he made about Islam and Moroccan immigrants.
The documents, which the government turned over to the Amsterdam-based newspaper De Volkskrant in compliance with a Freedom of Information request, appear to confirm long-standing allegations by Wilders that the government's decade-long legal war against him is far from a principled pursuit of justice, and instead politically motivated, aimed at silencing his criticism of multiculturalism and mass migration from the Muslim world.
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