The Redhunter

Back to the "Cartoon Jihad"

From the Cayman Compass

The European Union regrets that the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad were "considered offensive" by Muslims around the world, EU foreign ministers said Monday in their first joint statement on the issue.

Freedom of expression, however, "is a fundamental right and an essential element of a democratic discourse," the EU ministers said.

So far, so good. Kudos to the EU ministers.

But then this from Tony Blair's Britain

Britain had called for the EU to show regret over the publication of the 12 cartoons, which were first published in a Danish newspaper last year. However, both the Dutch and Czech governments were opposed to apologizing for the cartoons’ publication, saying that would be detrimental to media freedoms.

Thanks for standing up for freedom, Tony.

Where Holland Goes...

The situation is even worse in Holland, if this account by Douglas Murray in The Sunday Times of London is at all accurate.

Murray went to Holland recently to speak at a conference on Islam in Europe. Just to give an idea as to the situation, he said that the threat to speakers was so high that they were asked by hotel staff if they wanted to register under false names. The police provided a personal security detail for everyone. Murray had a guard outside his hotelroom door.

The event itself was orderly and debate was conducted in scholarly fashion. But Murray talks about the situation in Holland and the rest of Europe

But the story of Holland — which I have been charting for some years — should be noted by her allies. Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided 500 officers to protect a “peaceful” Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square.

It seems the British police — who regularly provide protection for mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) — were unable to send even one policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London protests, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with detention for making trouble.

Holland — with its disproportionately high Muslim population — is the canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism — not the “liberalism” that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy’s greatest living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country, and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.

...
Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors are under protection.

Europe is shuffling into darkness.

Indeed it may be.