In this mailing:
- Raymond Ibrahim: The Rubber Whip: Extremist Persecution of Christians, October 2018
- Josef Zbořil: Why the West Must Safeguard Free Speech
- Very Merriest Christmas and Happiest Winter Holidays!
by Raymond Ibrahim • December 25, 2018 at 5:00 am
Following the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and the Arabic language. Church leaders said Sudanese authorities have demolished or confiscated churches and limited Christian literature on the pretext that most Christians have left the country following South Sudan's secession." — Morning Star News, October 17, 2018.
The head teacher of the Government Boys Primary School... assaulted Sharjeel Masih, a 12-year-old Christian student, after he touched a water tap in her presence. "I was just trying to turn off a running tap when the teacher grabbed me... and asked why I had touched the tap and made it filthy..." The boy was then suspended from school. — Pakistan.
Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Christians in Iraq have been abducted, enslaved, raped and slaughtered, sometimes by crucifixion. "Another wave of persecution will be the end of Christianity [in Iraq] after 2,000 years," according to Chaldean Archbishop Habib Nafali of Basra.
"Following the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Sudan President Omar al-Bashir vowed to adopt a stricter version of sharia (Islamic law) and recognize only Islamic culture and the Arabic language," according to Morning Star News. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons)
The Slaughter of Christians
Nigeria: As many as 55 Christians were murdered and a church was torched during an attack by Muslims on a crowded market in Kaduna state on October 18. A local source explained:
"A Muslim raised a false alarm about a thief in the market, which caused stampede, and then other Muslims started chanting 'Allahu Akbar [the jihadist slogan, God is Greater],' attacking Christians, burning houses and shops belonging to Christians in the town."
by Josef Zbořil • December 25, 2018 at 4:30 am
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's "Media Strategy in Countering Islamophobia and its Implementation Mechanisms" describes one part of its strategy as: "To call media professionals to develop, articulate and implement voluntary codes of conduct to counter Islamophobia. The OIC and its Member States should be vocal in calling media professionals to use the power they have with responsibly through accurate reporting." What, however, if those two requirements -- accurate reporting and countering Islamophobia -- conflict with each other?
"Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth. To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature and to suppress truth." — Liu Xiaobo, Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, author of Charter 08.
"Man... does not have to accept a lie." — Václav Havel, in his 1978 essay, "The Power of the Powerless".
"... if you lived, as I did, several years under Nazi totalitarianism, and then 20 years in communist totalitarianism, you would certainly realize how precious freedom is, and how easy it is to lose your freedom." — Miloš Forman, Czech-American film director.
It boggles the mind that any Western society would choose to forfeit the values of critical thinking and free speech. The fact is that where these values end, the West ends as well. (Image source: iStock)
The freedom to express oneself without fear and the tolerance for opposing viewpoints are what binds otherwise diverse, democratic societies. In the United States, this freedom is protected by the Constitution, with only very specific limits, the key one of which was imposed in 1969, following a landmark Supreme Court ruling in the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio. According to that ruling, inflammatory speech cannot be penalized unless it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
The discussion of the boundaries of free speech is one that continues to arouse controversy, both in the US and abroad. It basically centers on the extent to which a country agrees with American Founding Father and fourth president James Madison, who said: "A man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them."
December 25, 2018 at 4:00 am
Wishing only the best for our treasured friends at Gatestone, the Free World and all the people trapped outside the Free World. If the US does not preserve it, who will? Blessings for the New Year!
All of us at Gatestone
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