Shariah Law's Threat To Free Speech

From Alliance Defense Fund and Human Events:

Sharia Law’s Threat to Free Speech


by Connie Hair



10/11/2010







An organized effort is underway worldwide orchestrated by a powerful Islamic political body to criminalize speech that "offends" Muslims. As much as that may sound like some fantastic conspiracy theory, these Muslim leaders broadcast their group's every move on their website—yet America's ruling elites refuse to listen.



The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations representing 57 member states which seek to criminalize speech that violates the archaic tenets of Sharia law.



The OIC is comprised of the kings and heads of state of all Islamic countries numbering its membership at 57 states by including the non-existent state of Palestine.







As reported last week on HUMAN EVENTS, the OIC website says it comprises "the collective voice of the Muslim world" making "policy decisions" and providing "guidance on all issues pertaining to the realization of the objectives and consider other issues of concern to the Member States and the Ummah."



The ummah is the worldwide body of Muslim believers.



The OIC's claim to speak for "the collective voice of the Muslim world" carries great weight considering its membership. The OIC is not an Islamic religious organization but a political entity exercising political power and territorial claims through all of its member states as well as the ummah.



On December 8, 2005, at a heads-of-state-level summit, the OIC ratified its "Ten-Year Programme of Action to Meet the Challenges Facing the Muslim Ummah in the 21st Century."



The plan, among other things, seeks to define slander according to Islamic Sharia law—making Islamic “slander” a serious crime in every jurisdiction in the world, including the United States.



By January of 2006—just one month after ratification—the first OIC-orchestrated crisis was born.



In an attempt to buck the trend of media self-censorship on matters regarding Islam worldwide, Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30, 2005, published 12 editorial cartoon depictions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Under Sharia law it is illegal to publish an image of Muhammad.



Four months later, Muslim leaders circulated offensive cartoons not published by the paper, cartoons they had created themselves for the sole purpose of inciting violence. Manufactured outrage and violence ensued.



Eleven ambassadors from Muslim countries asked for a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to discuss what they perceived as an "on-going smearing campaign in Danish public circles and media against Islam and Muslims."



On December 6, 2005, at a summit with heads of state in attendance, the OIC issued an official communiqué demanding that the United Nations impose international sanctions on Denmark.



On March 4, 2006, in The News from Karachi, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf "raised the offensive caricatures issue and demanded his U.S. counterpart draft [a] law to avoid such incidents in the future. President Bush, who hopes to boost the U.S.' image among Muslims, condemned the publications of the cartoons and assured full cooperation."



Muslim imams toured the Middle East inciting violence that caused over 100 deaths.



Much more on the coordinated OIC efforts are found in this exhaustive, footnoted timeline of events.



The following year in 2007, the process was repeated when Salman Rushdie, author of the Satanic Verses, was honored with knighthood by the British government.



As reported in the Washington Times, Pakistani cabinet member Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq called for violent response to what he framed for the ummah as "slander" to Islam—this coming from the son of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan's third military president who reinstated Sharia rule in Pakistan in 1977:



"This is an occasion for the [world's] 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, said in parliament.



"The West is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body, he would be right to do so unless the British government apologizes and withdraws the 'sir' title," Mr. ul-Haq said.



In 2008, the OIC continued its strategic campaign with an effort to silence Geert Wilders, a sitting member of the Dutch parliament. Because of OIC orchestrations, Wilders is currently on trial in Amsterdam for hate speech.



Wilders produced a film entitled Fitna which cites violent verses from the Koran interspersed with footage of Muslim imams spewing vitriol and violent Muslim jihadi attacks worldwide.







OIC General Secretary Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu readily admitted in a speech in June of 2008 the OIC's targeting and orchestration, noting their success in causing the West to deter "freedom of expression."



"In confronting the Danish cartoons and the Dutch film Fitna, we sent a clear message to the West regarding the red lines that should not be crossed. As we speak, the official West and its public opinion are all now well-aware of the sensitivities of these issues. They have also started to look serious into the question of freedom of expression from the perspective of its inherent responsibility, which should not be overlooked," Ihsanoglu said.



Wilders' trial began in earnest last week and is expected to run through October. Wilders was denied expert-witness testimony to assert the truth of claims he made in the film about Islam.



The Dutch court instead stipulated to the truth-of-all-the-facts-of-the-matter when the court stated, in language that aligns with Islamic notions of “slander,” that: “It is irrelevant whether Wilders’ witnesses might prove Wilders’ observations [about Islam] to be correct, what’s relevant is that his observations are illegal.”



It doesn’t matter what’s true; the court says speaking truth in regard to Islam is illegal in the Netherlands because it may incite violence. Just what the OIC ordered.



Wilders' speech in Germany last Friday gives great insight into the OIC attacks on those who confront the "supremacy" of Sharia law and his own court battle that resumes today.



In 2009, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution (without a vote), submitted by the Obama Administration, which would subordinate U.S. free speech rights to UN oversight standards. These standards mirror the OIC’s Ten-Year Plan objectives.



The OIC seeks deterrent punishments for speaking against Islam to garner silence and submission to Sharia law.



In 2009 the toxic, politically correct atmosphere in the U.S. reached out and touched an American Christian group personally. The Christian Action Network (CAN) had its non-profit status revoked and was fined $4,000 by the state of Maine in 2009 for "an inflammatory anti-Muslim message."



CAN sent information to its members exposing schooling programs that took place in Byron, Calif., that required students to dress up as Muslims, chant "Praise be to Allah" and learn the Five Pillars of Islamic faith. The letter asked parents to sign a petition to the governor of their state to prohibit such Islamic teachings and activities in their public schools.



CAN eventually prevailed in court spending thousands of dollars to fight the precedent-setting fine for "insulting" Islam.



In August and September of 2010, we were all treated to threats of Islamic violence surrounding a Gainesville, Fla., preacher’s plan to burn the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.



The story hit the radar screen of most Americans in news reports of the Muslim threat of concerted retaliatory violence. How is it that these groups around the Muslim world were protesting this small-town rural American preacher at the same time on the same issue? Did al Jazeera open a Gainesville bureau?



Hardly.



In the Koran burning iteration of the information campaign, there was a coordinated media message including tie-ins to the Ground Zero mosque, Christian clergy condemning the pastor’s activities as “un-Christian” to satisfy Muslim sensitivities, the State Department comparing the pastor to the 9/11 terrorists (an American citizen exercising his protected free-speech rights inside America, mind you), and the U.S. Army commanding general in Afghanistan injecting himself into constitutional free-speech issues by allocating blame for future acts of Islamic-based terrorism to Americans.



A staged protest of Afghanis pressured Gen. Petraeus to comment on the planned actions of a private citizen inside the United States.



As seen in these efforts, the OIC seeks out stories to augment and broadcast to the Muslim world to orchestrate the violence or threats of violence. Once the Gainesville pastor buckled to Sharia-compliant demands, there was no outrage in the Muslim world over those who actually did burn the Koran on the nine-year anniversary of September 11.



Because the OIC picked the Gainesville pastor as its target, when they forced him to back down through intimidation, they had won. U.S. leaders including the President of the United States demanded the pastor submit to the tenets of Sharia law.



The subordination of 1st Amendment rights to Islamic law under threat of lethal jihadi attacks should be understood to be a declaration of hostility by those making the demands.



The threat that Muslims will self-radicalize and kill is at the very heart of the OIC campaign to squelch free speech regarding Islam. Issues such as the proposed Koran burning are manipulated for that purpose. Western cultural “elites” are targeted to deem the free speech inappropriate thereby facilitating a cultural dilution of our commitment to free-speech principles over time.



OIC “slander” campaigns are calibrated against issues like Koran burning or the Muhammad cartoons to dupe elites in the West into support for Islamic standards of “free speech” against their own interests. And it’s working.







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Connie Hair writes daily as HUMAN EVENTS' Congressional correspondent. She is a former speechwriter for Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and a former media and coalitions advisor to the Senate Republican Conference. You can follow Connie on Twitter @ConnieHair.