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I'd Rather Die Standing Than Live on My Knees - Charlie Hebdo Pays the Price for Free Speech
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My views on religion and the absurd notion that anyone has the answers straight from the mouth of my favorite author-
15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will
By Scott Gordon, Josh Modell, Noel Murray, Tasha Robinson, and Kyle Ryan Apr 24, 2007 4:20 AM470 Comments1. "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"The actual advice here is technically a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's "good uncle" Alex, but Vonnegut was nice enough to pass it on at speeches and in A Man Without A Country. Though he was sometimes derided as too gloomy and cynical, Vonnegut's most resonant messages have always been hopeful in the face of almost-certain doom. And his best advice seems almost ridiculously simple: Give your own happiness a bit of brainspace.2. "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."In Cat's Cradle, the narrator haplessly stumbles across the cynical, cultish figure Bokonon, who populates his religious writings with moronic, twee aphorisms. The great joke of Bokononism is that it forces meaning on what's essentially chaos, and Bokonon himself admits that his writings are lies. If the protagonist's trip to the island nation of San Lorenzo has any cosmic purpose, it's to catalyze a massive tragedy, but the experience makes him a devout Bokononist. It's a religion for people who believe religions are absurd, and an ideal one for Vonnegut-style humanists.3. "Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."Another koan of sorts from Cat's Cradle and the Bokononist religion (which phrases many of its teachings as calypsos, as part of its absurdist bent), this piece of doggerel is simple and catchy, but it unpacks into a resonant, meaningful philosophy that reads as sympathetic to humanity, albeit from a removed, humoring, alien viewpoint. Man's just another animal, it implies, with his own peculiar instincts, and his own way of shutting them down. This is horrifically cynical when considered closely: If people deciding they understand the world is just another instinct, then enlightenment is little more than a pit-stop between insoluble questions, a necessary but ultimately meaningless way of taking a sanity break. At the same time, there's a kindness to Bokonon's belief that this is all inevitable and just part of being a person. Life is frustrating and full of pitfalls and dead ends, but everybody's gotta do it.4. "There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."This line from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater comes as part of a baptismal speech the protagonist says he's planning for his neighbors' twins: "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." It's an odd speech to make over a couple of infants, but it's playful, sweet, yet keenly precise in its summation of everything a new addition to the planet should need to know. By narrowing down all his advice for the future down to a few simple words, Vonnegut emphasizes what's most important in life. At the same time, he lets his frustration with all the people who obviously don't get it leak through just a little.5. "She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing."A couple of pages into Cat's Cradle, protagonist Jonah/John recalls being hired to design and build a doghouse for a lady in Newport, R.I., who "claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly." With such knowledge, "she could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be." When Jonah shows her the doghouse's blueprint, she says she can't read it. He suggests taking it to her minister to pass along to God, who, when he finds a minute, will explain it "in a way that even you can understand." She fires him. Jonah recalls her with a bemused fondness, ending the anecdote with this Bokonon quote. It's a typical Vonnegut zinger that perfectly summarizes the inherent flaw of religious fundamentalism: No one really knows God's ways.6. "Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"In this response to his own question—"Why bother?"—in Timequake, his last novel, Vonnegut doesn't give a tired response about the urge to create; instead, he offers a pointed answer about how writing (and reading) make a lonesome world a little less so. The idea of connectedness—familial and otherwise—ran through much of his work, and it's nice to see that toward the end of his career, he hadn't lost the feeling that words can have an intimate, powerful impact.7. "There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too."Though this quote comes from the World War II-centered Mother Night (published in 1961), its wisdom and ugly truth still ring. Vonnegut (who often said "The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected") was righteously skeptical about war, having famously survived the only one worth fighting in his lifetime. And it's never been more true: Left or right, Christian or Muslim, those convinced they're doing violence in service of a higher power and against an irretrievably inhuman enemy are the most dangerous creatures of all.8. "Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."Vonnegut's excellent-but-underrated Slapstick (he himself graded it a "D") was inspired by his sister Alice, who died of cancer just days after her husband was killed in an accident. Vonnegut's assessment of Alice's character—both in this introduction and in her fictional stand-in, Eliza Mellon Swain—is glowing and remarkable, and in this quote from the book's introduction, he manages to swipe at a favorite enemy (organized religion) and quietly, humbly embrace someone he clearly still missed a lot.9. "That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes."The narrator delivering this line at the end of the first chapter of Deadeye Dick is alluding both to his father's befriending of Hitler and his own accidental murder of his neighbor, but like so many of these quotes, it resonates well beyond its context. The underlying philosophy of Vonnegut's work was always that existence is capricious and senseless, a difficult sentiment that he captured time and again with a bemused shake of the head. Indeed, the idea that life is just a series of small decisions that culminate into some sort of "destiny" is maddening, because you could easily ruin it all simply by making the wrong one. Ordering the fish, stepping onto a balcony, booking the wrong flight, getting married—a single misstep, and you're done for. At least when you're dead, you don't have to make any more damn choices. Wherever Vonnegut is, he's no doubt grateful for that.10. "Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak."Vonnegut touchstones like life on Tralfamadore and the absurd Bokononist religion don't help people escape the world so much as see it with clearer reason, which probably had a lot to do with Vonnegut's education as a chemist and anthropologist. So it's unsurprising that in a "self-interview" for The Paris Review, collected in his non-fiction anthology Palm Sunday, he said the literary world should really be looking for talent among scientists and doctors. Even when taking part in such a stultifying, masturbatory exercise for a prestigious journal, Vonnegut was perfectly readable, because he never forgot where his true audience was.11. "All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental."In Vonnegut's final novel, 1997's Timequake, he interacts freely with Kilgore Trout and other fictional characters after the end of a "timequake," which forces humanity to re-enact an entire decade. (Trout winds up too worn out to exercise free will again.) Vonnegut writes his own fitting epigram for this fatalistic book: "All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental," which sounds more funny than grim. Vonnegut surrounds his characters—especially Trout—with meaninglessness and hopelessness, and gives them little reason for existing in the first place, but within that, they find liberty and courage.12. "Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?"Even when Vonnegut dared to propose a utopian scheme, it was a happily dysfunctional one. InSlapstick, Wilbur Swain wins the presidency with a scheme to eliminate loneliness by issuing people complicated middle names (he becomes Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain) which make them part of new extended families. He advises people to tell new relatives they hate, or members of other families asking for help: "Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?" Of course, this fails to prevent plagues, the breakdown of his government, and civil wars later in the story.13. "So it goes."Unlike many of these quotes, the repeated refrain from Vonnegut's classic Slaughterhouse-Fiveisn't notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion—and dismissal of emotion—it packs into three simple, world-weary words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. There's a reason this quote graced practically every elegy written for Vonnegut over the past two weeks (yes, including ours): It neatly encompasses a whole way of life. More crudely put: "Shit happens, and it's awful, but it's also okay. We deal with it because we have to."14. "I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."Vonnegut was as trenchant when talking about his life as when talking about life in general, and this quote from an essay in Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons is particularly apt; as he explains it, he wrote Player Piano while working for General Electric, "completely surrounded by machines and ideas for machines," which led him to put some ideas about machines on paper. Then it was published, "and I learned from the reviewers that I was a science-fiction writer." The entire essay is wry, hilarious, and biting, but this line stands out in particular as typifying the kind of snappishness that made Vonnegut's works so memorable.15. "We must be careful about what we pretend to be."In Mother Night, apolitical expatriate American playwright Howard W. Campbell, Jr. refashions himself as a Nazi propagandist in order to pass coded messages on to the U.S. generals and preserve his marriage to a German woman—their "nation of two," as he calls it. But in serving multiple masters, Campbell ends up ruining his life and becoming an unwitting inspiration to bigots. In his 1966 introduction to the paperback edition, Vonnegut underlines Mother Night's moral: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." That lesson springs to mind every time a comedian whose shtick relies on hoaxes and audience-baiting—or a political pundit who traffics in shock and hyperbole—gets hauled in front of the court of public opinion for pushing the act too far. Why can't people just say what they mean? It's a question Don Imus and Michael Richards—and maybe someday Ann Coulter—must ask themselves on their many sleepless nights
15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will
By Scott Gordon, Josh Modell, Noel Murray, Tasha Robinson, and Kyle Ryan Apr 24, 2007 4:20 AM470 Comments1. "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.'"The actual advice here is technically a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's "good uncle" Alex, but Vonnegut was nice enough to pass it on at speeches and in A Man Without A Country. Though he was sometimes derided as too gloomy and cynical, Vonnegut's most resonant messages have always been hopeful in the face of almost-certain doom. And his best advice seems almost ridiculously simple: Give your own happiness a bit of brainspace.2. "Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."In Cat's Cradle, the narrator haplessly stumbles across the cynical, cultish figure Bokonon, who populates his religious writings with moronic, twee aphorisms. The great joke of Bokononism is that it forces meaning on what's essentially chaos, and Bokonon himself admits that his writings are lies. If the protagonist's trip to the island nation of San Lorenzo has any cosmic purpose, it's to catalyze a massive tragedy, but the experience makes him a devout Bokononist. It's a religion for people who believe religions are absurd, and an ideal one for Vonnegut-style humanists.3. "Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand."Another koan of sorts from Cat's Cradle and the Bokononist religion (which phrases many of its teachings as calypsos, as part of its absurdist bent), this piece of doggerel is simple and catchy, but it unpacks into a resonant, meaningful philosophy that reads as sympathetic to humanity, albeit from a removed, humoring, alien viewpoint. Man's just another animal, it implies, with his own peculiar instincts, and his own way of shutting them down. This is horrifically cynical when considered closely: If people deciding they understand the world is just another instinct, then enlightenment is little more than a pit-stop between insoluble questions, a necessary but ultimately meaningless way of taking a sanity break. At the same time, there's a kindness to Bokonon's belief that this is all inevitable and just part of being a person. Life is frustrating and full of pitfalls and dead ends, but everybody's gotta do it.4. "There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."This line from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater comes as part of a baptismal speech the protagonist says he's planning for his neighbors' twins: "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." It's an odd speech to make over a couple of infants, but it's playful, sweet, yet keenly precise in its summation of everything a new addition to the planet should need to know. By narrowing down all his advice for the future down to a few simple words, Vonnegut emphasizes what's most important in life. At the same time, he lets his frustration with all the people who obviously don't get it leak through just a little.5. "She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing."A couple of pages into Cat's Cradle, protagonist Jonah/John recalls being hired to design and build a doghouse for a lady in Newport, R.I., who "claimed to understand God and His Ways of Working perfectly." With such knowledge, "she could not understand why anyone should be puzzled about what had been or about what was going to be." When Jonah shows her the doghouse's blueprint, she says she can't read it. He suggests taking it to her minister to pass along to God, who, when he finds a minute, will explain it "in a way that even you can understand." She fires him. Jonah recalls her with a bemused fondness, ending the anecdote with this Bokonon quote. It's a typical Vonnegut zinger that perfectly summarizes the inherent flaw of religious fundamentalism: No one really knows God's ways.6. "Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.'"In this response to his own question—"Why bother?"—in Timequake, his last novel, Vonnegut doesn't give a tired response about the urge to create; instead, he offers a pointed answer about how writing (and reading) make a lonesome world a little less so. The idea of connectedness—familial and otherwise—ran through much of his work, and it's nice to see that toward the end of his career, he hadn't lost the feeling that words can have an intimate, powerful impact.7. "There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too."Though this quote comes from the World War II-centered Mother Night (published in 1961), its wisdom and ugly truth still ring. Vonnegut (who often said "The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected") was righteously skeptical about war, having famously survived the only one worth fighting in his lifetime. And it's never been more true: Left or right, Christian or Muslim, those convinced they're doing violence in service of a higher power and against an irretrievably inhuman enemy are the most dangerous creatures of all.8. "Since Alice had never received any religious instruction, and since she had led a blameless life, she never thought of her awful luck as being anything but accidents in a very busy place. Good for her."Vonnegut's excellent-but-underrated Slapstick (he himself graded it a "D") was inspired by his sister Alice, who died of cancer just days after her husband was killed in an accident. Vonnegut's assessment of Alice's character—both in this introduction and in her fictional stand-in, Eliza Mellon Swain—is glowing and remarkable, and in this quote from the book's introduction, he manages to swipe at a favorite enemy (organized religion) and quietly, humbly embrace someone he clearly still missed a lot.9. "That is my principal objection to life, I think: It's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes."The narrator delivering this line at the end of the first chapter of Deadeye Dick is alluding both to his father's befriending of Hitler and his own accidental murder of his neighbor, but like so many of these quotes, it resonates well beyond its context. The underlying philosophy of Vonnegut's work was always that existence is capricious and senseless, a difficult sentiment that he captured time and again with a bemused shake of the head. Indeed, the idea that life is just a series of small decisions that culminate into some sort of "destiny" is maddening, because you could easily ruin it all simply by making the wrong one. Ordering the fish, stepping onto a balcony, booking the wrong flight, getting married—a single misstep, and you're done for. At least when you're dead, you don't have to make any more damn choices. Wherever Vonnegut is, he's no doubt grateful for that.10. "Literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak."Vonnegut touchstones like life on Tralfamadore and the absurd Bokononist religion don't help people escape the world so much as see it with clearer reason, which probably had a lot to do with Vonnegut's education as a chemist and anthropologist. So it's unsurprising that in a "self-interview" for The Paris Review, collected in his non-fiction anthology Palm Sunday, he said the literary world should really be looking for talent among scientists and doctors. Even when taking part in such a stultifying, masturbatory exercise for a prestigious journal, Vonnegut was perfectly readable, because he never forgot where his true audience was.11. "All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental."In Vonnegut's final novel, 1997's Timequake, he interacts freely with Kilgore Trout and other fictional characters after the end of a "timequake," which forces humanity to re-enact an entire decade. (Trout winds up too worn out to exercise free will again.) Vonnegut writes his own fitting epigram for this fatalistic book: "All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental," which sounds more funny than grim. Vonnegut surrounds his characters—especially Trout—with meaninglessness and hopelessness, and gives them little reason for existing in the first place, but within that, they find liberty and courage.12. "Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?"Even when Vonnegut dared to propose a utopian scheme, it was a happily dysfunctional one. InSlapstick, Wilbur Swain wins the presidency with a scheme to eliminate loneliness by issuing people complicated middle names (he becomes Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain) which make them part of new extended families. He advises people to tell new relatives they hate, or members of other families asking for help: "Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?" Of course, this fails to prevent plagues, the breakdown of his government, and civil wars later in the story.13. "So it goes."Unlike many of these quotes, the repeated refrain from Vonnegut's classic Slaughterhouse-Fiveisn't notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion—and dismissal of emotion—it packs into three simple, world-weary words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. There's a reason this quote graced practically every elegy written for Vonnegut over the past two weeks (yes, including ours): It neatly encompasses a whole way of life. More crudely put: "Shit happens, and it's awful, but it's also okay. We deal with it because we have to."14. "I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."Vonnegut was as trenchant when talking about his life as when talking about life in general, and this quote from an essay in Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons is particularly apt; as he explains it, he wrote Player Piano while working for General Electric, "completely surrounded by machines and ideas for machines," which led him to put some ideas about machines on paper. Then it was published, "and I learned from the reviewers that I was a science-fiction writer." The entire essay is wry, hilarious, and biting, but this line stands out in particular as typifying the kind of snappishness that made Vonnegut's works so memorable.15. "We must be careful about what we pretend to be."In Mother Night, apolitical expatriate American playwright Howard W. Campbell, Jr. refashions himself as a Nazi propagandist in order to pass coded messages on to the U.S. generals and preserve his marriage to a German woman—their "nation of two," as he calls it. But in serving multiple masters, Campbell ends up ruining his life and becoming an unwitting inspiration to bigots. In his 1966 introduction to the paperback edition, Vonnegut underlines Mother Night's moral: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." That lesson springs to mind every time a comedian whose shtick relies on hoaxes and audience-baiting—or a political pundit who traffics in shock and hyperbole—gets hauled in front of the court of public opinion for pushing the act too far. Why can't people just say what they mean? It's a question Don Imus and Michael Richards—and maybe someday Ann Coulter—must ask themselves on their many sleepless nights
No No-Go Zones? Really?
January 20, 2015 by Robert Spencer
The Leftist media and Islamic supremacist groups have been doing a victory dance ever since Saturday night, when Fox News issued an apology for statements made on the air by terror expert Steve Emerson and others about Muslim no-go zones in Britain and France. However, the apology doesn’t say what it has widely reported as saying – and there is considerable evidence that Muslim areas in both countries are a growing law enforcement and societal problem.
Fox Report host Julie Banderas stated:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s http://jaybookman.blog.ajc.com/2015/01/19/fox-news-admits-no-go-zones-are-fantasy/ read: “Fox News admits ‘no-go zones’ are fantasy.” The far-Left Crooks and Liars blog exulted: “http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/fox-pundits-finally-apologize-after-week.” More restrained but still unmistakably gleeful was the New York Times: “Fox News Apologizes for False Claims of Muslim-Only Areas in England and France.” The Leftist media has seized on Fox’s apology to declare that there are aren’t any no-go zones in France or Britain – and by extension that there is no problem with Muslim populations in Europe. NewHounds’s summation was typical: “Fox News has become the laughingstock of Europe this week as first England and then France lampooned its ignorant, Islamophobic reporting.”
The only problem with all the cork popping around Fox’s apology was that there is a problem with Muslim areas in Europe – and the Fox apology didn’t go so far as to say there wasn’t. To be sure, the controversy began with undeniably inaccurate statements from Emerson. He said on Fox on January 11 that “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” That is false, and Emerson has acknowledged that and apologized.
However, Emerson was not guilty of fabrication, just of overstatement. Some of the comments on a piece in the UK’s Daily Mail about his gaffe and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s reaction to it (he called Emerson a “complete idiot”) insisted that Emerson was at least partially right: “Just shows cameron doesn’t even know what is happening in this country , as the news presenter is totally correct , its a no go zone .” “There ARE some parts of Birmingham where you darent or shouldn’t go !” “Is he far off the truth? Maybe it’s not true for Birmingham as a whole but there are certain areas where it is true. Certainly it is true of certain other Towns in the UK. Bradford, Leicester, Luton spring to mind.”
Fox’s apology stated that,
That says as much as it says, and no more. It says that neither the British nor the French government has designated any areas to be no-go zones where non-Muslims aren’t allowed in, and that there is no evidence that non-Muslims are not allowed into any areas in either country.
But this carefully worded statement does not actually say that there aren’t areas in Britain or France in which non-Muslims are menaced for not adhering to Islamic law. That is a real and abundantly documented problem. Emerson pointed to it when he said:
While Emerson’s implication that this was an ongoing phenomenon was false, there were indeed such Sharia enforcers in London between 2011 and 2013. In July 2011, the UK’s Daily Mail reported:
In December 2013, members of one of these self-styled “Muslim patrols” were imprisoned; according to the Guardian, in London they
A “Muslim area” – maybe even a “no-go zone.” Not in the sense that non-Muslims are barred from entering, but in that, if they do enter, they have to adhere to Sharia restrictions.
The Fox apology is all the more curious in light of the fact that others, even on the Left, have noticed the no-go zones in France before some Fox commentators began talking about them in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. David Ignatius wrote in the New York Times in April 2002:
And the day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre set off Fox’s discussions of no-go zones in France, the reliably Leftist New Republic wrote:
So something the New York Times noted in 2002 and Newsweek in 2005, and that the New Republic reported was still a problem in January 2015, is now something that Fox News has to apologize for discussing?
Clearly there is a problem in these areas. Two of the three Charlie Hebdo murderers were born and raised in France. Where did they get their ideas about killing blasphemers? Not from French schools. They learned them in the Muslim areas where they were born and raised. What’s more, France leads the West in the number of Muslims who have traveled from there to wage jihad for the Islamic State, with well over a thousand Muslims leaving France to join the caliphate. Where did they get their understanding of Islam?
In objecting to Fox’s coverage, the French government objected to claims that these areas were outside their control and subject to Sharia, but it is obvious that whatever control they do have over these areas is not enough to prevent the indoctrination of all too many young Muslims into the jihad ideology.
There needs to be a balanced, honest public discussion of these Muslim areas in Britain and France. The controversy over what has been said on Fox in recent weeks only obscures the need for that discussion. And Fox’s apology, however carefully worded, only plays into the hands of Leftists and Islamic supremacists who have a vested interest in rendering people ignorant and complacent about the reality of what is going on in these areas.
So now would be a good time for Fox to apologize for its apology – and to devote extended attention to the Muslim areas of Britain and France, and shed light on what is really going on in them. That would be to provide a service far greater than the usual surface-scratching of television news.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/robert-spencer/no-no-go-zones-really/#.VL5ks7aKI44.twitter
January 20, 2015 by Robert Spencer
The Leftist media and Islamic supremacist groups have been doing a victory dance ever since Saturday night, when Fox News issued an apology for statements made on the air by terror expert Steve Emerson and others about Muslim no-go zones in Britain and France. However, the apology doesn’t say what it has widely reported as saying – and there is considerable evidence that Muslim areas in both countries are a growing law enforcement and societal problem.
Fox Report host Julie Banderas stated:
Over the course of this last week we have made some regrettable errors on air regarding the Muslim population in Europe, particularly with regard to England and France. Now, this applies especially to discussions of so-called ‘no-go zones,’ areas where non-Muslims allegedly aren’t allowed in and police supposedly won’t go.
To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.
There are certainly areas of high crime in Europe as there are in the United States and other countries — where police and visitors enter with caution. We deeply regret the errors and apologize to any and all who may have taken offense, including the people of France and England.
To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.
There are certainly areas of high crime in Europe as there are in the United States and other countries — where police and visitors enter with caution. We deeply regret the errors and apologize to any and all who may have taken offense, including the people of France and England.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s http://jaybookman.blog.ajc.com/2015/01/19/fox-news-admits-no-go-zones-are-fantasy/ read: “Fox News admits ‘no-go zones’ are fantasy.” The far-Left Crooks and Liars blog exulted: “http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/fox-pundits-finally-apologize-after-week.” More restrained but still unmistakably gleeful was the New York Times: “Fox News Apologizes for False Claims of Muslim-Only Areas in England and France.” The Leftist media has seized on Fox’s apology to declare that there are aren’t any no-go zones in France or Britain – and by extension that there is no problem with Muslim populations in Europe. NewHounds’s summation was typical: “Fox News has become the laughingstock of Europe this week as first England and then France lampooned its ignorant, Islamophobic reporting.”
The only problem with all the cork popping around Fox’s apology was that there is a problem with Muslim areas in Europe – and the Fox apology didn’t go so far as to say there wasn’t. To be sure, the controversy began with undeniably inaccurate statements from Emerson. He said on Fox on January 11 that “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” That is false, and Emerson has acknowledged that and apologized.
However, Emerson was not guilty of fabrication, just of overstatement. Some of the comments on a piece in the UK’s Daily Mail about his gaffe and British Prime Minister David Cameron’s reaction to it (he called Emerson a “complete idiot”) insisted that Emerson was at least partially right: “Just shows cameron doesn’t even know what is happening in this country , as the news presenter is totally correct , its a no go zone .” “There ARE some parts of Birmingham where you darent or shouldn’t go !” “Is he far off the truth? Maybe it’s not true for Birmingham as a whole but there are certain areas where it is true. Certainly it is true of certain other Towns in the UK. Bradford, Leicester, Luton spring to mind.”
Fox’s apology stated that,
“To be clear, there is no formal designation of these zones in either country and no credible information to support the assertion there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion.”
That says as much as it says, and no more. It says that neither the British nor the French government has designated any areas to be no-go zones where non-Muslims aren’t allowed in, and that there is no evidence that non-Muslims are not allowed into any areas in either country.
But this carefully worded statement does not actually say that there aren’t areas in Britain or France in which non-Muslims are menaced for not adhering to Islamic law. That is a real and abundantly documented problem. Emerson pointed to it when he said:
“In parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound, seriously, anyone who doesn’t dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire.”
While Emerson’s implication that this was an ongoing phenomenon was false, there were indeed such Sharia enforcers in London between 2011 and 2013. In July 2011, the UK’s Daily Mail reported:
“Islamic extremists have launched a poster campaign across the UK proclaiming areas where Sharia law enforcement zones have been set up. Communities have been bombarded with the posters, which read: ‘You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone – Islamic rules enforced.’”
In December 2013, members of one of these self-styled “Muslim patrols” were imprisoned; according to the Guardian, in London they
“harassed people, berating them with shouts of ‘this is a Muslim area!’ They forced men to dump their alcoholic drinks, instructed women on the appropriate way to dress, and yelled insults at those they perceived to be gay.”
They didn’t just berate people; as Emerson said, they beat them. http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/news/crime-court/video_fresh_footage_of_muslim_patrols_emerges_online_1_1864914, they threatened to do so, saying: “We are coming to implement Islam upon your own necks.” In June 2013, Muslims attacked an American who was drinking on the street, grabbing the bottle out of his hands and smashing him in the eye with it, causing permanent injury. In August 2013, according to the Daily Mail, “two brothers in law who went on a sponsored walk wearing comedy mankinis had to be picked up by police – after they were pelted with stones and eggs by residents who told them ‘this is a Muslim area’ and demanded they leave.”
A “Muslim area” – maybe even a “no-go zone.” Not in the sense that non-Muslims are barred from entering, but in that, if they do enter, they have to adhere to Sharia restrictions.
The Fox apology is all the more curious in light of the fact that others, even on the Left, have noticed the no-go zones in France before some Fox commentators began talking about them in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. David Ignatius wrote in the New York Times in April 2002:
“Arab gangs regularly vandalize synagogues here, the North African suburbs have become no-go zones at night, and the French continue to shrug their shoulders.”
Newsweek, hardly a conservative organ, reported in November 2005 that
“according to research conducted by the government’s domestic intelligence network, the Renseignements Generaux, French police would not venture without major reinforcements into some 150 ‘no-go zones’ around the country–and that was before the recent wave of riots began on Oct. 27.”
The police wouldn’t venture into these areas without major reinforcements in 2005. Does anyone really think that the situation has improved in the intervening years?
And the day after the Charlie Hebdo massacre set off Fox’s discussions of no-go zones in France, the reliably Leftist New Republic wrote:
“The word banlieue (‘suburb’) now connotes a no-go zone of high-rise slums, drug-fueled crime, failing schools and poor, largely Muslim immigrants and their angry offspring.”
Clearly there is a problem in these areas. Two of the three Charlie Hebdo murderers were born and raised in France. Where did they get their ideas about killing blasphemers? Not from French schools. They learned them in the Muslim areas where they were born and raised. What’s more, France leads the West in the number of Muslims who have traveled from there to wage jihad for the Islamic State, with well over a thousand Muslims leaving France to join the caliphate. Where did they get their understanding of Islam?
In objecting to Fox’s coverage, the French government objected to claims that these areas were outside their control and subject to Sharia, but it is obvious that whatever control they do have over these areas is not enough to prevent the indoctrination of all too many young Muslims into the jihad ideology.
There needs to be a balanced, honest public discussion of these Muslim areas in Britain and France. The controversy over what has been said on Fox in recent weeks only obscures the need for that discussion. And Fox’s apology, however carefully worded, only plays into the hands of Leftists and Islamic supremacists who have a vested interest in rendering people ignorant and complacent about the reality of what is going on in these areas.
So now would be a good time for Fox to apologize for its apology – and to devote extended attention to the Muslim areas of Britain and France, and shed light on what is really going on in them. That would be to provide a service far greater than the usual surface-scratching of television news.
European 'No-Go' Zones: Fact or Fiction?
Part 1: France
by Soeren Kern
January 20, 2015 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5128/france-no-go-zones
The jihadist attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French magazine known for lampooning Islam, has cast a spotlight on so-called no-go zones in France and other European countries.
No-go zones are Muslim-dominated neighborhoods that are largely off limits to non-Muslims due to a variety of factors, including the lawlessness and insecurity that pervades a great number of these areas. Host-country authorities have effectively lost control over many no-go zones and are often unable or unwilling to provide even basic public aid, such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services, out of fear of being attacked by Muslim youth.
Muslim enclaves in European cities are also breeding grounds for Islamic radicalism and pose a significant threat to Western security.
Europe's no-go zones are the by-product of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged Muslim immigrants to create parallel societies and remain segregated from — rather than become integrated into — their European host nations.
The problem of no-go zones is well documented, but multiculturalists and their politically correct supporters vehemently deny that they exist. Some are now engaged in a concerted campaign to discredit and even silence those who draw attention to the issue.
Consider Carol Matlack, an American writer for Bloomberg Businessweek, who recently penned a story — entitled "Debunking the Myth of Muslim-Only Zones in Major European Cities" — in which she claims that no-go zones are nothing more than an "urban legend" that is "demonstrably untrue." She then goes on to ridicule those who disagree with her.
The American cable television channel Fox News has also http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/01/18/fox-news-corrects-apologizes-for-no-go-zone-remarks/ (issued) at least four apologies for referring to Muslim no-go zones in Europe, after one commentator erroneously claimed that the entire city of Birmingham, England, was Muslim. Had he simply said that "parts" of Birmingham are Muslim, he would have been correct.
Despite such politically correct denials, Muslim no-go zones are a well-known fact of life in many parts of Europe.
What follows is the first in a multi-part series that will document the reality of Europe's no-go zones. The series begins by focusing on France and provides a brief compilation of just a few of the literally thousands of references to French no-go zones from academic, police, media and government sources that can easily be found on the Internet by doing a simple search on Google.
Fabrice Balanche, a well-known French Islam scholar who teaches at the University of Lyon, recently told Radio Télévision Suisse: "You have territories in France such as Roubaix, such as northern Marseille, where police will not step foot, where the authority of state is completely absent, where mini Islamic states have been formed."
French writer and political journalist Éric Zemmour recently told BFM TV: "There are places in France today, especially in the suburbs, where it is not really in France. Salafi Islamists are Islamizing some neighborhoods and some suburbs. In these neighborhoods, it's not France, it's an Islamic republic." In a separate interview, Zemmour — whose latest book is entitled, "The French Suicide" — http://www.bfmtv.com/mediaplayer/video/eric-zemmour-l-invitac-de-ruth-elkrief-0810-328914.html. multiculturalism and the reign of politically correct speech is destroying the country.
French politician Franck Guiot wrote that parts of Évry, a township in the southern suburbs of Paris, are no-go zones where police forces cannot go for fear of being attacked. He said that politicians seeking to maintain "social peace" were prohibiting the police from using their weapons to defend themselves.
The Socialist mayor of Amiens, Gilles Demailly, has http://www.europe1.fr/france/amiens-nord-une-zone-de-non-droit-1204941. to the Fafet-Brossolette district of the city as a "no-go zone" where "you can no longer order a pizza or get a doctor to come to the house." Europe 1, one of the leading broadcasters in France, has referred to Marseille as a "no-go zone" after the government was forced to deploy riot police, known as CRS, to confront warring Muslim gangs in the city. The French Interior Ministry http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Archives/Archives-presse/Communiques-de-presse/Clarification-sur-les-ZSP-a-Marseille it was trying to "reconquer" 184 square kilometers (71 square miles) of Marseille that have come under the control of Muslim gangs.
The French newspaper Le Figaro has referred to downtown Perpignan as a "veritable no-go zone" where "aggression, antisocial behavior, drug trafficking, Muslim communalism, racial tensions and tribal violence" are forcing non-Muslims to move out. Le Figaro also reported that the Les Izards district of Toulouse was a no-go zone, where Arab drug trafficking gangs rule the streets in a climate of fear.
Separately, Le Figaro reported that large quantities of assault rifles are circulating in French no-go zones. "For a few hundred dollars you can buy Kalashnikovs," political scientist Sebastian Roché said. "The price of an iPhone!"
The newspaper France Soir published poll results showing that nearly 60% of French citizens are in favor of sending the army into troubled suburbs to restore order.
The newspaper Le Parisien has called parts of Grigny, a township in the southern suburbs of Paris, a "lawless zone" plagued by well-organized Muslim gangs, whose members believe they are "masters of the world." The weekly newsmagazine Le Point reported on the spiraling Muslim lawlessness in the French city of Grenoble.
The French magazine L'Obs (formerly known as Le Nouvel Observateur) has reported on the deteriorating security situation in Roubaix, a city in northern France that is located close to the Belgian border. The magazine reported that local citizens are "exiled within their own country" and want to create their own militia to restore order because police are afraid to confront Muslim gangs.
In August 2014, the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles (Contemporary Values) reported that "France has more than 750 areas of lawlessness" where the law of the French Republic no longer applies. Under the headline "Hell in France," the magazine said that many parts of France are experiencing a "dictatorship of riffraff" where police are "greeted by mortar fire" and are "forced to retreat by projectiles."
Separately, Valeurs Actuelles reported on the lawlessness in Trappes, a township located in the western suburbs of Paris, where radical Islam and endemic crime go hand in hand. "Criminals are pursued by Islamic fundamentalists to impose an alternative society, breaking links with the French Republic," according to local police commander Mohammed Duhan. It is not advisable to go there, he says, adding, "You will be spotted by so-called chauffeurs (lookouts for drug traffickers) and be stripped and smashed."
Valeurs Actuelles has also reported on no-go zones in Nantes, Tours and Orléans, which have turned into "battlefields" where the few remaining native French holdouts are confronted with "Muslim communalism, the disappearance of their cultural references and rampant crime."
A graphic 20-minute documentary (in French) about the no-go zone in Clichy Montfermeil, a suburb of Paris, can be viewed here. At around the 3-minute mark, the video shows what happens when French police enter the area.
A policeman uses a shotgun to try to keep an attacking gang at bay, in the Parisian suburb of Clichy Montfermeil. (Image source: Dailymotion video screenshot)
A 1.5 hour documentary (in French) produced by France's TF1 about Muslim gangs in Parisian no-go zones can be viewed here. A 50-minute documentary (in French) produced by France's TV3 about the no-go zones of Clos Saint-Lazare in northern Paris can be viewed here. A 45-minute documentary (in English) about the no-go zones of Marseilles can be viewed here.
A four-minute video of the most dangerous neighborhoods of France in 2014 can be viewed here. A three-and-a-half-minute video of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Greater Paris Metropolitan Area can be viewed here. A two-minute video of a no-go zone in Lille can be viewed here. A five-minute video about life in the suburbs of Lyon can be viewed here.
A Russian television (Russia-1) documentary about no-go zones in Paris can be viewed here. The presenter says: "We are in Paris, the Barbès quarter, a few minutes from the famous Montmartre. Finding a European here is almost a mission impossible. Certain Paris streets remind one of an oriental bazaar." He continues: "The Paris banlieues have become criminal ghettoes where even the police dare not enter." Hidden cameras record widespread lawlessness and drug dealing in the area.
A 120-page research paper entitled "No-Go Zones in the French Republic: Myth or Reality?" http://www.drmcc.org/IMG/pdf/TREMOLLET_DE_VILLERS.pdf (documented) dozens of French neighborhoods "where police and gendarmerie cannot enforce the Republican order or even enter without risking confrontation, projectiles, or even fatal shootings."
Some of the most notorious no-go zone areas in France are situated in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, a northeastern suburb (banlieue) of Paris that has one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in France. The department is home to an estimated 600,000 Muslims (primarily from North and West Africa) out of a total population of 1.4 million.
Seine-Saint-Denis is divided into 40 administrative districts called communes (townships), 36 of which are on the French government's official list of "sensitive urban zones" or ZUS.
Seine-Saint-Denis — also known locally as "ninety-three" or "nine three" after the first two digits of the postal code for this suburb — has one of the highest unemployment rates in France; more than 40% of those under the age of 25 are jobless. The area is plagued with drug dealing and suffers from some of the highest rates of violent crime in France.
In October 2011, a landmark 2,200-page report, "Banlieue de la République" (Suburbs of the Republic) found that Seine-Saint-Denis and other Parisian suburbs are becoming "separate Islamic societies" cut off from the French state, and where Islamic Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law. The report said that Muslim immigrants are increasingly rejecting French values and instead are immersing themselves in radical Islam.
The report — which was commissioned by the influential French think tank, L'Institut Montaigne — was directed by Gilles Kepel, a highly respected political scientist and specialist in Islam, together with five other French researchers.
The authors of the report showed that France — which now has 6.5 million Muslims (the largest Muslim population in European Union) — is on the brink of a major social explosion because of the failure of Muslims to integrate into French society.
The report also showed how the problem is being exacerbated by radical Muslim preachers, who are promoting the social marginalization of Muslim immigrants in order to create a parallel Muslim society in France that is ruled by Sharia law.
The research was primarily carried out in the Seine-Saint-Denis townships of Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil, two suburbs that were ground zero for Muslim riots in the fall of 2005, when Muslim mobs torched more than 9,000 cars.
The report described Seine-Saint-Denis as a "wasteland of de-industrialization" and said that in some areas, "a third of the population of the town does not hold French nationality, and many residents are drawn to an Islamic identity."
Another township of Seine-Saint-Denis is Aubervilliers. Sometimes referred to as one of the "lost territories of the French Republic," it is effectively a Muslim city: more than 70% of the population is Muslim. Three quarters of young people under 18 in the township are foreign or French of foreign origin, mainly from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. French police are said to rarely venture into some of the most dangerous parts of the township.
The southern part of Aubervilliers is well known for its vibrant Chinese immigrant community along with their wholesale clothing and textile warehouses and import-export shopping malls. In August 2013, the weekly newsmagazine Marianne reported that Muslim immigrants felt humiliated by the economic dynamism of the Chinese, and were harassing and attacking Chinese traders, who were increasingly subject to robberies and extortion. The situation got so bad that the Chinese ambassador to France was forced to pay a visit to the area.
In response, the Socialist mayor of Aubervilliers, Jacques Salvator, suggested that the violence could be halted if Chinese companies would agree to hire more Arabs and Africans. The Chinese countered that Muslims do not work as hard as the Chinese, that they are more demanding, and that they complain too much, according to Marianne.
After local officials refused to act in the face of increasing Muslim violence, the Chinese threatened to "call on the Chinese mafia" for protection. Muslims responded by launching a petition to have the Chinese expelled from the area.
Also in Aubervilliers, the magazine Charlie Hebdo https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/frances-caliphate-progress-aubervilliers-town-hall-require-conversion-to-islam-before-marrying-couple/. in 2012 that the town hall was obligating non-Muslim men who want to marry Muslim women to convert to Islam first, even though France is ostensibly a secular republic. One such man, Frédéric Gilbert, a journalist, was told:
"You can convert in any mosque in three minutes. All you need do is to repeat 'with conviction and sincerity' this sentence: 'I recognize that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet,' and the Imam will agree that you have converted to Islam.'"
In a story entitled, "When Town Hall Mayors become Imams," Charlie Hebdo wrote:
"In other words, Moroccan law prevails over French law in cases of mixed marriages and the same situation pertains with regard to other former French colonies such as Tunisia and Algeria as well as with Egypt."
According to the newspaper Le Parisien, the practice of "false conversions" to Islam is widespread because most non-Muslim grooms prefer fake conversions rather than to suffer "administrative complications."
In 2014, Le Figaro published the contents of a leaked intelligence document that warns about the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in French schools in Muslim ghettoes. The 15-page document provides 70 specific examples of how Muslim radicals are taking over ostensibly secular schools throughout the country. These include: veiling in playgrounds, halal meals in the canteen, chronic absenteeism (bordering 90% in some parts of Nîmes and Toulouse) during religious festivals, clandestine prayer in gyms or hallways. The report details how "self-proclaimed young guardians of orthodoxy" are circumventing the March 2004 law banning religious symbols in French schools. In Marseille, a high school principal testified that some of her students pray with such fervor that they have "blue foreheads."
A video showing a radical Islamic rally in Saint-Denis can be viewed here. A video showing radical Muslims commandeering a French bus amid screams of "Allahu Akbar!" (Allah is greater!) can be viewed here. A series of eight videos documenting Muslim street prayers in Paris can be viewed here. (Street prayers have now been outlawed.) A series of 25 videos documenting the Islamization of France can be viewed here.
In July 2012, the French government http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/ZSP (announced) a plan to reassert state control over 15 of the most notorious no-go zones. The crime-infested districts, which the French Interior Ministry has designated as Priority Security Zones (Zones de Sécurité Prioritaires, or ZSP), include heavily Muslim parts of Amiens, Aubervilliers, Avignon, Béziers, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Marseilles, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Nantes, Nice, Paris, Perpignan, Strasbourg, Toulouse and many others. The number of ZSPs now stands at 64; a complete list of ZSPs can be found http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Media/MI/Files/Dossier-de-presse-conjoint-du-ministere-de-la-Justice-et-du-ministere-de-l-Interieur (here).
Meanwhile, a 13-minute Hungarian television documentary (with English subtitles) about no-go zones in Paris can be viewed here. The presenter interviews a French crime reporter named Laurent Obertone, who is the author of a bestselling new book entitled, "La France Orange Méchanique" (France: A Clockwork Orange).
In his book, Obertone writes that France is descending into a state of savagery and that the true magnitude of crime and violence across the country is being deliberately under-reported by politically correct media, government and police.
In the documentary, Obertone states: "The French elite became outraged when [former French President Nicolas] Sarkozy referred to [Muslim] immigrants attacking police as 'mobs'."
The Hungarian presenter then asks: "What if we went to the suburbs?" Obertone replies: "I do not recommend this. Not even we French dare go there anymore. But nobody talks about this in public, of course. Nor do those who claim, 'long live multiculturalism,' and 'Paris is wonderful!' dare enter the suburbs."
Part 1: France
by Soeren Kern
January 20, 2015 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5128/france-no-go-zones
A 120-page research paper entitled "No-Go Zones in the French Republic: Myth or Reality?" documented dozens of French neighborhoods "where police and gendarmerie cannot enforce the Republican order or even enter without risking confrontation, projectiles, or even fatal shootings."
In October 2011, a 2,200-page report, "Banlieue de la République" (Suburbs of the Republic) found that Seine-Saint-Denis and other Parisian suburbs are becoming "separate Islamic societies" cut off from the French state and where Islamic Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law.
The report also showed how the problem is being exacerbated by radical Muslim preachers who are promoting the social marginalization of Muslim immigrants in order to create a parallel Muslim society in France that is ruled by Sharia law.
The television presenter asks: "What if we went to the suburbs?" Obertone replies: "I do not recommend this. Not even we French dare go there anymore. But nobody talks about this in public, of course. Nor do those who claim, 'long live multiculturalism,' and 'Paris is wonderful!' dare enter the suburbs."
In October 2011, a 2,200-page report, "Banlieue de la République" (Suburbs of the Republic) found that Seine-Saint-Denis and other Parisian suburbs are becoming "separate Islamic societies" cut off from the French state and where Islamic Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law.
The report also showed how the problem is being exacerbated by radical Muslim preachers who are promoting the social marginalization of Muslim immigrants in order to create a parallel Muslim society in France that is ruled by Sharia law.
The television presenter asks: "What if we went to the suburbs?" Obertone replies: "I do not recommend this. Not even we French dare go there anymore. But nobody talks about this in public, of course. Nor do those who claim, 'long live multiculturalism,' and 'Paris is wonderful!' dare enter the suburbs."
The jihadist attack on the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French magazine known for lampooning Islam, has cast a spotlight on so-called no-go zones in France and other European countries.
No-go zones are Muslim-dominated neighborhoods that are largely off limits to non-Muslims due to a variety of factors, including the lawlessness and insecurity that pervades a great number of these areas. Host-country authorities have effectively lost control over many no-go zones and are often unable or unwilling to provide even basic public aid, such as police, fire fighting and ambulance services, out of fear of being attacked by Muslim youth.
Muslim enclaves in European cities are also breeding grounds for Islamic radicalism and pose a significant threat to Western security.
Europe's no-go zones are the by-product of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged Muslim immigrants to create parallel societies and remain segregated from — rather than become integrated into — their European host nations.
The problem of no-go zones is well documented, but multiculturalists and their politically correct supporters vehemently deny that they exist. Some are now engaged in a concerted campaign to discredit and even silence those who draw attention to the issue.
Consider Carol Matlack, an American writer for Bloomberg Businessweek, who recently penned a story — entitled "Debunking the Myth of Muslim-Only Zones in Major European Cities" — in which she claims that no-go zones are nothing more than an "urban legend" that is "demonstrably untrue." She then goes on to ridicule those who disagree with her.
The American cable television channel Fox News has also http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/01/18/fox-news-corrects-apologizes-for-no-go-zone-remarks/ (issued) at least four apologies for referring to Muslim no-go zones in Europe, after one commentator erroneously claimed that the entire city of Birmingham, England, was Muslim. Had he simply said that "parts" of Birmingham are Muslim, he would have been correct.
Despite such politically correct denials, Muslim no-go zones are a well-known fact of life in many parts of Europe.
What follows is the first in a multi-part series that will document the reality of Europe's no-go zones. The series begins by focusing on France and provides a brief compilation of just a few of the literally thousands of references to French no-go zones from academic, police, media and government sources that can easily be found on the Internet by doing a simple search on Google.
Fabrice Balanche, a well-known French Islam scholar who teaches at the University of Lyon, recently told Radio Télévision Suisse: "You have territories in France such as Roubaix, such as northern Marseille, where police will not step foot, where the authority of state is completely absent, where mini Islamic states have been formed."
French writer and political journalist Éric Zemmour recently told BFM TV: "There are places in France today, especially in the suburbs, where it is not really in France. Salafi Islamists are Islamizing some neighborhoods and some suburbs. In these neighborhoods, it's not France, it's an Islamic republic." In a separate interview, Zemmour — whose latest book is entitled, "The French Suicide" — http://www.bfmtv.com/mediaplayer/video/eric-zemmour-l-invitac-de-ruth-elkrief-0810-328914.html. multiculturalism and the reign of politically correct speech is destroying the country.
French politician Franck Guiot wrote that parts of Évry, a township in the southern suburbs of Paris, are no-go zones where police forces cannot go for fear of being attacked. He said that politicians seeking to maintain "social peace" were prohibiting the police from using their weapons to defend themselves.
The Socialist mayor of Amiens, Gilles Demailly, has http://www.europe1.fr/france/amiens-nord-une-zone-de-non-droit-1204941. to the Fafet-Brossolette district of the city as a "no-go zone" where "you can no longer order a pizza or get a doctor to come to the house." Europe 1, one of the leading broadcasters in France, has referred to Marseille as a "no-go zone" after the government was forced to deploy riot police, known as CRS, to confront warring Muslim gangs in the city. The French Interior Ministry http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Archives/Archives-presse/Communiques-de-presse/Clarification-sur-les-ZSP-a-Marseille it was trying to "reconquer" 184 square kilometers (71 square miles) of Marseille that have come under the control of Muslim gangs.
The French newspaper Le Figaro has referred to downtown Perpignan as a "veritable no-go zone" where "aggression, antisocial behavior, drug trafficking, Muslim communalism, racial tensions and tribal violence" are forcing non-Muslims to move out. Le Figaro also reported that the Les Izards district of Toulouse was a no-go zone, where Arab drug trafficking gangs rule the streets in a climate of fear.
Separately, Le Figaro reported that large quantities of assault rifles are circulating in French no-go zones. "For a few hundred dollars you can buy Kalashnikovs," political scientist Sebastian Roché said. "The price of an iPhone!"
The newspaper France Soir published poll results showing that nearly 60% of French citizens are in favor of sending the army into troubled suburbs to restore order.
The newspaper Le Parisien has called parts of Grigny, a township in the southern suburbs of Paris, a "lawless zone" plagued by well-organized Muslim gangs, whose members believe they are "masters of the world." The weekly newsmagazine Le Point reported on the spiraling Muslim lawlessness in the French city of Grenoble.
The French magazine L'Obs (formerly known as Le Nouvel Observateur) has reported on the deteriorating security situation in Roubaix, a city in northern France that is located close to the Belgian border. The magazine reported that local citizens are "exiled within their own country" and want to create their own militia to restore order because police are afraid to confront Muslim gangs.
In August 2014, the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles (Contemporary Values) reported that "France has more than 750 areas of lawlessness" where the law of the French Republic no longer applies. Under the headline "Hell in France," the magazine said that many parts of France are experiencing a "dictatorship of riffraff" where police are "greeted by mortar fire" and are "forced to retreat by projectiles."
Separately, Valeurs Actuelles reported on the lawlessness in Trappes, a township located in the western suburbs of Paris, where radical Islam and endemic crime go hand in hand. "Criminals are pursued by Islamic fundamentalists to impose an alternative society, breaking links with the French Republic," according to local police commander Mohammed Duhan. It is not advisable to go there, he says, adding, "You will be spotted by so-called chauffeurs (lookouts for drug traffickers) and be stripped and smashed."
Valeurs Actuelles has also reported on no-go zones in Nantes, Tours and Orléans, which have turned into "battlefields" where the few remaining native French holdouts are confronted with "Muslim communalism, the disappearance of their cultural references and rampant crime."
A graphic 20-minute documentary (in French) about the no-go zone in Clichy Montfermeil, a suburb of Paris, can be viewed here. At around the 3-minute mark, the video shows what happens when French police enter the area.
A policeman uses a shotgun to try to keep an attacking gang at bay, in the Parisian suburb of Clichy Montfermeil. (Image source: Dailymotion video screenshot)
A 1.5 hour documentary (in French) produced by France's TF1 about Muslim gangs in Parisian no-go zones can be viewed here. A 50-minute documentary (in French) produced by France's TV3 about the no-go zones of Clos Saint-Lazare in northern Paris can be viewed here. A 45-minute documentary (in English) about the no-go zones of Marseilles can be viewed here.
A four-minute video of the most dangerous neighborhoods of France in 2014 can be viewed here. A three-and-a-half-minute video of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Greater Paris Metropolitan Area can be viewed here. A two-minute video of a no-go zone in Lille can be viewed here. A five-minute video about life in the suburbs of Lyon can be viewed here.
A Russian television (Russia-1) documentary about no-go zones in Paris can be viewed here. The presenter says: "We are in Paris, the Barbès quarter, a few minutes from the famous Montmartre. Finding a European here is almost a mission impossible. Certain Paris streets remind one of an oriental bazaar." He continues: "The Paris banlieues have become criminal ghettoes where even the police dare not enter." Hidden cameras record widespread lawlessness and drug dealing in the area.
A 120-page research paper entitled "No-Go Zones in the French Republic: Myth or Reality?" http://www.drmcc.org/IMG/pdf/TREMOLLET_DE_VILLERS.pdf (documented) dozens of French neighborhoods "where police and gendarmerie cannot enforce the Republican order or even enter without risking confrontation, projectiles, or even fatal shootings."
Some of the most notorious no-go zone areas in France are situated in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, a northeastern suburb (banlieue) of Paris that has one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in France. The department is home to an estimated 600,000 Muslims (primarily from North and West Africa) out of a total population of 1.4 million.
Seine-Saint-Denis is divided into 40 administrative districts called communes (townships), 36 of which are on the French government's official list of "sensitive urban zones" or ZUS.
Seine-Saint-Denis — also known locally as "ninety-three" or "nine three" after the first two digits of the postal code for this suburb — has one of the highest unemployment rates in France; more than 40% of those under the age of 25 are jobless. The area is plagued with drug dealing and suffers from some of the highest rates of violent crime in France.
In October 2011, a landmark 2,200-page report, "Banlieue de la République" (Suburbs of the Republic) found that Seine-Saint-Denis and other Parisian suburbs are becoming "separate Islamic societies" cut off from the French state, and where Islamic Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law. The report said that Muslim immigrants are increasingly rejecting French values and instead are immersing themselves in radical Islam.
The report — which was commissioned by the influential French think tank, L'Institut Montaigne — was directed by Gilles Kepel, a highly respected political scientist and specialist in Islam, together with five other French researchers.
The authors of the report showed that France — which now has 6.5 million Muslims (the largest Muslim population in European Union) — is on the brink of a major social explosion because of the failure of Muslims to integrate into French society.
The report also showed how the problem is being exacerbated by radical Muslim preachers, who are promoting the social marginalization of Muslim immigrants in order to create a parallel Muslim society in France that is ruled by Sharia law.
The research was primarily carried out in the Seine-Saint-Denis townships of Clichy-sous-Bois and Montfermeil, two suburbs that were ground zero for Muslim riots in the fall of 2005, when Muslim mobs torched more than 9,000 cars.
The report described Seine-Saint-Denis as a "wasteland of de-industrialization" and said that in some areas, "a third of the population of the town does not hold French nationality, and many residents are drawn to an Islamic identity."
Another township of Seine-Saint-Denis is Aubervilliers. Sometimes referred to as one of the "lost territories of the French Republic," it is effectively a Muslim city: more than 70% of the population is Muslim. Three quarters of young people under 18 in the township are foreign or French of foreign origin, mainly from the Maghreb and sub-Saharan Africa. French police are said to rarely venture into some of the most dangerous parts of the township.
The southern part of Aubervilliers is well known for its vibrant Chinese immigrant community along with their wholesale clothing and textile warehouses and import-export shopping malls. In August 2013, the weekly newsmagazine Marianne reported that Muslim immigrants felt humiliated by the economic dynamism of the Chinese, and were harassing and attacking Chinese traders, who were increasingly subject to robberies and extortion. The situation got so bad that the Chinese ambassador to France was forced to pay a visit to the area.
In response, the Socialist mayor of Aubervilliers, Jacques Salvator, suggested that the violence could be halted if Chinese companies would agree to hire more Arabs and Africans. The Chinese countered that Muslims do not work as hard as the Chinese, that they are more demanding, and that they complain too much, according to Marianne.
After local officials refused to act in the face of increasing Muslim violence, the Chinese threatened to "call on the Chinese mafia" for protection. Muslims responded by launching a petition to have the Chinese expelled from the area.
Also in Aubervilliers, the magazine Charlie Hebdo https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/frances-caliphate-progress-aubervilliers-town-hall-require-conversion-to-islam-before-marrying-couple/. in 2012 that the town hall was obligating non-Muslim men who want to marry Muslim women to convert to Islam first, even though France is ostensibly a secular republic. One such man, Frédéric Gilbert, a journalist, was told:
"You can convert in any mosque in three minutes. All you need do is to repeat 'with conviction and sincerity' this sentence: 'I recognize that there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is his prophet,' and the Imam will agree that you have converted to Islam.'"
In a story entitled, "When Town Hall Mayors become Imams," Charlie Hebdo wrote:
"In other words, Moroccan law prevails over French law in cases of mixed marriages and the same situation pertains with regard to other former French colonies such as Tunisia and Algeria as well as with Egypt."
According to the newspaper Le Parisien, the practice of "false conversions" to Islam is widespread because most non-Muslim grooms prefer fake conversions rather than to suffer "administrative complications."
In 2014, Le Figaro published the contents of a leaked intelligence document that warns about the imposition of Islamic Sharia law in French schools in Muslim ghettoes. The 15-page document provides 70 specific examples of how Muslim radicals are taking over ostensibly secular schools throughout the country. These include: veiling in playgrounds, halal meals in the canteen, chronic absenteeism (bordering 90% in some parts of Nîmes and Toulouse) during religious festivals, clandestine prayer in gyms or hallways. The report details how "self-proclaimed young guardians of orthodoxy" are circumventing the March 2004 law banning religious symbols in French schools. In Marseille, a high school principal testified that some of her students pray with such fervor that they have "blue foreheads."
A video showing a radical Islamic rally in Saint-Denis can be viewed here. A video showing radical Muslims commandeering a French bus amid screams of "Allahu Akbar!" (Allah is greater!) can be viewed here. A series of eight videos documenting Muslim street prayers in Paris can be viewed here. (Street prayers have now been outlawed.) A series of 25 videos documenting the Islamization of France can be viewed here.
In July 2012, the French government http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/ZSP (announced) a plan to reassert state control over 15 of the most notorious no-go zones. The crime-infested districts, which the French Interior Ministry has designated as Priority Security Zones (Zones de Sécurité Prioritaires, or ZSP), include heavily Muslim parts of Amiens, Aubervilliers, Avignon, Béziers, Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Grenoble, Lille, Lyon, Marseilles, Montpellier, Mulhouse, Nantes, Nice, Paris, Perpignan, Strasbourg, Toulouse and many others. The number of ZSPs now stands at 64; a complete list of ZSPs can be found http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/Media/MI/Files/Dossier-de-presse-conjoint-du-ministere-de-la-Justice-et-du-ministere-de-l-Interieur (here).
Meanwhile, a 13-minute Hungarian television documentary (with English subtitles) about no-go zones in Paris can be viewed here. The presenter interviews a French crime reporter named Laurent Obertone, who is the author of a bestselling new book entitled, "La France Orange Méchanique" (France: A Clockwork Orange).
In his book, Obertone writes that France is descending into a state of savagery and that the true magnitude of crime and violence across the country is being deliberately under-reported by politically correct media, government and police.
In the documentary, Obertone states: "The French elite became outraged when [former French President Nicolas] Sarkozy referred to [Muslim] immigrants attacking police as 'mobs'."
The Hungarian presenter then asks: "What if we went to the suburbs?" Obertone replies: "I do not recommend this. Not even we French dare go there anymore. But nobody talks about this in public, of course. Nor do those who claim, 'long live multiculturalism,' and 'Paris is wonderful!' dare enter the suburbs."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
http://www.warresisters.org/nva/nva0103-5.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berrigan_Brothers
Both Berrigan's are actually some of the few heroes I have. These two men tried to change things as much as Martin Luther King Jr. tried/did. But General Electric and the rest of the Industrial Military Complex will never let them have their own Holiday until everybody is on SOMA Holiday ala Brave New World.
"Fighting the Lamb's War" By philip berrigan is a great read. So is his other books while in prison.
Philip Berrigan
Civil Rights, Peace, Anti-nuclear Activist: 1923 - 2002
"I see little difference between the world inside prison gates and the world outside. A million million prison walls can’t protect us, because the real dangers --- militarism, greed, economic inequality, fascism, police brutality --- lie outside, not inside, prison walls."
"The arms race is worse than it ever was, the dumping of creation down a military rat hole is worse than it ever was, the wars across the earth are worse than they ever were."
Daniel Berrigan
Daniel's books are more grounded in understanding religions of all kind, but not just his Catholic faith. He wrote a great book about Islam and the West's view on them and vice versa.
No Gods But One Daniel Berrigan
The Nightmare of God: The Book of Revelation Daniel Berrigan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berrigan_Brothers
Both Berrigan's are actually some of the few heroes I have. These two men tried to change things as much as Martin Luther King Jr. tried/did. But General Electric and the rest of the Industrial Military Complex will never let them have their own Holiday until everybody is on SOMA Holiday ala Brave New World.
"Fighting the Lamb's War" By philip berrigan is a great read. So is his other books while in prison.
Philip Berrigan
Civil Rights, Peace, Anti-nuclear Activist: 1923 - 2002
"I see little difference between the world inside prison gates and the world outside. A million million prison walls can’t protect us, because the real dangers --- militarism, greed, economic inequality, fascism, police brutality --- lie outside, not inside, prison walls."
"The arms race is worse than it ever was, the dumping of creation down a military rat hole is worse than it ever was, the wars across the earth are worse than they ever were."
Daniel Berrigan
Daniel's books are more grounded in understanding religions of all kind, but not just his Catholic faith. He wrote a great book about Islam and the West's view on them and vice versa.
No Gods But One Daniel Berrigan
The Nightmare of God: The Book of Revelation Daniel Berrigan
"The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has received a lot of attention after the recent attacks at their office. Some of the criticism directed at Charlie Hebdo is uncalled for and inaccurate. This website tries to explain the cartoons within the context they were published so that they may be better understood."
Website: Understanding Charlie Hebdo cartoons
Website: Understanding Charlie Hebdo cartoons
I have a lot of trouble digesting the post mortem CH explanations. But even accepting he was a misunderstood saint of the anti-religion world, he has become a central figure about which extreme anti-Islamic hatred is centered. Whatever good intentions he may have had, the net result in the real world does not reflect them.
Most of the post-mortem interpretations are by journalists who are woefully ignorant of the context. Critics should understand what they are criticizing. In most cases they do not.
Nonetheless, it doesn't necessarily mean that a case for xenophobia, anti-Muslim bigotry, racism, misogyny, etc. can not be made; however, the failure to account for context makes the argument intellectually dishonest.
The "Je suis Charlie" campaign was very successful. The problem was that the groupthink surrounding it confused support for the principle (free speech) with support for Charlie Hebdo (content).
If they support the principle, they support the work of Charlie Hebdo. It's not necessarily true.
Can you support free speech without supporting Charlie Hebdo? Of course.
As the French philosopher Voltaire never said: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
As has become increasingly apparent, most of the "Je suis Charlie" sign-wavers supported neither the principle or the content.
The debate over whether Charlie Hebdo is racist was an ongoing one in France long before the tragedy this month.
In a November 2013 letter to Le Monde, Charb and its editorial staff defended against racism charges as a type of witch-hunt. He challenged critics to come forth publicly. (Below is a Google translation)
Source (in French): http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2013/11/20/non-charlie-hebdo-n-est-pas-raciste_3516646_3232.html
Google translation: https://translate.google.com/transl...lie-hebdo-n-est-pas-raciste_3516646_3232.html
A former Charlie Hebdo employer Olivier Cyran, who worked at the newspaper from 1992 to 2001, responded to Charbo's challenge. He argued that the newspaper became increasingly racist and anti-Muslim post-9/11.
Source: http://posthypnotic.randomstatic.net/charliehebdo/Charlie_Hebdo_article 11.htm
Glenn Greenwald argued that the "Je suis Charlie" celebration was a "sham" mostly by people who really don't support the principle of free speech.
Greenwald cited the arrest of Dieudonné who could very likely go to prison on "condoning terrorism" charges based on a Facebook post that said 'Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.':
FRANCE ARRESTS A COMEDIAN FOR HIS FACEBOOK COMMENTS, SHOWING THE SHAM OF THE WEST’S “FREE SPEECH” CELEBRATION
BY GLENN GREENWALD
Source: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/...ch-france-arrests-comedian-facebook-comments/
January 14, 2015 - Forty-eight hours after hosting a massive march under the banner of free expression, France opened a criminal investigation of a controversial French comedian for a Facebook post he wrote about the Charlie Hebdo attack, and then this morning, arrested him for that post on charges of “defending terrorism.”
...
The apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan and express support for the perpetrator of the Paris supermarket killings (whose last name was “Coulibaly”). Expressing that opinion is evidently a crime in the Republic of Liberté, which prides itself on a line of 20th Century intellectuals – from Sartre and Genet to Foucault and Derrida – whose hallmark was leaving no orthodoxy or convention unmolested, no matter how sacred.
Since that glorious “free speech” march, France has reportedly opened 54 criminal cases for “condoning terrorism.” APhttps://news.yahoo.com/charlie-hebdo-sells-dawn-muhammad-cover-080255447.htmlthis morning that “France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism.”
As pernicious as this arrest and related “crackdown” on some speech obviously is, it provides a critical value: namely, it underscores the utter scam that was this week’s celebration of free speech in the west. The day before the Charlie Hebdo attack, I coincidentally documented the multiple cases in the west – including in the U.S. – where Muslims have been prosecuted and even imprisoned for their political speech. Vanishingly few of this week’s bold free expression mavens have ever uttered a peep of protest about any of those cases – either before the Charlie Hebdo attack or since. That’s because “free speech,” in the hands of many westerners, actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.
...
Despite the obvious threat to free speech posed by this arrest, it is inconceivable that any mainstream western media figures would start tweeting “#JeSuisDieudonné” or would upload photographs of themselves performing his ugly Nazi-evoking arm gesture in “solidarity” with his free speech rights. That’s true even if he were murdered for his ideas rather than “merely” arrested and prosecuted for them. That’s because last week’s celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists (well beyond mourning their horrifically unjust murders) was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights that were invoked in their support – at least as much.
Greenwald cited the arrest of Dieudonné who could very likely go to prison on "condoning terrorism" charges based on a Facebook post that said 'Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.':
FRANCE ARRESTS A COMEDIAN FOR HIS FACEBOOK COMMENTS, SHOWING THE SHAM OF THE WEST’S “FREE SPEECH” CELEBRATION
BY GLENN GREENWALD
Source: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/...ch-france-arrests-comedian-facebook-comments/
January 14, 2015 - Forty-eight hours after hosting a massive march under the banner of free expression, France opened a criminal investigation of a controversial French comedian for a Facebook post he wrote about the Charlie Hebdo attack, and then this morning, arrested him for that post on charges of “defending terrorism.”
...
The apparently criminal viewpoint he posted on Facebook declared: “Tonight, as far as I’m concerned, I feel like Charlie Coulibaly.” Investigators concluded that this was intended to mock the “Je Suis Charlie” slogan and express support for the perpetrator of the Paris supermarket killings (whose last name was “Coulibaly”). Expressing that opinion is evidently a crime in the Republic of Liberté, which prides itself on a line of 20th Century intellectuals – from Sartre and Genet to Foucault and Derrida – whose hallmark was leaving no orthodoxy or convention unmolested, no matter how sacred.
Since that glorious “free speech” march, France has reportedly opened 54 criminal cases for “condoning terrorism.” APhttps://news.yahoo.com/charlie-hebdo-sells-dawn-muhammad-cover-080255447.htmlthis morning that “France ordered prosecutors around the country to crack down on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism.”
As pernicious as this arrest and related “crackdown” on some speech obviously is, it provides a critical value: namely, it underscores the utter scam that was this week’s celebration of free speech in the west. The day before the Charlie Hebdo attack, I coincidentally documented the multiple cases in the west – including in the U.S. – where Muslims have been prosecuted and even imprisoned for their political speech. Vanishingly few of this week’s bold free expression mavens have ever uttered a peep of protest about any of those cases – either before the Charlie Hebdo attack or since. That’s because “free speech,” in the hands of many westerners, actually means: it is vital that the ideas I like be protected, and the right to offend groups I dislike be cherished; anything else is fair game.
...
Despite the obvious threat to free speech posed by this arrest, it is inconceivable that any mainstream western media figures would start tweeting “#JeSuisDieudonné” or would upload photographs of themselves performing his ugly Nazi-evoking arm gesture in “solidarity” with his free speech rights. That’s true even if he were murdered for his ideas rather than “merely” arrested and prosecuted for them. That’s because last week’s celebration of the Hebdo cartoonists (well beyond mourning their horrifically unjust murders) was at least as much about approval for their anti-Muslim messages as it was about the free speech rights that were invoked in their support – at least as much.
Back here in the states:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/muslim-woman-told-remove-scarf-sues-michigan-judge
http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/wayne-county/dearborn-heights-police-facing-lawsuit-for-forcing-woman-to-remove-hijab
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/muslim-woman-told-remove-scarf-sues-michigan-judge
http://www.wxyz.com/news/region/wayne-county/dearborn-heights-police-facing-lawsuit-for-forcing-woman-to-remove-hijab
Journalism school dean: The First Amendment ends at insulting Mohammed
posted at 8:01 pm on January 21, 2015 by Allahpundit
Unusual, not because it’s rare to see an American journalist bowing to Islamic sensibilities on depictions of Mohammed but because typically they don’t go so far as to demand legal limits on their own profession. When the New York Times refuses to run a cartoon goofing on Islam, they don’t want the reason to be government censorship. They prefer to be censored by more sympathetic agents, like violent Muslim radicals.
To be precise here, though, DeWayne Wickham, the dean of Morgan State’s J-school, isn’t demanding a “Mohammed exception” to the First Amendment. He’s demanding an exception for all speech that would make the audience so angry that they might react violently — exactly the sort of slippery slope on censorship that people like you and me worry about when images of Mohammed are suppressed. Actual line from this op-ed, regarding the new cover of Charlie Hebdo: “The once little-known French satirical news weekly crossed the line that separates free speech from toxic talk.”
Amazingly for a J-school prof, none of that is right. The Supreme Court hasn’t used the “clear and present danger” test for First Amendment cases in decades. The test now for inflammatory speech is the Brandenburg test, a strciter standard that allows the state to criminalize incitement only in narrow circumstances — when the speaker intends to incite violence and violence is likely to quickly result. Charlie Hebdo’s Mohammed cartoons may have met the “likely” prong of that test but they sure didn’t meet the “intent” part. The “fighting words” doctrine is still good law but it too has been gradually narrowed over time. Today, for the moment, it’s limited to “direct personal insults” between people who are face to face. That’s the key difference between publishing an offensive cartoon and, to borrow the Pope’s recent analogy, stepping up to a man and insulting his mother. From the Supreme Court’s perspective, those situations are apples and oranges. I appreciate Wickham’s candor in trying to expand “fighting words” to allow censorship of all kinds of offensive speech, though; I’ve worried about that myself, as longtime HA readers know. If speech can be criminalized because it angers a man to the point where he wants to attack you, why should we limit it to speech said in his presence? “Fighting words” is a potential trojan horse for smuggling all sorts of exceptions for “hate” into the First Amendment. I’m surprised more lefties aren’t as forthright as this guy is in making the case for it.
Someone should poll the media on whether they agree with Wickham’s “heckler’s veto” assumption that it’s Charlie Hebdo’s staff, rather than, say, the jihadis like Al Qaeda who put a bounty on them and ended up murdering them, that’s guilty of “incitement.” I’d be curious to see the numbers.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/01/...e-first-amendment-ends-at-insulting-mohammed/
posted at 8:01 pm on January 21, 2015 by Allahpundit
Unusual, not because it’s rare to see an American journalist bowing to Islamic sensibilities on depictions of Mohammed but because typically they don’t go so far as to demand legal limits on their own profession. When the New York Times refuses to run a cartoon goofing on Islam, they don’t want the reason to be government censorship. They prefer to be censored by more sympathetic agents, like violent Muslim radicals.
To be precise here, though, DeWayne Wickham, the dean of Morgan State’s J-school, isn’t demanding a “Mohammed exception” to the First Amendment. He’s demanding an exception for all speech that would make the audience so angry that they might react violently — exactly the sort of slippery slope on censorship that people like you and me worry about when images of Mohammed are suppressed. Actual line from this op-ed, regarding the new cover of Charlie Hebdo: “The once little-known French satirical news weekly crossed the line that separates free speech from toxic talk.”
The most current issue of Charlie Hebdo again has Mohammed on its cover. This time, he appears crying under a headline that reads: “All is forgiven.” Well, apparently not. Ten people have been killed during protests in Niger, a former French colony. Other anti-French riots have erupted from North Africa to Asia. In reaction to all of this, Pope Francis has said of the magazine, “You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”…
In 1919, the Supreme Court ruled speech that presents a “clear and present danger” is not protected by the First Amendment. Crying “fire” in a quiet, uninhabited place is one thing, the court said. But “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”
Twenty-two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that forms of expression that “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are fighting words that are not protected by the First Amendment.
If Charlie Hebdo’s irreverent portrayal of Mohammed before the Jan. 7 attack wasn’t thought to constitute fighting words, or a clear and present danger, there should be no doubt now that the newspaper’s continued mocking of the Islamic prophet incites violence. And it pushes Charlie Hebdo’s free speech claim beyond the limits of the endurable.
In 1919, the Supreme Court ruled speech that presents a “clear and present danger” is not protected by the First Amendment. Crying “fire” in a quiet, uninhabited place is one thing, the court said. But “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”
Twenty-two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that forms of expression that “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are fighting words that are not protected by the First Amendment.
If Charlie Hebdo’s irreverent portrayal of Mohammed before the Jan. 7 attack wasn’t thought to constitute fighting words, or a clear and present danger, there should be no doubt now that the newspaper’s continued mocking of the Islamic prophet incites violence. And it pushes Charlie Hebdo’s free speech claim beyond the limits of the endurable.
Amazingly for a J-school prof, none of that is right. The Supreme Court hasn’t used the “clear and present danger” test for First Amendment cases in decades. The test now for inflammatory speech is the Brandenburg test, a strciter standard that allows the state to criminalize incitement only in narrow circumstances — when the speaker intends to incite violence and violence is likely to quickly result. Charlie Hebdo’s Mohammed cartoons may have met the “likely” prong of that test but they sure didn’t meet the “intent” part. The “fighting words” doctrine is still good law but it too has been gradually narrowed over time. Today, for the moment, it’s limited to “direct personal insults” between people who are face to face. That’s the key difference between publishing an offensive cartoon and, to borrow the Pope’s recent analogy, stepping up to a man and insulting his mother. From the Supreme Court’s perspective, those situations are apples and oranges. I appreciate Wickham’s candor in trying to expand “fighting words” to allow censorship of all kinds of offensive speech, though; I’ve worried about that myself, as longtime HA readers know. If speech can be criminalized because it angers a man to the point where he wants to attack you, why should we limit it to speech said in his presence? “Fighting words” is a potential trojan horse for smuggling all sorts of exceptions for “hate” into the First Amendment. I’m surprised more lefties aren’t as forthright as this guy is in making the case for it.
Someone should poll the media on whether they agree with Wickham’s “heckler’s veto” assumption that it’s Charlie Hebdo’s staff, rather than, say, the jihadis like Al Qaeda who put a bounty on them and ended up murdering them, that’s guilty of “incitement.” I’d be curious to see the numbers.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/01/...e-first-amendment-ends-at-insulting-mohammed/
I agree with much of Greenwald's article except for his final point. He's out to lunch on that one, as usual. Where is this "anti-Muslim message" from the media? The media, like the politicians and academics, are falling all over themselves to tell us the Paris jihadis don't represent the real Islam. As Mark Steyn said, "Allahu Akbar is Arabic for no Islam to see here."
Greenwald is unable to think beyond his leftist bias. His use of the term 'anti-Muslim' rather than 'anti-Islam' is a deliberate attempt to portray any legitimate criticism of the content and consequences of Islamic doctrine as racist, xenophobic and Islamophobic. He's done the same thing in the past to Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, saying their criticism of Islam was racist.
The anti-Muslim message supposedly coming from the media exists only as a leftist delusion. A few voices are finally starting to call for a more critical examination of Islam and why Muslims are using their faith to justify martyrdom, the subjugation of women, and killing the kaffir. But those voices are still few and far between. The closest thing to an anti-Muslim message coming from the media is their refusal to publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons because they fear for their own lives. That message speaks volumes.
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"Twenty-two years later, the Supreme Court ruled that forms of expression that “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are fighting words that are not protected by the First Amendment."
Who's going to interpret “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” Do we have to ask first, if I say this or that, will it inflict injury by "hurting someone's feelings?
Who's going to interpret “inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” Do we have to ask first, if I say this or that, will it inflict injury by "hurting someone's feelings?
Seems all kinds of people are into conspiracies lately. It's like the flu.
Paris attacks:Jean-Marie Le Pen says French terror
attacks were work of Western intelligenceby John Lichfield
The Charlie Hebdo massacre may have been the work of an “intelligence agency”, working with the connivance of French authorities, according to Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the far right Front National.
In an interview with a virulently anti-Western Russian newspaper, Mr Le Pen, 86, gave credence to conspiracy theories circulating on the internet suggesting that the attack was the work of American or Israeli agents seeking to foment a civil war between Islam and the West.
His comments – only partially retracted in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde today – provoked outrage amongst French politicians. They will also infuriate Marine Le Pen <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-referendum-on-the-death-penalty-9965607.html> , his daughter, and successor as leader of the FN, who has been trying to distance the party from her father’s extreme and provocative remarks.
Mr Le Pen stood down as FN leader three years ago but remains President-for-life. He made the comments in an interview with Komsomolskaïa Pravda <http://www.kp.ru/> , a newspaper which had already blamed the United States for the terrorist mayhem in France.
“The shooting at Charlie Hebdo resembles a secret service operation but we have no proof of that,” the newspaper quoted Mr Le Pen as saying. “I don’t think it was organised by the French authorities but they permitted this crime to be committed. That, for the moment, is just a supposition.”
To justify his comments, Mr Le Pen pointed to the fact that one of the Kouachi brothers <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...kouachi-brothers-escaping-police-9976573.html> , who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre, left his identity card in a crashed getaway car. He compared this to the “miraculous fact” – beloved by conspiracy theorists – that one of the passports of the 9/11 hijackers was found on the ground in New York after two planes collided with the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in 2001.
Mr Le Pen made two other provocative remarks in the interview. He said that the 1,500,000 who marched “against hatred” in Paris last Sunday were not “Charlies” but “Charlie Chaplins” (ie clowns). He also said that there were 15,000,00 to 20,000,000 Muslims in France – three or four times the generally accepted figures of 5,000,000 people who are practising Muslims or have Muslim backgrounds.
In an interview with Le Monde today, Mr Le Pen repeated his suspicions about the identity card but said he “could not recall” talking about “secret services” to the Russian newspaper.
Mr Le Pen’s original quoted remarks run directly counter to the official line of his daughter and his party. They have suggested that the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket are the final proof that France faces an “enemy within”, which has been created by immigration and open EU borders.
Conspiracy theories of the kind espoused by the elder Le Pen sprang up on the internet within hours of the Charlie Hebdo attacks. They have been repeated in recent days by some – not all - young Muslims in France, torn between identifying with the Kouachi brothers and insisting that they were stooges of the French authorities, Washington and Israel.
The French “pope of conspiracy theories”, Thierry Meyssan, now based in Damascus, insisted that the Charlie Hebdo massacres were “ordered by US neo-cons and liberal hawks”. An American conspiracy site, McLatchy, has claimed that the Kouachi brothers were working for French intelligence.
Two different articles about problems in the Ukraine. We are getting blamed for at least complicity in everything! Not only Charlie Hebdo.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/07/26/372804/mystery-bombing-running-over-ukraine/
This morning January 22nd at 8:30 local time in Donetsk the Ukrainian army fired what appear to be 82mm shells at buses and trolleys near the center of the city.
The targets were located within roughly a 25 meter radius of each other. The OSCE is investigating.
The terrorist strike on the bus shown above claimed the lives of 13-15 people including children. There are reported to be over 20 other critically injured, many with blast amputations. The driver of a car next to the blast burnt to death. The blast was large enough to blowout 2nd story windows in an apartment across from it and stopped the clock at 8:30.
Donetsk Defense Minister Vladimir Kononov gave a statement that a group of terrorists launching attacks on civilians have been caught and are Ukrainian military operatives. Small teams of Ukrainian army/terrorists have been perpetrating random drive by shootings with automatics in Donetsk since the Ukrainian army reignited the hot war eleven days ago. (To view the videos, click on the link to the article above.)
In another development on Slavakaya St. which is located on the outskirts of Donetsk, a local resident noticed an improvised trip mine pictured above. The DNR(Donetsk Peoples Republic) army responded by sending an explosives team to defuse it. The mine was set up on a pathway to a children’s playground.
In the town of Stahanovo today a Grad and Hurricane rocket and missile attack left three children’s kindergartens entirely destroyed this morning. Three more pre-school facilities were targeted and partially destroyed. So far casualty reports are 8 civilians dead including at least 2 children and over 20 wounded. The attacks on civilians are escalating.
Sources are reporting that the attack this morning is only the beginning of a much larger one. Ukraine’s Donbas Battalion is moving military equipment into Artemovsk flying DNR flags and wearing DNR uniforms. Artemovsk is in the control of the Ukrainian army.
The latest attacks on civilian targets in Donetsk show a blatant pattern of criminal murder that has come to define the Ukrainian Government in Kiev throughout the war. Like the other bus attack near Volonovaha where the Ukrainian army fired Grad rockets at one of their own checkpoints this attack shows the open criminality of the Poroshenko regime.
In developed countries governments that give their army units orders to murder other army units and their own civilians are criminals. Every official that could have influence and stop the crimes are held accountable. Most developed countries also adhere to laws of war that makes the purposeful targeting of civilians an international crime. Leaders of countries that order crimes of this magnitude are prosecuted either internally or in an international forum like the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremburg. After WW2, a guilty verdict meant the responsible leaders were hung.
Why is this openly Nazi government instead rewarded?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, U.S. Army, is head of Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) for NATO was in Kiev yesterday and awarded US Army Europe medallions for excellence to the Ukrainian army’s wounded. General Hodges shook one Ukrainian soldiers hand and stated he was proud of his service to his country.
-
At Debalsevo and the Donetsk airport where these wounded soldiers are coming from the Ukrainian army has been targeting civilians for several months. The US Army head of LANDCOM takes pride in this? As an American I have never felt this much shame for my country. Just the sight of this man who is in the position of knowing exactly who he is dealing with shames the memory of my own grandfather and uncle who fought in WW2 against ultra-nationalism.
My grandfather and uncle would not thank openly nazi governments for receiving him on such short notice. They were proud to be American.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/2014/07/26/372804/mystery-bombing-running-over-ukraine/
This morning January 22nd at 8:30 local time in Donetsk the Ukrainian army fired what appear to be 82mm shells at buses and trolleys near the center of the city.
The targets were located within roughly a 25 meter radius of each other. The OSCE is investigating.
The terrorist strike on the bus shown above claimed the lives of 13-15 people including children. There are reported to be over 20 other critically injured, many with blast amputations. The driver of a car next to the blast burnt to death. The blast was large enough to blowout 2nd story windows in an apartment across from it and stopped the clock at 8:30.
Donetsk Defense Minister Vladimir Kononov gave a statement that a group of terrorists launching attacks on civilians have been caught and are Ukrainian military operatives. Small teams of Ukrainian army/terrorists have been perpetrating random drive by shootings with automatics in Donetsk since the Ukrainian army reignited the hot war eleven days ago. (To view the videos, click on the link to the article above.)
In another development on Slavakaya St. which is located on the outskirts of Donetsk, a local resident noticed an improvised trip mine pictured above. The DNR(Donetsk Peoples Republic) army responded by sending an explosives team to defuse it. The mine was set up on a pathway to a children’s playground.
In the town of Stahanovo today a Grad and Hurricane rocket and missile attack left three children’s kindergartens entirely destroyed this morning. Three more pre-school facilities were targeted and partially destroyed. So far casualty reports are 8 civilians dead including at least 2 children and over 20 wounded. The attacks on civilians are escalating.
Sources are reporting that the attack this morning is only the beginning of a much larger one. Ukraine’s Donbas Battalion is moving military equipment into Artemovsk flying DNR flags and wearing DNR uniforms. Artemovsk is in the control of the Ukrainian army.
The latest attacks on civilian targets in Donetsk show a blatant pattern of criminal murder that has come to define the Ukrainian Government in Kiev throughout the war. Like the other bus attack near Volonovaha where the Ukrainian army fired Grad rockets at one of their own checkpoints this attack shows the open criminality of the Poroshenko regime.
In developed countries governments that give their army units orders to murder other army units and their own civilians are criminals. Every official that could have influence and stop the crimes are held accountable. Most developed countries also adhere to laws of war that makes the purposeful targeting of civilians an international crime. Leaders of countries that order crimes of this magnitude are prosecuted either internally or in an international forum like the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremburg. After WW2, a guilty verdict meant the responsible leaders were hung.
Why is this openly Nazi government instead rewarded?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, U.S. Army, is head of Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) for NATO was in Kiev yesterday and awarded US Army Europe medallions for excellence to the Ukrainian army’s wounded. General Hodges shook one Ukrainian soldiers hand and stated he was proud of his service to his country.
-
At Debalsevo and the Donetsk airport where these wounded soldiers are coming from the Ukrainian army has been targeting civilians for several months. The US Army head of LANDCOM takes pride in this? As an American I have never felt this much shame for my country. Just the sight of this man who is in the position of knowing exactly who he is dealing with shames the memory of my own grandfather and uncle who fought in WW2 against ultra-nationalism.
My grandfather and uncle would not thank openly nazi governments for receiving him on such short notice. They were proud to be American.
Sacrilegious caricatures: Bounties announced on Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, publishers
By Our Correspondents
Published: January 23, 2015
Activists from different Pakistani religious parties shout slogans against the printing of satirical sketches of the Prophet Mohammed by French magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Peshawar. PHOTO: AFP
PESHAWAR / SHABQADAR / KP: Several bounties were announced on the staff of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Friday as protests against its publication of sacrilegious cartoons continued across the province.
Charsadda
Religious parties Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) announced a bounty of Rs100 million on the people who made and published the caricatures.
Hundreds of activists led by JI’s Abdul Mastan, JUI-F’s Amir Hidayatul Haq and ASWJ leaders protested against the cartoons on Friday in Shabqadar and adopted a declaration urging people to boycott French products.
Addressing the protest, Mastan demanded that the federal government expel the French ambassador from Pakistan, while JUI-F’s Maulana Wakeel Ahmad said Pakistan should call a session of the United Nations and rally for a ban on publications insulting religion and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
A similar demonstration was also held in Tangi tehsil at Farooque Azam Square where JUI-F MNA Maulana Gohar Shah, JUI-F Charsadda Amir Hashim Khan, JI Charsadda Amir Misbahullah along with other leaders demanded action against the controversial cartoonists and urged the Islamic world to unite against such freedom of speech.
Mardan
Led by JUI-F MNA Maulana Muhammad Qasim, scores of JUI-F activists took to the streets and demanded action against the magazine. Malakand Road remained blocked for several hours due to the protest.
Mardan Anjamum Tajiran (traders association) announced a bounty of Rs10 million on the magazine staff and urged the UN to make a law against blasphemy.
Peshawar
Hundreds of activists of JI, JUI-F and JUI-S took out a protest rally from Khyber Bazaar to Qissa Khwani Bazaar in the provincial capital following Friday prayers. JI’s Hakeem Abdul Wahid, JUI-F K-P Amir Maulana Gul Naseeb, JUI-S Central Deputy Secretary Maulana Hamidul Haq, prayer leader of Qasim Ali Khan Mosque, Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai, and other religious leaders led the protest. Demonstrators chanted slogans against the French magazine and government and demanded leaders of Muslim countries suspend relations with France. Maulana Naseer said European countries have set punishments for insulating the Pope and Queen Elizabeth but remain silent on the issue of blasphemy against the Holy Prophet (pbuh). Mufti Popalzai appealed to Muslim countries to lodge a writ petition with the International Court of Justice against the magazine staff. Activists of the recently outlawed organisation, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, also protested outside the Peshawar Press Club.
Hazara Division
Traders of Mansehra district observed a complete shutter-down strike against the publications.
On the call of Anjuman Tajran (traders association), shops, shopping malls and markets remained closed throughout the day, while rallies were taken out by different political parties and traders’ bodies.
All protest processions converged at Khatm-e-Naboovat Chowk where leaders of JUI-F, JUI-S, ASWJ, PML-N, PPP and PTI addressed the participants and condemned the caricatures.
Similar rallies were taken out in Kohistan, Battagram, Abbottabad and Haripur. Demonstrators demanded diplomatic ties with France be severed until legal action is taken against Charlie Hebdo and an official apology is issued.
Shangla
The residents of Shahpur took to the streets after Friday prayers under the leadership of Maulana Imdadullah and Maulana Zahiruddin and chanted slogans against the French government. The local bazaar remained closed due to the protest.
Chitral
A joint protest was held in Chitral by JUI-F and JI at PIA Chowk after Friday prayers. Led by JI Chitral chief Haji Maghfirat Shah, JUI-F leader Maulana Abdur Rehman and others, the protesters demanded a change in Pakistan’s relations with France. The religious leaders said France should respect all religions and avoid such publications.
Mohmand
JI, JUI-F, PPP and ANP leaders also led a protest in Mian Mandi and Ekka Ghund areas of Mohmand Agency, urging the government to call the French ambassador and register its protest over the caricatures.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/826489/...nced-on-charlie-hebdo-cartoonists-publishers/
By Our Correspondents
Published: January 23, 2015
Activists from different Pakistani religious parties shout slogans against the printing of satirical sketches of the Prophet Mohammed by French magazine Charlie Hebdo, in Peshawar. PHOTO: AFP
PESHAWAR / SHABQADAR / KP: Several bounties were announced on the staff of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Friday as protests against its publication of sacrilegious cartoons continued across the province.
Charsadda
Religious parties Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) announced a bounty of Rs100 million on the people who made and published the caricatures.
Hundreds of activists led by JI’s Abdul Mastan, JUI-F’s Amir Hidayatul Haq and ASWJ leaders protested against the cartoons on Friday in Shabqadar and adopted a declaration urging people to boycott French products.
Addressing the protest, Mastan demanded that the federal government expel the French ambassador from Pakistan, while JUI-F’s Maulana Wakeel Ahmad said Pakistan should call a session of the United Nations and rally for a ban on publications insulting religion and Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
A similar demonstration was also held in Tangi tehsil at Farooque Azam Square where JUI-F MNA Maulana Gohar Shah, JUI-F Charsadda Amir Hashim Khan, JI Charsadda Amir Misbahullah along with other leaders demanded action against the controversial cartoonists and urged the Islamic world to unite against such freedom of speech.
Mardan
Led by JUI-F MNA Maulana Muhammad Qasim, scores of JUI-F activists took to the streets and demanded action against the magazine. Malakand Road remained blocked for several hours due to the protest.
Mardan Anjamum Tajiran (traders association) announced a bounty of Rs10 million on the magazine staff and urged the UN to make a law against blasphemy.
Peshawar
Hundreds of activists of JI, JUI-F and JUI-S took out a protest rally from Khyber Bazaar to Qissa Khwani Bazaar in the provincial capital following Friday prayers. JI’s Hakeem Abdul Wahid, JUI-F K-P Amir Maulana Gul Naseeb, JUI-S Central Deputy Secretary Maulana Hamidul Haq, prayer leader of Qasim Ali Khan Mosque, Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai, and other religious leaders led the protest. Demonstrators chanted slogans against the French magazine and government and demanded leaders of Muslim countries suspend relations with France. Maulana Naseer said European countries have set punishments for insulating the Pope and Queen Elizabeth but remain silent on the issue of blasphemy against the Holy Prophet (pbuh). Mufti Popalzai appealed to Muslim countries to lodge a writ petition with the International Court of Justice against the magazine staff. Activists of the recently outlawed organisation, Jamaat-ud-Dawa, also protested outside the Peshawar Press Club.
Hazara Division
Traders of Mansehra district observed a complete shutter-down strike against the publications.
On the call of Anjuman Tajran (traders association), shops, shopping malls and markets remained closed throughout the day, while rallies were taken out by different political parties and traders’ bodies.
All protest processions converged at Khatm-e-Naboovat Chowk where leaders of JUI-F, JUI-S, ASWJ, PML-N, PPP and PTI addressed the participants and condemned the caricatures.
Similar rallies were taken out in Kohistan, Battagram, Abbottabad and Haripur. Demonstrators demanded diplomatic ties with France be severed until legal action is taken against Charlie Hebdo and an official apology is issued.
Shangla
The residents of Shahpur took to the streets after Friday prayers under the leadership of Maulana Imdadullah and Maulana Zahiruddin and chanted slogans against the French government. The local bazaar remained closed due to the protest.
Chitral
A joint protest was held in Chitral by JUI-F and JI at PIA Chowk after Friday prayers. Led by JI Chitral chief Haji Maghfirat Shah, JUI-F leader Maulana Abdur Rehman and others, the protesters demanded a change in Pakistan’s relations with France. The religious leaders said France should respect all religions and avoid such publications.
Mohmand
JI, JUI-F, PPP and ANP leaders also led a protest in Mian Mandi and Ekka Ghund areas of Mohmand Agency, urging the government to call the French ambassador and register its protest over the caricatures.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/826489/...nced-on-charlie-hebdo-cartoonists-publishers/
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