TOP MUSLIM CALLS FOR U.N. TO END FREE SPEECH

Claims violence over film proof constitutional protection 'benefits no one'

One of the world’s most influential Muslims is now calling on the United Nations – in light of the YouTube movie blamed for violent protests across the Mideast – to impose international restrictions on free speech, criminalizing any statement that impugns Islam.

Sheikh Abdullah Bin Bayyah, a professor at King Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia, is a member of several international organizations, including the Centre for Studying the Aims of Sharia in the U.K., as well as serving as the vice chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars.

In a public declaration issued to several Islamic bodies, including the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, one of the largest Muslim mosques in the D.C. metro area and the U.S., bin Bayyah called upon “people of reason and understanding” to put a legal stop to statements that would offend Muslims and thereby threaten world peace.The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre ranked bin Bayyah No. 31 on its list of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world for 2011.

“We ask everyone to ponder the ramifications of provoking the feelings of over one billion people by a small party of people who desires not to seek peace nor fraternity between members of humanity,” bin Bayyah wrote. “This poses a threat to world peace with no tangible benefit realized. Is it not necessary in today’s world for the United Nations to issue a resolution criminalizing the impingement of religious symbols? We request all religious and political authorities, as well as people of reason to join us in putting a stop to this futility that benefits no one.”

Bin Bayyah’s statement was titled a “Declaration Regarding the Offensive Video to Muslims,” a clear reference to the YouTube film, “Innocence of Muslims,” which has been widely – if controversially – blamed for inciting riots against embassies in the Middle East and the resulting death of four U.S. diplomats.

The Obama administration had similarly asked Google, the parent company of YouTube, to review whether “Innocence of Muslims” violates its terms-of-use policies.

Thus far, Google has refused to remove the video from YouTube, though it blocked access in some sensitive countries.

Pundits from a wide spectrum of news outlets have agreed the video is protected by free speech rights in the U.S.

Bin Bayyah’s statement continued, condemning the embassy attacks in the Middle East: “We implore you not to inflict violence upon anyone, whether foreign delegations or otherwise. You should not destroy property or flout the values and cherished principles that you defend, as attacking innocents, killing foreign diplomats and ambassadors contravenes religious and moral principles before it contravenes political ones.”

Nonetheless, bin Bayyah reiterated the U.S. should make videos like “Innocence of Muslims” illegal, even while he claimed to back “free speech.”

“To our Western neighbors … we are extremely concerned with a small active minority in your countries that seeks to perpetuate a state of conflict and war,” bin Bayyah wrote. “We estimate that such objectives do not serve the general interest. Therefore, it is our hope that you reconsider and criminalize the denigration of religious symbols, as such provocations do not serve the principles of free speech, principles that you and us both seek to uphold.”

In a WND commentary, Diana West discussed other leading Muslims’ attempts to criminalize criticism of Islam.

“Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt (who denies that al-Qaida attacked the U.S. on 9/11, by the way), directed the Egyptian Embassy in Washington to ‘take legal action’ against the movie’s producers,” West writes. “Morsi doesn’t seem to understand First Amendment protections.”

West continued, “Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil asked for similar action ‘within the framework of international charters that criminalize acts that stir strife on the basis of race, color or religion.’ This is a direct appeal to hold Americans accountable to the U.N. blasphemy resolution Hillary Clinton, along with the Islamic bloc, has championed, despite its repressive controls on free speech.”

West was referring a “defamation against religion” resolution the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has been pushing at the U.N. every year since 1999. Last year, Clinton worked with the OIC to pass a revised version, Resolution 16/18, which included both the usual condemnation of defaming speech and a paragraph affirming “the positive role that the exercise of the right to freedom of opinion and expression” plays in “strengthening democracy.”

Critics of the defamation resolutions fear they could be used to outlaw valid and critical scrutiny of Islamic teachings, as some OIC states do through controversial blasphemy laws at home.

The Clinton compromise version, though still roundly criticized, enjoyed more popularity at the U.N. itself and was adopted by consensus.

Source: 

DOJ Official Refuses To Answer Question Regarding The Criminalization Of Free Speech That Criticizes A Religion

Congressman Trent Franks questions the Assistant Attorney General, Thomas Perez, over whether or not the Department of Justice would entertain criminalizing free speech that criticizes religion. Perez refuses to answer the question.

From a July 25th hearing.

New UN resolution turns away from religious defamation concept

A Christian holds a wooden cross during a rally to condemn the assassination of Pakistan's Minister for Minorities Shahbaz Bhatti in Lahore in March 2011. Bhatti was killed for challenging Pakistan's blasphemy law

The United Nations' top human rights body has abandoned its condemnation of religious "defamation" and instead passed a resolution supporting an individual's right to freedom of belief - a move long awaited by IFEX members. 
http://www.ifex.org/international/2011/04/06/religious_tolerance/

Calls to Destroy Egypt’s Great Pyramids Begin: History Repeats?

Calls to Destroy Egypt’s Great Pyramids Begin

History Repeats?

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt’s Great Pyramids—or, in the words of Saudi Sheikh Ali bin Said al-Rabi‘i, those “symbols of paganism,” which Egypt’s Salafi party has long planned to cover with wax.    Most recently, Bahrain’s “Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs” and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt’s new president, Muhammad Morsi, to “destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As could not.”

This is a reference to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad’s companion, Amr bin al-As and his Arabian tribesmen, who invaded and conquered Egypt circa 641.  Under al-As and subsequent Muslim rule, many Egyptian antiquities were destroyed as relics of infidelity.  While most Western academics argue otherwise, according to early Muslim writers, the great Library of Alexandria itself—deemed a repository of pagan knowledge contradicting the Koran—was destroyed under bin al-As’s reign and in compliance with Caliph Omar’s command.

However, while book-burning was an easy activity in the 7th century, destroying the mountain-like pyramids and their guardian Sphinx was not—even if Egypt’s Medieval Mamluk rulers “de-nosed” the latter during target practice (though popular legend still attributes it to a Westerner, Napoleon).

Sheikhs” observes, and thanks to modern technology, the pyramids can be destroyed.  The only question left is whether the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt is “pious” enough—if he is willing to complete the Islamization process that started under the hands of Egypt’s first Islamic conqueror.

Nor is such a course of action implausible.  History is laden with examples of Muslims destroying their own pre-Islamic heritage—starting with Islam’s prophet Muhammad himself, who destroyed Arabia’s Ka‘ba temple, transforming it into a mosque.

Asking “What is it about Islam that so often turns its adherents against their own patrimony?” Daniel Pipes provides several examples, from Medieval Muslims in India destroying their forefathers’ temples, to contemporary Muslims destroying their non-Islamic heritage in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Malaysia, and Tunisia.

Currently, in what the International Criminal Court is describing as a possible “war crime,” Islamic fanatics are destroying the ancient heritage of the city of Timbuktu in Mali—all to Islam’s triumphant war cry, “Allahu Akbar!”

Much of this hate for their own pre-Islamic heritage is tied to the fact that, traditionally, Muslims do not identify with this or that nation, culture, heritage, or language, but only with the Islamic nation—the Umma.

Accordingly, while many Egyptians—Muslims and non-Muslims alike—see themselves as Egyptians, Islamists have no national identity, identifying only with Islam’s “culture,” based on the “sunna” of the prophet and Islam’s language, Arabic.  This sentiment was clearly reflected when the former Leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Akef, declared “the hell with Egypt,” indicating that the interests of his country are secondary to Islam’s.

It is further telling that such calls are being made now—immediately after a Muslim Brotherhood member became Egypt’s president.  In fact, the same reports discussing the call to demolish the last of the Seven Wonders of the Word, also note that Egyptian Salafis are calling on Morsi to banish all Shias and Baha’is from Egypt.

In other words, Morsi’s call to release the Blind Sheikh, a terrorist mastermind, may be the tip of the iceberg in coming audacity.  From calls to legalize Islamic sex-slave marriage to calls to institute “morality police” to calls to destroy Egypt’s mountain-like monuments, under Muslim Brotherhood tutelage, the bottle has been uncorked, and the genie unleashed in Egypt.

Will all those international institutions, which make it a point to look the other way whenever human rights abuses are committed by Muslims, lest they appear “Islamophobic,” at least take note now that the Great Pyramids appear to be next on Islam’s hit list, or will the fact that Muslims are involved silence them once again—even as those most ancient symbols of human civilization are pummeled to the ground?

Afghan Taliban Begin Destruction of Ancient Buddha Statues

KABUL - Ignoring an international outcry, Afghanistan's puritanical Taliban Islamic militia began demolishing statues across the country on Thursday, including two towering ancient stone Buddhas.Taliban Minister of Information and Culture Qudratullah Jamal told AFP the destruction of scores of pre-Islamic figures, designed to stop the worshipping of "false idols," had begun throughout the country. Undated photo of the world's tallest statue of Bhudda measuring 53 meters (175 feet) in Bamiyan, 125 kilometers (90 miles) west of Kabul in Afghanistan. Supreme Commander of the Taliban Mullah Mohammad Omar had ordered the destruction of all statues in Afghanistan, including the centuries-old Buddha in Bamiyan, and armed Taliban troops fanned out across the country Thursday to implement the supreme leader's order. (AP Photo)  He said militiamen started wrecking the almost 2,000-year-old Buddhist masterpieces in the central province of Bamiyan, including the world's tallest standing Buddha measuring 50 meters (165 feet), after sunrise. "The work started about five hours ago but I do not know how much of it (the two Bamiyan Buddhas) has been destroyed," Jamal said. "It will be destroyed by every means. All the statues are being destroyed." He said Taliban soldiers were at "work" in the Kabul museum and elsewhere in the provinces of Ghazni, Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar. An edict announced Monday by the militia's supreme leader, Mulla Mohammad Omar, calling for the destruction of all statues in line with "Islamic" laws, has caused shock around the world. Afghanistan is home to an array of pre-Islamic historic treasures from its days as a key stop on the ancient Silk Road and a strategic battleground for conquerers dating back to Alexander the Great and the Aryans before him. The two massive Bamiyan Buddhas, carved into a sandstone cliff near the provincial capital in central Afghanistan, stand 50 meters (165 feet) and 34.5 meters (114 feet) tall and were built around the second century. Appeals for their preservation have come from the United States, France, Germany, Thailand, Japan, Sri Lanka, Iran, Pakistan, Germany, Russia, India and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Koichiro Matsuura, chief of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), said he had convened an emergency meeting of members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to try to stop the destruction. "They are destroying statues that the entire world considers to be masterpieces," Matsuura said. "And this is being done in the name of an interpretation of the Muslim faith that is not recognized anywhere else in the world." But Afghan Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakel said the edict was irreversible. "Have you ever seen any decision of the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) reversed?" Mutawakel asked. The Taliban, or movement of religious students, seized Kabul in 1996 and have imposed a puritanical mix of Pashtun tribal and Sharia law in a bid to create their idea of a true Muslim state. Their regime is recognised only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and is not represented at the United Nations nor the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. UN special envoy to Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell told AFP he discussed the edict with Mutawakel in Kabul Thursday but was told "the Islamic Emirate (Taliban) is not in the habit of rescinding their edicts." "I told him that the international community is baffled at the moment and it would create international outrage if the edict is carried out," Vendrell said. Afghans, baffled at first by the decree and now its implementation, quietly and sadly condemned the destruction. "Destroyed cities can be rehabilitated. But once the statues are gone, they can never be replaced," said a resident of Kabul. "It is not helping the war-wounded country." Taliban officials also privately said they were not happy with Omar's decree, which is seen as absolute law in more than 90 percent of the country under the militia's rule. "It is causing big damage to our history," said a senior official, refusing to be named for fear of retribution from the hardline militia. "The war had taken everything else. We had only these (monuments) which are now fading." Another Taliban official added: "Personally I am against a brick of Afghanistan being destroyed. It is very sad."  [2]

source: [1] http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/muslim-brotherhood-destroy-the-pyramids/

source: [2] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0301-04.htm