Thursday, May 21, 2015

Defending Freedom of Speech -- by Geert Wilders

Gatestone Institute

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Defending Freedom of Speech

by Geert Wilders  •  May 21, 2015 at 5:00 am
  • We should never allow ourselves to be intimidated. And here, in America, you are allowed to make pictures and drawings, no matter what the Sharia says. ... If we react to threats over cartoons by no longer making cartoons, the terrorists have won. ... The jihadis want to kill me, but others want to silence me... by legal or political harassment. All this is happening not in third-world dictatorships, as you might expect, but in Western democracies.
  • And may I ask: Where are the demonstrations of Muslims who do not agree with the violence committed in the name of Islam and its prophet? I have not seen any of them, have you? The majority may not commit violence, but they do not oppose it either.
  • A free society should not grant freedom to those who want to destroy it. We should stand with every nation and every people who are threatened by jihad. This includes Israel... whose conflict with the Arabs is not about land; it is a conflict between freedom and tyranny.
  • If we allow ourselves to be self-censored about anything we say about Islam, then soon Islam will start telling us how to live, how to dress, how to breathe. ... That is how civilizations decay.
Bosch Fawstin's winning entry in the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Texas, held on May 3, 2015. (Image source: Bosch Fawstin)
Freedom of speech is under threat today. Not only in Europe, where I come from. But also here, in America.
The last time I was in the United States was less than two weeks ago. I was in Garland, Texas, where I gave the keynote speech at a contest of Muhammad cartoons.
The contest was held in a conference center, where after the Paris Charlie Hebdo assassinations, an Islamic organization had convened to demand that freedom of speech be restricted and Muhammad cartoons be forbidden. The Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland was organized to make a stand against this demand. We should never allow ourselves to be intimidated.
The winner of the Garland contest was a former Muslim. There was something very symbolic about the fact that he was an apostate. Under Islamic Sharia law, apostasy is punishable by death. Under the same law, making illustrations of the prophet Muhammad is also punishable by death.


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