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