Archive for March, 2006

Danish Muslims sue newspaper

free expression rally

Having failed twice in their attempts to get Jyllands-Posten prosecuted under Danish criminal law, a group of 27 Muslim organisations are filing a lawsuit against the paper for “defamation”.

Michael Christiani Havemann, a lawyer representing the Muslim groups, says

We’re seeking judgment for both the text and the drawings which were gratuitously defamatory and injurious.

The groups are apparently blind to the fact that their continued hysterical over-reaction is far more injurious to the image of Islam than any of the 12 cartoons that appeared in September – or indeed any of the thousands of others that were drawn as a direct result of their hysterical over-reaction.




Christian Voice v TV Choice

The 11th-17th March issue of TV Choice carried a feature plugging the Sonia and Naomi storyline in Eastenders. This included pictures of the two girls kissing, which caused outrage among our favourite fundamentalist bibliolaters, Christian Voice (incidentally, according to Google, the world’s number 1 bigots).

Stephen “Dog Shit” Green sent out an E-alert to his supporters urging them to complain to TV Choice, and their parent company Bauer, about this blatant promotion of homosexuality.

The magazine TVChoice, in its issue for the 11th-17th March, advertised a story about the television serial “Eastenders” that promoted lesbianism as a normal, natural part of society. Highly offensive pictures were published as part of this magazine’s attempt at pro-homosexual propaganda. Parents will have bought the magazine, and taken these pictures unwittingly into their homes, where their young children could have seen them.

He also urged supporters to pray that the editors be convicted of their sin and repent for the “disgusting and immoral pictures – and shameless promotion – of lesbianism”.




More on the CCB

MWW has reported on the Christian Council of Britain and their links with the BNP before. Now Bartholomew reports that the founder of the organisation, the Reverend Robert West, has been suspended from the Conservative Party after addressing a BNP meeting in Huddersfield. A Tory party spokesman commented on the suspension, saying “The BNP is an odious and abhorrent organisation. The councillor has been suspended from the council’s Conservative group and local association pending an investigation.”

Mr West gave a speech in which he denounced inter-racial marriage, and quoted the Bible as the source of this belief. Scarily, this man is on the Lincolnshire Council for Racial Equality. He also said that the CCB has been formed to counter attacks on free speech. If that’s the case why did they use protests against Jerry Springer: The Opera to help get their message across?

The CCB was formed as a counterpoint to the Muslim Council of Britain, which has also claimed to support free speech, when Iqbal Sacranie was questioned by the police after his comments against gay marriage on Radio 4 back in January, and has also campaigned for censorship, with reagrds to to Mo-toons. So the CCB and MCB have at least one thing in common: Hypocrisy.




MAC get 3 signatories

Frustrated by the enormous number of groups in existence claiming to represent the views of the majority of Muslims, a bunch of UK imams decided to set up the Muslim Action Committee with the aim of representing the views of the majority of Muslims.

Their particular concern is the Mo-toons. They insist that the MAC are not looking for special treatment. All they want is for Islam to be the only religion in the world to be exempt from satire, and for the prophet Mohammed to be the only figure in history to be protected from caricature – or indeed any form of pictorial representation. This, you see, is just a matter of “civility”.

Three “Prominent Signaturies” (sic) have signed up to their fairly innocent looking Proclamation, which basically says, in pseudo-academic language, “be nice to each other”. Phyllis Starkey (MP, Lab), Paul Rown (sic, actually Rowan – MP, LDem), and Lord Ralph Lucas obviously couldn’t see anything wrong with that. It remains to be seen whether or not the MAC will now claim that they have the support of these signatories for their other demands, which include amendments to the Press Complaint Commission Code of Practice, the handing over of copyright of the Danish cartoons to unspecified “Muslims”, and a saying of Mohammed to be printed in Jyllands Posten every week for a year in penance for their crime.

Given their toonophobia and fear of satire, many suspect that the letters MAC actually stand for Muslims Against Comedy. This suspicion is confirmed by a quick Google search for that phrase. The number 1 site returned is indeed GlobalCivility.com – their official website, which has the appearance of having been designed by one of the imam’s nephews who is “good with computers”.

muslims against comedy

They do seem to take themselves very seriously, don’t they?




Mo-toons displayed at Free Expression rally – one man questioned charged

free expression rally

Several Mo-toon banners were in evidence at Saturday’s March for Free Expression, which attracted about 600 people. One man complained to the police that he felt “threatened” by the presence of the cartoons, which led to Iranian dissident Reza Moradi being questioned by the police. According to Maryam Namazie, he is due to appear in court for the offence at some point.

While Reza was being questioned, his banner, which displayed four of the Mo-toons, was passed among the crowd (see above).

A handful of Muslim boys dressed up as soldiers also turned up, but few people noticed them.




South Park’s revenge

From the BBC: Isaac Hayes’ sudden fit of religious sensitivity, which led him to resign his role as Chef in South Park when they mocked his own religion, has led the creators of the satirical cartoon to take revenge in their own inimitable way.

In the latest show, Chef is brainwashed by the “Super Adventure Club” (a veiled reference to Scientology), turned into a paedophile, and finally killed off by falling off a bridge, being burned, stabbed, and mauled by a lion and a bear.

My he rest in peace.

(Thanks to Andrew)




Danish imam threatened to “bomb” opponent

The Scotsman reports that Ahmed Akkari, one of the imams peddling the Mo-toons around the Middle East in the hope of stirring up a bit of pious outrage, is to be investigated by Danish police when he gets home from a Mo-toon conference in Bahrain.

A French TV documentary secretly filmed him threatening to have a political opponent, Naser Khader, the founder of Denmark’s Democratic Mulims, bombed.

With delicious irony, Ahmed Akkari is claiming that his threat was “meant as a joke”. Quick somebody draw a picture of him with a bomb on his head!

(Tipped from Harry’s Place)




UN blames Denmark

A report leaked early from the UN Human Rights Committee reveals the the UN “special reporter” on the cartoon controversy, Doudou Diéne, blames Denmark for the unrest:

Judicially, the Danish government ought therefore, especially considering its international obligations, to have, respecting Freedom of Speech, taken a position not only on the consequences of the caricatures for its community of 200.000 Moslems but also for the protection of peace and order.

The report is not yet available in English, but further extracts are available here.

Ophelia at Butterflies and Wheels talks about it:

The idea that freedom of religion requires silencing people who would mock or dissent from a particular religion – thus making freedom of religion itself a joke, and a very unfunny one at that, and making freedom of expression an empty phrase. The freedom of religion does not require the ‘freedom’ never to hear anything one might find irritating or disconcerting. That is not the meaning of freedom. That has never been the meaning of freedom. Translating it to that is a shortcut to theocratic tyranny.

Try telling that to the MAC (officially the Muslim Action Committee, but in effect – due to their absolute terror of satire – Muslims Against Comedy).




Church recalls Mo-toon-carrying magazine

The Archbishop of Wales has apologised to the Muslim Council of Wales for the “unfortunate mistake” of publishing the France Soir cartoon which featured a handful of deities, and the prophet Mohammed, sitting on a cloud. Mohammed is being told “Don’t complain… we’ve all been caricatured here.” He has asked anyone with a copy of the February issue of Y Llan to return it.

The editor of the paper has resigned. Because Mohammed is special.




Jerry Springer 16, Christian Voice 3

Last night’s pro-Springer counter demo in Manchester went swimmingly, as organiser Mike Landers reports:

springerprotest

We gathered in the Sports Cafe on time, hurriedly finishing off placards and
so on. A nice little turn out, and then we found out that the tables around
us were occupied by people going to see the show and were laughing
themselves silly at some of the slogans.

The original plan was to wander up to the Opera House around 6.30pm (7.30pm
show start) but a distinct lack of Christian “opposition” meant we kept
putting it back and putting it back. As the queues of audience members grew
and still no sign, we finally made the Executive Decision to head up at
about 6.50pm.

As we gathered opposite the Opera House, there were a lot of curious looks
from the Springer audience, but as soon as the placards were unveiled, there
was a big cheer and a lot of laughter. We launched into a chorus of “We
Hope You Enjoy The Show!” and plenty of people came over to pick up some of
the stickers Daisy had made.

springerprotest

A round of interviews (TV and radio) with myself and John Cooper, more
laughter and chanting (“What do we want? Freedom of Speech! When do we want
it? Mnmnmnmnmn! What do we want? A cure for Alzheimers! When do we want it? When do you want what?”) and some grateful thanks from some of the backstage crew, who left with their own stickers.

Eventually some of the Christians turned up at about 7.15pm. We serenaded
them with “You’re late! And you know you are!” as they took station right
outside the doors. A quick countup of protesters versus anti-protesters led
to the football style chant of “16-3! 16-3!”.

More singing (um, Bohemian Rhapsody got an airing as it was the closest to
an opera song we all knew), some lovely banter. (Ben Schofield: “Gods seen
the show and he says it fucking rocks!”) Oh and an audience member got
completely the wrong end of the stick, yelling “Get a life you sad
bastards!” before scuttling inside. Amusingly, the other punters just
looked at him in shock as his idiocy.

At 7.30pm, showtime so time to retire to the pub. I wandered past the Opera
House at about 8.45, and one of the protestors was still there. Earlier she
had given out a huge number of handwritten cards about spreading the word of
God. As my good friend Geoff said, quite frankly, with dedication and
determination like that, she’s wasted doing what she is doing.

I’ll write more, set up a webpage to show the pictures, but from memory the
slogans were:

“Down with protests”
“Don’t gag the gagsters”
“Jerry Springer stole my other cheek”
“Free Speech! I’m a believer!”
“Its digusting. Its a musical, not an opera”
“It was either this or the hoovering”
“I don’t care about blasphemy, I just hate opera.”
“For one night only: Much Ado About Nothing”
“Stop being so bloody silly.”
“Golf Sale”.

springerprotest

Very tired, but happy.

Good work.
UPDATE: The Manchester Evening News has a report with photos.

UPDATE 2: Mike has the full report plus more photos on his website.