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Iran cuts trade ties with Denmark

 
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Oppenheimer



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 1166
Location: SantaFe, New Mexico

PostPosted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 11:04 pm    Post subject: Iran cuts trade ties with Denmark Reply with quote

Iran cuts trade ties with Denmark

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/click/rss/1.0/-/2/hi/business/4687116.stm

The anger in Iran has mirrored that across the Middle East
Iran has cut all trade ties with Denmark in protest at the cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad that first appeared in a Danish newspaper.
Iran's Commerce Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi said the ban covered all Danish imports as well as any other business dealings.

On Monday evening a crowd of about 400 demonstrators threw petrol bombs and stones at the Danish embassy in Tehran.

Protests against the cartoons have taken place across the Muslim world.

Increased security

Reporters at the scene outside the Danish embassy in a residential district of northern Tehran, said the crowd was chanting "Death to Denmark".

Iranian police subsequently drove protestors back with tear gas and some were arrested.

The Danish embassy had earlier in the day asked Iranian authorities to provide more security outside the building, although no diplomatic staff are inside.

Denmark's embassies in Damascus, Syria, and Beirut, Lebanon were set on fire by protestors at the weekend.

Austria's embassy in Tehran was also attacked on Monday.

Iran currently imports $280m (£160m) worth of goods from Denmark each year. That works out at about 0.3% of Denmark's total exports.

Cartoons republished

The trade ban comes after hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strongly attacked the offending pictures.

Tehran has already recalled it ambassador to Denmark and has also summoned the ambassadors of Denmark, Norway and Austria to express its anger.

The offending cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper last September.

Last week the row escalated after a number of European newspapers republished the pictures, saying they were defending freedom of expression.
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Oppenheimer



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 1166
Location: SantaFe, New Mexico

PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2006 12:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Anti Danish cartoons' rallies turn into fiasco for the
regime

SMCCDI (information Service)
February 6, 2006

An Islamist crowd, composed mainly by Bassij Para-military
force's members, smashed windows and threw several petrol
bombs and pieces of rocks at the Austrian and Danish
embassies in Tehran.

The organized rallies were intending to show, what was
supposed to be, the massive indignation of Iranians over
the publication of cartoons depicting the Islamic Prophet
Mohammad. But despite all supports from governmental
circles and advertisements made by Mosques related to the
theocratic regime, which had called for a massive
participation, the demonstrators stayed under 400
individuals while the Iranian Capital has over 12 millions
of inhabitants.

The regime's regular Law Enforcement Forces made a show of
resistance in facing the Islamists. The scenario was to
fill the lack of Iranians "collective indignation" while
showing, as well, some aspect of challenges for foreign
journalists reporting from Iran.

This lack of popular support, for fanatical ways of
expression and some of the political goals of the Islamic
regime, is much more significant, as; it's coinciding with
the Shia ritual of Moharam month and the Ashura mourning.
By Islamists believe, Iranians should have been more
sensible to any parameter which might affect their
religion, but the today's event showed that this is not the
case, contrary to many other majoritary Muslim nations.

The today's fiasco, for the clerics, marks the unpopularity
of the ideological pillars of the Islamic republic regime
and shows better the increasing secular aspiration of
Iranians. It also proves Iranians sense of respect for the
freedom of expression, while many of them might have their
objection to the published cartoons.

It also underlines how Iranians are rejecting any call to
attack any diplomatic mission, contrary to a terrorist
regime which its leaders saw, in the seizure of the US
Embassy and the hostage taking of American diplomats, a
"second revolution".

http://daneshjoo.org/publishers/smccdinews/article_4511.shtml

----------------------------------

Comments / Nazariat:
Tel: +1 (972) 504-6864
Fax: +1 (972) 491-9866
E.mail: smccdi@daneshjoo.org

www.daneshjoo.org www.iranstudents.org

The "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy
in Iran" (SMCCDI) / "Komite e Hamahangui e Jonbesh e
Daneshjoo i Baraye Democracy dar Iran"
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Oppenheimer



Joined: 03 Mar 2005
Posts: 1166
Location: SantaFe, New Mexico

PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2006&m=02&d=07&a=9

The Clash to End All Clashes?

February 07, 2006
National Review Online
NRO Symposium



In belated response to a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed published in a Danish paper and subsequently reprinted across Europe, scenes of outrage filed out of London, Beruit, and Damascus, among other cities this weekend. Flags and embassies burned. Placards (in London!) read: "Behead those who insult Islam."

In light of the anger unleashed, National Review Online asked some experts on Islam and/or the Mideast for their read on what's going on and what can/should be done. We asked each: Is this a clash of civilizations we're watching? What can be done? By Muslims? By everyone else?



Mustafa Akyol
As a Muslim myself, I understand the disgust of Muslims around the globe at the Euro-cartoons ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad. A deep respect for God, His revelations, and His prophets is a hallmark of the Islamic faith. In the Muslim culture there are no jokes about God; we take Him and His religion quite seriously. And we abhor those who ridicule them.

However, this sensitivity does not justify the violent, uncivilized rampage that we are now seeing across the Islamic world. They threaten and hurt innocent non-Muslims and do more harm to Islam than any cartoon could do.

Moreover, their reaction is not what the Koran tells Muslims to do in the face of mockery. Early Muslims were ridiculed very often by pagans, and the Koran suggested a civilized disapproval: "When you hear Allah's verses being rejected and mocked at by people, you must not sit with them till they start talking of other things." (4/140) And although the current cartoon-avengers are filled with fury, the Koran defines Muslims as "those who control their rage and pardon other people, [because] Allah loves the good-doers." (3/134)

This rage, then, is not a theologically driven response, but an emotional uproar by people who think that their faith and identity are being insulted. It is in a sense a nationalist reaction — the nation being the Muslim umma. (If this reaction were not nationalist, but purely religious in nature, then it would also follow on the mocking of Jesus Christ and Moses. After all, the Koran regards these holy men as God's chosen messengers.)

All of this means that an Islamic argument against the current "Islamic rage" can — and should — be brought up by Muslim scholars and intellectuals. Their message should not be "Let's not take God so seriously," but "This is not the way to honor Him."

Another interesting point in the whole cartoon hype is the difference of attitude between the ultra-secular continental Europe and the more God-friendly Anglo-Saxons. It is a notable fact that cartoons were published and, in some cases, officially supported in countries characterized by widespread atheism and deep-seated anti-clericalism. Yet neither the religious U.S., nor the not-so-religious, but still respectful, Britain joined them. Similarly, the Vatican and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of the world's Orthodox Christians, along with many non-Muslim clerics, criticized the cartoons for offending the Muslim faith. Believers respect each other's beliefs about what is sacred.

Thus, if what we see is a clash of civilizations, the responsibility lies in the hands of the extremists on both sides: those who insist, "Yes, we have a right to ridicule God" and those who threaten, "We are going to kill you for it." The rest could get along.

— Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish Muslim writer based in Istanbul, Turkey. His website is located at www.thewhitepath.com.


Zeyno Baran
In their efforts to combat radical Islamist extremism, many Western governments make a simplistic distinction between groups that use violence and those that do not. Anxious to "beat the terrorists," they ignore groups which, while forswearing violence for themselves, incite others to carry out terrorist activities. This inability to recognize that groups with differing tactical approaches nevertheless can have similar ends has allowed radical organizations to operate with near-impunity in dramatically escalating tensions between Muslims and the West — tensions that only further the radicals' ultimate goal of a clash of civilizations.

If the latest set of incidents stemming from the Danish publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammed is not a final wake-up call for a change to this overly narrow approach, then it is difficult to see what would be. Tolerated and sometimes legitimized by European governments, "non-violent" groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and even the less-extremist International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) have been free to encourage confrontation between Muslims and the West. In Denmark, long a key target of HT, the group has called for the killing of Danish Jews and of members of parliament. Meanwhile, at an HT-organized demonstration in Britain outside the Danish embassy, protesters dressed as suicide bombers and carried placards stating "Butcher those who insult Islam." At the same time, a delegation of Danish Muslims led by the Copenhagen imam Abu Laban, linked to IUMS chair Yusuf Qaradawi, toured the Middle East to garner support and orchestrate the mass protests seen over the past several days.

While common sense should have prevailed long ago in the West after the cartoons were released — after all, when radicals are trying to convince Muslims that the "war on terror" is really a "war on Islam," a certain amount of prudence is required to avoid giving propaganda victories to the enemy — the most important step now is to cease tolerating intolerance. No Western (or Muslim) government should tolerate appeals to kill others in the name of religion. The longer such radicals who claim to speak for Muslims are allowed to do so freely, and the longer they are legitimized by Western governments that want to "develop open channels" to the Muslim community, the more demonstrations, riots, and killings we will see. After all, these protests and attacks were not committed "spontaneously" by Muslims, but were encouraged by radical groups — groups that can, with the right approach, be defeated.

— Zeyno Baran is director of international-security and energy programs at the Nixon Center.


Rachel Ehrenfeld
Facing what seems to be the rising clash of civilizations between the Muslim world and Western democracies, the leaders of the Muslim communities in Europe and elsewhere should seize the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the democratic values they claim to respect and advocate. They should call immediately and publicly on their Muslim communities to stop the violent demonstrations and the death threats against those who published the cartoons about Mohammed. All leaders of Muslim communities should publicly condemn Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasralla who argued, "If there had been a Muslim to carry out Imam Khomeini's fatwa against the renegade Salman Rushdie, this rabble who insult our Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, Norway and France would not have dared to do so."

The riots started after Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark; after Sheikh Osama Khayyat, imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, praised on national Saudi television the Saudi government for its action; and after Sheikh Ali Al-Hudaify, imam of the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, called "upon governments, organizations and scholars in the Islamic world to extend support for campaigns protesting the sacrilegious attacks on the Prophet."

President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address praised the Saudis for taking "the first steps of reform — now it can offer its people a better future by pressing forward with those efforts." This gives the Saudis a unique opportunity to lead the Muslim world towards tolerance, and prove that Islam is a religion of peace. For example, the Saudis should announce that they will immediately allow Christians and Buddhists who work in the Kingdom to hold prayer services. We can only hope the Saudis surprise us and rise to the challenge.

#151; Rachel Ehrenfeld is author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed — and How to Stop It, Director of American Center for Democracy, and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger.


Mohamed Eljahmi
The violence, intimidation and threats about the Danish cartoons show that neither the U.S. nor the West can afford baby steps when it comes to political and economic reforms in the Arab world. It is sad to note that the U.S. has allowed Arab autocrats to dictate the terms of political reforms. Despots like Qadhafi and Mubarak continue to be marketed as models, the first for giving up his WMD program and the second for winning a sham election. To Liberal Arabs, it is no surprise that Qadhafi closed his embassy in Denmark, Mubarak used his media and rhetoric to inflame the public and sparked the boycott, the Saudis boycotted the products and the Syrians torched the Danish embassy. Liberal Arabs know that Arab despots work harmoniously and each has a scripted role, because their survival depends on jointly oppressing dissidents and sedating the less educated.

In Arab societies, mob-mentality rules and the individual has no right, because according to Salafism, the whole defines the part. In a free society, the part defines the whole, therefore, the economic pie is bigger and people care about better schools for their children, gender equality, the elderly, the handicapped, and other issues that make government accountable to its people. In free society, religion is an individual choice and there are political and legal guarantees that protect individual rights. In the Arab world the Koran rules, thus it is impossible to go against the mob or argue with the divine. In Mubarak's Egypt, kidnapping of Coptic women and forcing them to convert to Islam is not offensive. In Qadhafi's Libya the desecration of Jewish cemeteries or grotesquely forcing Italians to exhume the bodies of their dead and take back to Italy is acceptable.

If the Bush administration and the West are serious about advocating for reform, then they must stop letting the despots dictate the terms of reform, because political reforms in the Arab world are not luxury but they are essential for American and world security.

— Mohamed Eljahmi is a senior software engineer with over 22 years of experience in the software industry, where he has worked in design and in development of software applications. He is a Libyan American, who is advocating for genuine political reforms in Libya. Eljahmi has lived in the U.S. since 1978 and has been a naturalized U.S. citizen since 1990.


Basma Fakri
The Danish cartoons were published in the name of freedom of speech. They reminded me of the infamous Salman Rushdie story and the strong reaction at the time from Iran.

Understanding and tolerance are most needed when dealing with different cultures. This is not a matter of freedom of speech — it was a matter of insulting others' religion and beliefs. Religion is a very sensitive issue that needs to be addressed delicately. Unfortunately, certain newsmakers enjoy drawing attention to themselves by being shocking.

However, violence is definitely not the right response. I do wish that Muslims had just ignored the cartoons, or had used the media to express their strong opposition to the cartoon and perhaps publicly boycotted Danish products.

There is a big confusion between terrorism and Islam. Not all Muslims are terrorists. Unfortunately, some extremists are using the religion of Islam to achieve their own goals. There is nothing in Islam that encourages killing or terrorizing innocent people. And the reaction to the cartoons that started this recent string of protests is not helping matters.


— Basma Fakri is president and Co-founder of the Women's Alliance for a Democratic Iraq.


Farid Ghadry
The event that launched this worldwide protest by Muslims over the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist was the pulling of the Saudi ambassador from Denmark, a mere four months after the printing. The effect will change the landscape for both Arab oil-producing countries and terrorism-sponsored states.

Oil-producing Saudi Arabia is also the guardian of the two Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. With oil, Saudi Arabia is able to influence the West, and with its guardianship of these cities, it is able to control the movement of 1.3 billion Muslims. This centralization of power gives Saudi Arabia vast powers that are having an effect on civilizations across the globe.

The Wahhabi-dominated Saudi Arabia, adhereing to a movement that originated in the center of the country, controls oil in the east and Mecca and Medina in the west. But even within their own borders, the Wahabis have a geographic Achilles' heel in the west of the country; and this is exacerbated when one considers Jordan, as well as the history of the Hashemite family (today's Jordan), which, up until the turn of the 20th century, controlled Mecca and Medina instead of the Saudis.

It is important for all Muslims that Mecca and Medina either be returned to the Hashemite family or be guarded by an international council elected by the 56 countries of the Organization of Islamic Conferences. The few leaders of 25 million Muslims should not control the fate of another 1.3 billion. Making Mecca and Media be for Muslims more like what the Vatican is for Catholics would go a long way toward giving all Muslims a say in their own affairs and charting a new direction for Islam.

Terrorist states will use Islam, as Syria did, to impose its will on the West. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and many others are watching how Syria used the cartoons to launch an attack against Western assets and values. This is the beginning of what promises to be an unstoppable weapon of rogue states, used to inflict pain, through violence, on other civilizations.

Farid Ghadry is president of the Reform Party of Syria.


Mansoor Ijaz
In order to prevent idolatrous misconceptions, it is forbidden in Islam to depict the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) in any way. But Muslims greatly weakened Islam's message of tolerance and forgiveness last week with their hysterical and criminally violent behavior in response to European media outlets' printing and reprinting twelve cartoon caricatures depicting the Prophet (PBUH) in an unflattering light.

The cartoons were offensive and wrong. But the Muslim world's explosive reaction demonstrates once again the failure of Islam in the modern age — its adherents are prepared to expend seemingly infinite energy in defense of religious beliefs not many of them are prepared to practice. Rectifying the hypocrisy that riddles Islam's efforts to be portrayed in a better light is the fundamental issue at stake for Muslims, not the freedom of the press or the defense of our Prophet (PBUH) through violence and anger.

Muslim leaders must confront their demons and reform Islam from within, rather than defending what is indefensible from outside. They must reduce the impulse for Islam's followers to be their own worst enemies by acting in ways that betray the traditions and teachings of a great religion, while giving ammunition to those who seek to portray them in a negative light.

It is simply unacceptable that while hundreds of millions of Muslims live in squalid conditions throughout the world, Islam's so-called guardians bask in the sunshine of resorts from Marbella to Cannes, and their children waste away national wealth in casinos and nightclubs from Geneva to Las Vegas. The money spent by one member of a Middle Eastern royal family on vacation at a Geneva hotel and casino for one week could feed thousands of Palestinian children for one year — such is the magnitude of hypocrisy in the Muslim world today.

Saudi Arabia's Custodian of the Holy Mosques, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, should set the example for reformation. He should invite the Danish and Norwegian prime ministers to Riyadh and educate his Scandinavian guests about why there is need to protect Islam's message against idolatrous misinterpretations. He should then listen carefully to his guests about why freedom of expression, as offensive as it was in this case, must be insured by Western governments, whose primary responsibility is to defend their citizens' rights and freedoms. In this way, he would demonstrate Islam's fundamental thirst for giving and receiving knowledge, its capacity for forgiveness, and its core value of tolerance, rather than allowing mass hysteria to define Islam's message.

Toleration asks us as citizens of an integrated world not to insult one another's religion. Freedom demands that we be allowed to reject the societal norms of others, and even to insult them, as Muslims often do when they burn an American flag or set fire to an effigy of a political leader they loath. Eliminating the hypocrisy between toleration and freedom should be Islam's goal.

— Mansoor Ijaz is an American Muslim of Pakistani origin.


Judith Apter Klinghoffer
We are in the midst of an Intifada designed to remake Europe in a manner more in line with the creed of its religious Muslim minority. Placing respect for Islam above freedom of the press would be one such change. Using state power to limit freedom of speech would be another. Europe has three options. It can agree to accommodate Muslim demands, disengage from the Middle East, or join the American struggle to democratize the Middle East. Let me outline briefly the meaning of each choice.

Accommodation or appeasement would not mean just agreeing to a few minor legal or behavioral changes. Note that the abstention of the British press from publishing the cartoons, the plans to rewrite British law to prevent insults to Islam, and the British government's strong condemnation of the publication of the cartoons did little to moderate the stance of British Muslims. Instead, British citizens were treated to marches celebrating those who blew up the London subway system.

Disengagement is the road Israel eventually chose, and the road an increasing number of Europeans would like to take. This would mean closing European borders to any additional Muslim immigrants, deporting illegals, and undertaking a vigorous program of forced integration. It also means precluding Turkish entry into the EU. Indeed, it means erecting a new iron curtain between Europe and the Middle East.

Reengagement would mean joining the U.S. in selling democracy to the Middle East in the manner the U.S. sold democracy to Europe in the fifties. Then, Communism presented the same challenge Islamism is presenting today. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. The secret is to dare to make the people of the Middle East the same promise the U.S. made the Europeans during the years of the Marshall Plan: Follow us and your lives will be radically better. It was a promise kept. If you doubt this, just watch the 1952 documentary entitled Struggle for Men's Minds. It was made to explain to Americans the reasons it is worth their while to use their tax dollars to finance selling democracy in Europe. It focused on Italy, which then looked as undeveloped and chaotic as Iraq looks today, and it outlines the strategies the U.S. used to combat the rising tide of Communism there. If I were a Western leader, I would not only watch, it but make all my staff do so too. For when all is said and done, this is the only strategy which will provide prosperity, peace, and security to both Europe and the Middle East.

— Judith Apter Klinghoffer, Fulbright professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, is the author of Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences co-author of International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights and History News Network blogger.


Clifford May
It is not a "clash of civilizations" that is taking place. It is a clash between civilization and barbarism — which currently expresses itself most forcefully and lethally as Militant Islamism.

Civilized people — whether Christian, Muslim, or Jew — do not respond to an offense by torching embassies, stoning churches, and calling for offenders to be beheaded.

Of course, most Muslims are not doing that — most Muslims are neither barbarians nor extremists. But most of the money and power in Muslim societies today is in the hands of Islamists or of dictators who are only too eager to harness anti-Western animus for their own purposes.

By persuading so many people — Muslims and non-Muslims alike — that the cartoons in question "insult Islam," Militant Islamists have achieved a victory.

Few dare argue that the cartoons do not insult Islam — that they insult only Militant Islamism. Yet, surely that would be the most obvious interpretation of a cartoon showing Mohammed wearing a bomb in place of a turban. If such groups as al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas had not committed countless acts of violence in the name of Islam, such an image would make no sense.

Similarly, the cartoon showing Mohammed saying that heaven was running out of virgins is most obviously interpreted as a commentary on the unprecedented frequency of suicide bombings being carried out by Militant Islamists. Why would such a cartoon insult peace-loving Muslims who would never consider strapping on a bomb belt in the expectation that mass murder will bring rewards in the next world?

Many commentators have charged protesters with hypocrisy, noting — correctly — that venomous characterizations of Jews and Christians are routinely on display in Arab and Muslim countries. But hypocrisy is professing beliefs that one does not actually hold. The Militant Islamists are doing no such thing. What they profess and what they believe are identical. It's simply this: Infidels must not insult Islam. But Muslims may insult infidels. The Islamists are not arguing for Islam's equality among the world's great religions. They are insisting that Christians, Jews, and others acknowledge Islam's superiority, its status as the one true faith. They are quite clear on this. If we refuse to hear what they are saying, that is our fault and our problem.

— Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism.


Ramin Parham
Are we witnessing a clash of civilizations ignited by the Danish caricatures?

Civilization, says the dictionary, is defined as "an advanced state of human society in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached".

As a French and U.S.-educated Iranian, I seriously doubt that, with the exception of secular Turkey, one could find among Islamic countries anything even close to that definition. Pre-Islamic Persian and Islamic civilizations are today nothing but history.

The Danish caricatures have the merit of underlining the above point from a different angle: A so-called civilization whose foundations are shaken with a few drawings is anything but a civilization!

Twenty-seven years after the islamist revolution in Iran; 17 years after Khomeini's fatwa against the Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdi; 15 years after the slaying of Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of The Satanic Verses; an entire new Middle East is being born in pain. At this critical juncture, we should all keep in mind a few basics:

First, painless birth is a chemical fantasy.

Second, Muslims will achieve nothing by self-complacency.

Third, readjusting democracies to new necessities is a legitimate problematic for those adhering to common secular values within a trust environment.

Forth, democracies were born out of the Enlightenment, the Lumières, and the Aufklärung, that is the personal liberty of thought and the sum of the public, universal and free usages of reason. The price tag to enter this elite club is high in terms of sacrifice. Iran has reached the necessary level of cultural complexity.

Fifth, the West should catalyze the democratic maturation of the Muslim East in the common interest of all.

Last but not least, there is no better candidate than a free Iran to champion that cause.

— Ramin Parham is an independent commentator based in Paris.



Daniel Pipes
It certainly feels like a clash of civilizations. But it is not.

By way of demonstration, allow me to recall the similar Muslim-Western confrontation that took place in 1989 over the publication of Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses and the resulting death edict from Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini. It first appeared, as now, that the West aligned solidly against the edict and the Muslim world stood equally with it. As the dust settled, however, a far more nuanced situation became apparent.

Significant voices in the West expressed sympathy for Khomeini. Former president Jimmy Carter responded with a call for Americans to be "sensitive to the concern and anger" of Muslims. The director of the Near East Studies Center at UCLA, Georges Sabbagh, declared Khomeini "completely within his rights" to sentence Rushdie to death. Immanuel Jakobovits, chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, wrote that "the book should not have been published" and called for legislation to proscribe such "excesses in the freedom of expression."

In contrast, important Muslims opposed the edict. Erdal Inِnü, leader of Turkey's opposition Social Democratic party, announced that "killing somebody for what he has written is simply murder." Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt's winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in literature, called Khomeini a "terrorist." A Palestinian journalist in Israel, Abdullatif Younis, dubbed The Satanic Verses "a great service."

This same division already exists in the current crisis. Middle East-studies professors are denouncing the cartoons even as two Jordanian editors went to jail for reprinting them.

It is a tragic mistake to lump all Muslims with the forces of darkness. Moderate, enlightened, free-thinking Muslims do exist. Hounded in their own circles, they look to the West for succor and support. And, however weak they may presently be, they eventually will have a crucial role in modernizing the Muslim world.

— Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures.


Nina Shea
Blasphemy laws are among the greatest impediments to democratic evolution in the greater Middle East. Not limited to criticisms of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, or the realm of the Divine, they are also used by prevailing powers and those with Islamist agendas to crush political dissidents and scholars engaged in intellectual debate. Carrying the death penalty or other harsh punishment and inviting vigilante retribution, the crime of blasphemy has become an indispensable tool of repression in that region.

Saudi Arabia regularly brings blasphemy charges (or one of its variants, such as "using Western speech") against those who speak out of turn. Recent examples include democracy activists who proposed substituting a written constitution for the Kingdom's slogan that "the Koran is the constitution," and a school teacher who instructed his class to be tolerant of Jews.

Revolutionary Iran, which has put to death thousands for blasphemy and shut down hundreds of newspapers, has turned the practice into an art form. One who made the mistake of translating into Farsi the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was killed on the Declaration's 50th anniversary. Another famous case of a Shiite professor highlighted the usefulness of the charge to silence critics of clerical rule. At his July 2004 trial, he declared he was being punished for "the sin of thinking."

Afghanistan still criminalizes blasphemy. A journalist who argued against the criminalization of heresy was found guilty and barely escaped with his life. Karzai's only female cabinet member was charged with blasphemy for criticizing blasphemy and other Islamic rules, and, though never tried, was ousted by death threats.

Once blasphemy is introduced into the law, it becomes almost impossible for the system to reform itself. Western leaders should be pressing these Middle East governments to drop their legitimization of blasphemy, not contemplating whether to adopt it here.

— Nina Shea is the director of Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom.



Bat Yeor
We have always been in a clash of civilizations. The fact that our European leaders choose to deny the reality is not an argument to dismiss what is so obvious to everyone. But having a clash of civilizations does not entail a global war of all against all. On the contrary, it imposes a need for a deeper dialogue — a type of dialogue that has been prevented by our leaders, busy to protect the virtual and sanitized image of Islam they tried to impose on Europeans for 30 years, through a culture of self-flagellation, self-guilt, obfuscations, denials, obsequiosity, anti-semitism and anti-Americanism: what we call politically correct and totalitarian language.

I see the cartoons affair as an inter-European conflict also. A revolt to assert, within the law, Western values of freedom of opinions, speech, and religion — the basic values of our civilization, acquired through centuries of conflicts, sacrifices, and courage. It is possible that people could be displeased by some analyses, but this cannot suppress the right to speak them. In the last century Europeans have endured three totalitarian regimes: Nazism, Fascism, Communism. They are not ready to accept a fourth one: sharia rule. However much I understand Muslim's sensibilities, I expect Muslims who chose to come and live in Europe to respect European sensibilities for their values and laws.

In this affair I see also the dangerous role played by some Muslim groups in Europe. They instigate, like the Danish imam Ahmed Abu Laban and others, hatred among Muslims and excesses against Europe, and then they pose as indispensable peace intermediaries between Europe and the Muslim world. This unhealthy situation is much developed in Europe due to the weakness and lack of resolve of our leaders, who have not the courage to deal with the security problems they have themselves created. These leaders have the duty to solve these problems by the rule of law, and not by deferring them to a third party, as if Europeans cannot express their rights except by begging through a benevolent Muslim channel. In this respect, the cartoons affair expresses the rejection by some of the EU's lack of political transparency and its contempt for its European constituency from which it takes billions of euros to give to the Arab world, and particularly to the corrupt and terrorist Palestinian Authority.

A lot can be achieved toward reconciliation by a free debate. This would trigger an inner Muslim reformist movement, which could then destroy the jihadic framework through which a majority of Muslims relate to the infidels even today.

— Bat Yeor is the author of studies on the conditions of Jews and Christians in the context of the jihad ideology and the sharia law. Recent books include: Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide and Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, both at Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 8, 2006

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/

President Bush Welcomes King Abdullah of Jordan to the White House
The Oval Office


In Focus: Global Diplomacy


9:26 A.M. EST

PRESIDENT BUSH: Your Majesty, welcome back. I have had two good discussions with His Majesty. Last night His Majesty and the Crown Prince came to have dinner with Laura and me and some members of Congress, and we had a really good discussion. We had a little time by ourselves to talk strategically about the world and our deep desire for this world to be peaceful.

Of course we talked about Iraq, Iran, the Palestinian territories. I appreciate your vision and your desire to achieve a better world for the people in your neighborhood.

We also talked about a topic that requires a lot of discussion and a lot of sensitive thought, and that is the reaction to the cartoons. I first want to make it very clear to people around the world that ours is a nation that believes in tolerance and understanding. In America we welcome people of all faiths. One of the great attributes of our country is that you're free to worship however you choose in the United States of America.

Secondly, we believe in a free press. We also recognize that with freedom comes responsibilities. With freedom comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others. Finally, I have made it clear to His Majesty and he made it clear to me that we reject violence as a way to express discontent with what may be printed in a free press. I call upon the governments around the world to stop the violence, to be respectful, to protect property, protect the lives of innocent diplomats who are serving their countries overseas.

And so, Your Majesty, thank you for coming. I'm proud to share the moment with you.

KING ABDULLAH: Thank you very much for your kind words. And I would just like to echo what the President said. We've had some very fruitful discussions, and we're appreciative of the vision and the desire that the President has for peace and stability in our part of the world. He has always strived to make life better for all of us in the Middle East, and I tremendously appreciate that role.

The issue of the cartoons, again, and with all respect to press freedoms, obviously, anything that vilifies the Prophet Mohammed -- upon him or attacks Muslim sensibilities, I believes needs to be condemned. At the same time, those that want to protest should do it thoughtfully, articulately, express their views peacefully. When we see protests -- when we see destruction, when we see violence, especially if it ends up taking the lives of innocent people, is completely unacceptable. Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is a religion of peace, tolerance, moderation.

And we have to continue to ask ourselves, what type of world do we want for our children? I too often hear the word used as, tolerance. And tolerance is such an awful word. If we are going to strive to move forward in the future, the word that we should be talking about is acceptance. We need to accept our common humanity and our common values. And I hope that lessons can be learned from this dreadful issue, that we can move forward as humanity, and truly try to strive together, as friends and as neighbors, to bring a better world to all.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you, Your Majesty. I appreciate it.
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 12:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Islamists attack Danish and Norwegian embassies in Tehran

SMCCDI (Information Service)
February 7, 2006

An angry crowd, composed by 300 Bassij Para-military
force's members and fanatic Islamists, threw Molotov
cocktails and pieces of rocks at the Danish embassy in
Tehran for the second consecutive day.

Earlier, the Norwegian embassy was attacked with pieces of
stones.

These new fanatical actions took place following the
yesterday attacks, made by the same small and organized
crowd, against the Danish and Austrian embassies in the
Iranian capital.

These organized rallies are targeting to shift the focus of
the world's attention from the struggle of Iranians who are
seeking freedom and of the social movements which are
endangering the future of the Islamic republic regime.
They're also intending to show the 'deep' believes of
Iranians in the Islamic religion and of what is supposed to
be, their 'collective indignation', over the publication of
cartoons depicting the Islamic Prophet Mohammad. But
despite all hidden supports from governmental circles and
advertisements made by Mosques related to the theocratic
regime, which are calling for a massive participation, the
demonstrators have stayed under 400 individuals while the
Iranian Capital has over 12 millions of inhabitants.

The regime's regular Law Enforcement Forces are offering,
each time, a show of resistance in facing the regime's
sponsored Islamists. The scenario is to fill the lack of
Iranians "collective indignation" while showing, as well,
some aspect of challenges for foreign journalists reporting
from Iran.

The Islamic regime's leadership seems to be more lucky in
mobilizing fanatics, in countries, such as, Lebanon, Syria,
Palestine, Pakistan or Indonesia, where it has hundreds of
'cultural' and 'religious' centers with a vast net of
'charity' institutions.

A desperate supreme leader of the Islamic regime declared,
today, that the publication of the cartoons are part of a
"Zionist Conspiracy" and pushed the demagogy to the point
of declaring that they have been published in retaliation
to Hamas' Electoral victory. In reality these cartoons were
published weeks before the elections in Palestine which led
to the victory of the terrorist movement.

The lack of Iranians' support, of fanatical ways of
expression and some of the political goals of the Islamic
regime has become much more significant, as; it's
coinciding with the Shia ritual of Moharam month and the
Ashura mourning. By Islamists believe, Iranians should
have been more sensible to any parameter which might affect
their religion, but the today's event showed that this is
not the case, contrary to many other majoritary Muslim
nations.

The Islamic regime is intending to organize, on Wednesday,
a massive rally in the Capital at the occasion of Ashura in
order to avoid more mockery. Thousands of immigrants from
Islamic countries and fanatic Iranians are to be
transferred by full buses to Tehran, in order to avoid more
sham for a regime which is declaring to represent the
world's Muslims.

These desperate measures mark the unpopularity of the
ideological pillars of the Islamic republic regime and
shows better the increasing secular aspiration of Iranians.


It also proves Iranians sense of respect for the freedom of
expression, while many of them might have their objection
to the published cartoons. In addition, it underlines how
Iranians are rejecting any notion of attacking a diplomatic
mission, contrary to a terrorist regime which its leaders
saw, in the seizure of the US Embassy and the hostage
taking of American diplomats, a "second revolution".

http://daneshjoo.org/publishers/currentnews/article_3880.shtml

----------------------------------

Comments / Nazariat:
Tel: +1 (972) 504-6864
Fax: +1 (972) 491-9866
E.mail: smccdi@daneshjoo.org

www.daneshjoo.org www.iranstudents.org

The "Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy
in Iran" (SMCCDI) / "Komite e Hamahangui e Jonbesh e
Daneshjoo i Baraye Democracy dar Iran"
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Radical Islamists rally outside Danish embassy in Iran
Wed. 08 Feb 2006
Iran Focus

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5695

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 08 – Radical Islamists rallied outside the Danish embassy in Tehran for the third time in less than 48 hours and called for its occupants to be expelled from Iran in response to the publishing of offensive cartoons of the prophet Mohammad in a Danish daily.

Several dozen Islamists affiliated to the Bassij force, an offshoot of the Revolutionary Guards, took part in the rally on Wednesday.

Danish flags were set on fire during the protest as demonstrators chanted “Death to America”, “Death to Israel”, and “The Danish embassy must be closed down”.

On Monday, a much larger protest was held outside the embassy compound. Several parts of the embassy along with two diplomatic vehicles were set on fire as demonstrators hurled hand grenades and Molotov cocktails into the site.

The Norwegian embassy in Tehran has also twice come under attack on Monday and Tuesday by the Bassij after a Norwegian daily carried the controversial photos. It too was attacked with fire bombs and stones.
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rafsanjani says Mohammad cartoons work of Satan
Tue. 07 Feb 2006
Iran Focus

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5678

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 07 – Iran’s former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani accused the West on Tuesday of carrying out the work of Satan after cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad negatively were published in European dailies.

Speaking to a gathering of senior clerics in Tehran, Rafsanjani, who currently chairs the State Expediency Council, said that Western interpretations of freedom of press were false.

“Insulting the prophet of peace and freedom under the pretext of freedom of thought and expression is a satanic conspiracy which without doubt will be disclosed as before with the presence of Muslims everywhere”, he said, the state-run Fars news agency reported.

The powerful cleric said that the West’s goal for publishing the cartoons was “clear” and encouraged Muslims everywhere to rise up against such “plots”.
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Iran dragging Israel into cartoon crisis - Germany
Wed. 08 Feb 2006

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5694


BERLIN, Feb 8 (Reuters) - An Iranian newspaper's call for Holocaust cartoons is an attempt to drag Israel into a conflict between Europe and the Muslim world over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, a German government minister said.

"After denying the right of Israel to exist and denying the Holocaust, the people around President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad are trying to escalate the situation," Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler was quoted as saying in Wednesday's edition of the Berliner Zeitung daily newspaper.

"This fills us with deep concern, that a state is using this clash of cultures as a tool to further its own dominance."

Iran's best-selling newspaper launched a competition on Tuesday to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust, in retaliation for the publication in Denmark and other European countries of caricatures of Islam's most revered prophet.

Last year Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and said he doubted six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War Two.

Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany, punishable with up to five years in prison. Printing cartoons that make light of the Holocaust but do not question it would not be a crime but would invite private lawsuits and other legal difficulties for a newspaper in Germany.

Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said Iran was trying to widen a conflict between Denmark and the Muslim world to include Israel.

"Once again Iran is trying to drag Israel into the conflict with the motto -- Israel is responsible for everything," von Klaeden said in a statement. "We should not let Israel be dragged into this."
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rice: Iran, Syria stoke Muslim cartoon anger
Wed. 08 Feb 2006

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5699

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Iran and Syria on Wednesday of deliberately stoking Muslim anger in a dispute over cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammad that has sparked deadly protests.

"Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes and the world ought to call them on it," Rice said at a joint news conference with Israel's foreign minister.

Earlier, President George W. Bush said governments should stop the violence that has erupted over the cartoons, including attacks on Western diplomatic missions in parts of the Muslim world.
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 9:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Denmark protests to Iran over new embassy attack
Tue. 07 Feb 2006

http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=5674


COPENHAGEN, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Denmark protested to Iran over a second day of attacks on its embassy in Tehran on Thursday and demanded protection for its diplomats, as outrage over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad spread across the Muslim world.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller called his Iranian counterpart "and demanded in clear terms that Iran does all it can to protect the embassy and Danish lives", a spokesman said.

"He said Iran will be held responsible for any damage to Danish interests," the foreign ministry spokesman said.
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Oppenheimer



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PostPosted: Wed Feb 08, 2006 10:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Iran's Supreme Leader Defends Violence at Danish Embassy

Adnkronos International:

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.261561974&par=0

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given his blessing to violent demonstrations targeting Denmark's embassy in Tehran, defining them on Tuesday as "justified and even holy." Hundreds of people protesting against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed hurled stones and petrol bombs at the embassy building. The protest followed as similar assault on Monday.
In a televised address, Khamenei, who is considered the Islamic Republic's spiritual leader said the protests were "not directed against the world's Christians, but against the diabolical hands involved in this diabolical issue."

Khamenei blamed a "Zionist conspiracy" for the crisis claiming the aim was to "provoke tensions between Musliims and Christians." READ MORE

"How come is freedom of expression not respected when denials or even just doubts are expressed on the Holocaust?," he said referring to the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis.

"But freedom of expression is strongly defended by European leaders when it involves insults against the world's 1.5 billion Muslims," he added.

Denmark says it holds the Iranian authorities responsible after the attacks against its Tehran embassy.

The attacks came as Iran said it was cutting all trade ties with Denmark.

A series of cartoons depicting the Prohet Mohammed published in a Danish daily in September has triggered protests throughout the Islamic world which in recent days have led to at least five deaths in Afghanistan and one in Somalia.

Islamic tradition explicitly prohibits images of Allah and the Prophet Mohammed.
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BitWhys



Joined: 11 Mar 2005
Posts: 164
Location: Winnipeg, Canada

PostPosted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 6:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

what a crock

maybe they should hold the Muslim Brotherhood homeland to task as well

http://egyptiansandmonkey.blogspot.com/2006/02/boycott-egypt.html

I have no patience for this outrage of convenience. If a paper publishes pictures of Canadian soldiers oppressing Afghanis, I'll just have to live with it.
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