Free Republic

Roots of Dispute LONDON, Feb. 7 — As Islamic protests grew against the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, a small but vocal Muslim immigrant organization responded with a drawing on its Web site of Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. "Write this one in your diary, Anne," Hitler was shown as saying. The intent, said the group, the Arab European League, was "to use our right to artistic expression," just as the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten did last September when it published 12 cartoons showing Muhammad, several of them satiric. "Europe has its sacred cows, even if they're not...

Some of my leftist friends have one thing in common with the Muslims now sacking foreign embassies: a fundamental lack of understanding as to how democracy works, and how precious it is. The leftists have grown up knowing nothing but freedom and opulence, and take things like the Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers, and Constitution for granted (if they have even read these hallowed documents). The Muslim radicals (Islamists) are throwing lit jugs full of gasoline at Danish embassies because they have known nothing except Big Brother (One Newspaper, One Nation, One Religion, One World), and do not even know...

Every time I bring up the Holocaust, the same thing happens. Some of the people want Hitler's genocide to be the archetype of a people's suffering, denying others their right to bring similar atrocities to light. Some want to deny it (like current Iranian President Ahmadinejad). Some want to straddle the line or apologize: "There would have been no Hitler if not for the reparation payments put upon Germany after World War I." What are we to do, create a chart ranking peoples' suffering: "mine was worse than yours?" These were all horrors. Calling one a genocide while not allowing...

diplomatic and trade row is raging after two Nordic newspapers published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that were deemed insulting by many Muslims, especially in the Middle East. In Britain, meanwhile, parliamentarians are debating whether to extend laws against incitement to religious hatred. Western democracies are again struggling to reconcile the right to free expression with respect for religious belief

One of Europe's largest dairy producers, Danish company Arla, has placed advertisements in Middle Eastern newspapers to try to stop a boycott of Danish produce in Muslim countries. Arla acted after reporting a drop in sales in Saudi Arabia because of anger about a series of caricatures depicting the prophet Mohammed that appeared in the leading Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. The paper has apologised but said it was testing the boundaries of expression about Islam. The cartoons include a portrayal of the Muslim Prophet wearing a time-bomb shaped turban and show him as a wild-eyed, knife-wielding Bedouin flanked by two women...

from the September 22, 2005 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0922/p01s02-woap.html China's model for a censored Internet Some worry China's controls could be copied elsewhere. By Kathleen E. McLaughlin | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor SHANGHAI, CHINA - As China began to go online, observers made brash predictions that the Internet would pry the country open. Cyberspace, the thinking went, would prove too vast and wild for Beijing to keep under its thumb. Now these early assumptions are being sharply revised. Under an authoritarian government determined to control information, China has grown a new version of the Internet. As former US President...

WASHINGTON — Free speech advocates are frustrated with a host of American companies they say have been collaborating with oppressive regimes in countries like China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, to help them filter and monitor the Internet activity of their citizens. Big technology names like Microsoft, Yahoo! and Cisco have been criticized roundly in recent years for providing foreign governments with the tools they need to crack down on Internet use, but critics say they have not been able to do much more than complain. "These companies' lack of ethics is extremely worrisome," said Lucie Morillon, the Washington representative of...

Iranian dissidents appealed to the United Nations to support calls for freedom for Akbar Ganji, the brave writer who is being tortured in Tehran for the sin of exposing the murderous activities of the theocratic regime of the Islamic republic. The top dog at the U.N., Kofi Annan, declined to take a stand, claiming he did not know enough to have an opinion. The U.N.’s lapdog at the U.S. Senate, Indiana’s Richard Lugar, similarly declined comment, thereby relegating himself to the honor roll of appeasers of terrorists, murderers, and torturers. With the exception of the New York Sun, no major...

"My fallen face today exposes the true character of the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It has become a symbol of the just [struggle] against tyranny. My shattered face and frail body demonstrate the inherent contradictions of a regime in which the concepts of justice and tyranny have been transposed...” These are the words of Iranian political prisoner Akbar Ganji, from a letter he wrote to the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. Ganji has been arrested and imprisoned numerous times for agitating for freedom of the press and other civil rights in Iran. As he explains in his...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iran has among the strictest Internet censorship in the world, blocking access to sexual content, political websites, information on women's rights and "blogs," a study by Internet researchers showed. The OpenNet Initiative, a partnership of researchers from Harvard University, the University of Toronto and University of Cambridge, noted that Iran uses technology from the US company, Secure Computing, calling the firm "complicit" in the censorship. But they said that Internet content controls "have support at the highest levels of the Iranian state." The researchers found some 34 percent of tested websites blocked. "The Iranian state has effectively...

TEHRAN (AFP) - Whoever wins Iran's presidential elections next week, they will be facing a determined press that has survived a string of closures and arrests and which continues to push against the Islamic republic's "red lines" that confine freedom of expression. There will be no going back," Mashallah Shamsolvazin, the president of Iran's Association for a Free Press, told AFP. "Going back" means a return to the situation eight years ago, just before the first election victory of incumbent President Mohammad Khatami. There were a mere five national newspapers of which one, Salam, was pro-reformist. The clerical regime also...

IN 1913, THE ARRIVAL IN AMERICA of a simple idea drastically revolutionized the Art World. The occasion was the Armory Show in New York, the first exhibition of Modern Art in this country, and the simple idea was this: The proper role of the artist is to express himself. That was utterly new. It turned all the preceding centuries of Art History on their head. Fast-forward to the end of the same century: that same simple idea, that the proper role of the artist is to express himself or herself, was being taught as gospel in virtually every college...

Women Who Avoid Marital Fights May Be More Likely To Die POSTED: 11:14 am EST February 17, 2005 UPDATED: 11:36 am EST February 17, 2005 Married women who avoid conflict with their spouses have an increased risk of dying from any cause, according to a news release from the Second International Conference on Women, Heart Disease and Stroke.

In Bristol, England, a group of university students including myself put up a window display of pictures to show our support for Bush but are met with nothing but undemocractic resistance, including: Name calling when we leave the housePeople blocking our drivewayEgg throwingThreats of physical violence (which finally forced us to take it down) The lack of freedom of expression in this country is shocking.

London 28.01.05 | Venezuelan sources report that the house of journalist Patricia Poleo, located in La Floresta neighbourhood in Caracas, is being raided this morning by the police. It has been reported that Poleo is on her own in the house, her lawyers have not arrived yet.

Scalia Sounds Off on Religious Rulings ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday that judges should look to historical practices when ruling on religious issues. Speaking at the University of Michigan, Scalia criticized judges for using what he called "abstractions" to interpret religious issues when they should be looking to the text of the Constitution itself. "The Constitution says what it says and does not say what it does not say," he said. Scalia's appearance was sponsored by Ave Maria School of Law, a private school in Ann Arbor backed by Domino's Pizza founder...

What are the ground rules for religious expression in public schools? Secretary of Education Richard Riley, at the direction of President Clinton, issued guidelines in 1995 and updated them in 1998 to reflect recent court decisions. A synopsis of the guidelines: • Students have the same right to engage in individual or group prayer and religious discussion during the school day as they do to engage in other comparable activity. • Local school authorities have "substantial discretion" to impose rules of order but may not structure the rules to discriminate against religious activity or speech. • Students may attempt to...

Thomas Jefferson warned, “Whenever a man casts a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct." John Kerry has hungered for the White House since he was a student and even took a video camera with him to Vietnam. In 1823, Jefferson wrote: “History may distort truth, and will distort it for a time, by the superior efforts at justification of those who are conscious of needing it most." John Kerry wrote his own report and insists that his official naval records be taken at face value, while refusing to fulfill his promise to release his medical records....

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…” (Thomas Jefferson from The Declaration of Independence). Over two hundred years ago one of the wisest men in our country, Thomas Jefferson, laid out the foundation for what our grand nation should stand for. Adapting the theories of such influential enlightenment thinkers as Locke and Rousseau; Jefferson laid out the ideas that would shape our government for hundreds of years to come. From the ideas...

Where's Bubba? Hello Bubba Army. If you haven't noticed by now, btls.com and bubbathelovesponge.com are both down. Let me do my best to answer some questions that you may have about the show. Please understand that there are a number of things that I am not at liberty to discuss at the moment. However, with this being the only means of communication that we have with the public as of now, I'll do my best. The overwhelming question I've been getting is: Where is Bubba? Is he coming back? The official show position is No Comment. However, a check of...