Free Republic

Here we go again. And as you will see from the Western media reports, the French authorities will be blamed. “Islamophobia” and “racism,” right. These Muslim immigrants should be applauding healthcare workers, first responders, etc.; instead, they are tearing up and tearing down society. In Eurabia, Islamic scholar Bat Ye’or explained how decades ago, European governments agreed not to press Muslim immigrants to assimilate. What did they think was going to happen? Tension with the police erupted again on Monday evening in Villeneuve-la-Garenne near Paris, where a motorcycle accident involving the police had provoked the first clashes with residents two...

In the 1980s, First Lady Nancy Reagan famously urged kids to “just say no” to drugs. Although I’m no fan of the War on Drugs, she was certainly correct to point out that saying “no” is a good way of avoiding the dangers of drug use. Co-blogger Eugene Volokh makes a similar argument with respect to violence intended to pressure Western nations into suppressing “blasphemous” speech. Giving in to the terrorists incentivizes further terrorism, while refusing to do so reduces the risk of future violence. This principle applies to terrorism more broadly: An excellent way to reduce the risk of...

In recent days, I’ve heard various people calling for punishing the maker of Innocence of Muslims, and more broadly for suppressing such speech. During the Terry Jones planned Koran-burning controversy, I heard similar calls. Such expression leads to the deaths of people, including Americans. It worsens our relations with important foreign countries. It’s intended to stir up trouble. And it’s hardly high art, or thoughtful political arguments. It’s not like it’s Satanic Verses, or even South Park or Life of Brian. Why not shut it down, and punish those who engage in it (of course, while keeping Satanic Verses and...

The Arab freedom wave has now hit the shores of Europe and in the most unlikely of places: the Balkans. Croatia, an Adriatic nation that straddles the civilizational fault line between Central Europe and the Balkans, has been seething with public unrest and protests. For weeks, thousands of demonstrators have been assembling almost daily in the capital, Zagreb, and across other cities in this country of 4.4 million. They are demanding that the government step down and call snap elections. The situation is volatile - and could turn violent. The protests should come as no surprise. Croatia is on the...

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France - Marauding youths torched hundreds of vehicles overnight and on Saturday in renewed violence coinciding with the first anniversary of riots that exposed a deep schism between poor North African immigrants and mainstream France. A group of teenagers set one bus on fire Saturday in the southern French port city of Marseille, seriously wounding a passenger. Three others suffered from smoke inhalation, police said. Two other public buses and 277 vehicles around the country were burned overnight, police said. Six police were injured and 47 people were arrested, ministry officials said. Still the Interior Ministry described the night...

This time, the press failed the public By William J. Bennett and Alan M. Dershowitz February 24, 2006 There was a time when the press was the strongest guardian of free expression in this democracy. Stories and celebrations of intrepid and courageous reporters are many within the press corps. Cases such as New York Times v. Sullivan in the 1960s were litigated so that the press could report on and examine public officials with the unfettered reporting a free people deserved. In the 1970s the Pentagon Papers case reaffirmed the proposition that issues of public importance were fully protected by...

The title of this column is one of my favorite lines from William Faulkner’s masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury. It is also a precise description of what is wrong with the American press, as two examples from the past week demonstrate. One concerns the blogosphere. The other concerns the nearly universal incompetence of the press in reporting on “the” Danish cartoons that are “causing” the Muslim riots. Faulkner’s character, Quentin Compson, on the day of his suicide at Harvard, reflects on his sister’s long-lost virginity with these words, “which, being believed, was, whether it was or not.” The first...

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press aren't in the First Amendment to protect what's popular, because there's no need to. Our Constitution protects the worst because the Founders knew that if you don't, you can't protect the best. The cartoon intifada proves that too many Muslims believe that our First Amendment rights should -- by law or violence -- be limited to what Islamic law allows. Free speech has its limits -- such as leaking government secrets to the press and shouting "fire" in a crowded theater -- but the limits don't depend on whose ox is being...

Last Saturday’s riots in Antwerp, when Moroccan “youths” went on the rampage in Antwerp’s historical center, destroying cars and beating up reporters, has led to frustration among police officers because the authorities prevented them from stopping the violence.

www.suntimes.com Flag-burning riots are one-sided assault February 7, 2006 BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN As riots spread through the Islamic world, the British foreign secretary, the U.S. State Department, the U.N. secretary general, various responsible Muslim organizations and many commentators in Europe and America are calling for restraint on both sides. What both sides would those be? Well, one side has published a handful of cartoons, arguably blasphemous and certainly insulting to the Prophet Mohammed, and the other side has burned embassies, taken hostages, murdered three people suspected of being Christians and/or Danes, shot at Danish soldiers helping children in Iraq, marched...

A Norwegian student suddenly found himself facing an angry mob of demonstrators in Damascus during the recent unrest. He didn't see any choice but to address them, something he managed to do in Arabic. Even Nord Rydningen is a young man from Oslo who's studying in Syria. He says he was watching a demonstration outside the French Embassy on Friday when he felt the crowd starting to turn against him. Suddenly a Syrian friend, whom Rydningen claimed commands respect in Damascus, yelled at the hostile crowd that "This is Even, a Norwegian and a good friend." Rydningen immediately found himself...

THE editors of Australia's main newspapers say they are reluctant to publish cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed because it is unnecessary and could incite unrest. Many Muslims across the world have demonstrated, some violently, since a Danish newspaper first published the cartoons, one of which depicted Mohammed wearing a turban resembling a bomb. The Daily Telegraph editor David Penberthy today said publishing the images could have nasty consequences, especially given racial tensions in Sydney. "There's a fairly longstanding sort of acknowledgment and understanding that within Islam, any depictions of the prophet Mohammed ... are precluded, in the same way...

02-05-2006 6:11 AM BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Muslims protesting caricatures of Islam's prophet set fire Sunday to a building housing the Danish Embassy in Lebanon as security forces fired tear gas in an attempt to stop the protesters. Protestors wave black and green Islamic flags in front of the burning building housing the Danish mission during a protest against publication of caricatures of Islam's revered prophet in European newspapers, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2006. Demonstrators protesting caricatures of Islam's prophet set fire Sunday to a building housing the Danish mission in Beirut. Security forces shot tear gas into the...

SHOTS were fired at teachers' cars, and parents and children were abused at a primary school Christmas carol service in Sydney, the Catholic Church has said. The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, said people at a service on Monday night at St Joseph the Worker Primary School in Auburn were abused by men of Middle Eastern appearance. He said shots were also heard and staff yesterday morning found bullet holes in their cars. No one was hurt. Cardinal Pell says he is deeply concerned by the targeting of Christmas celebrations for students as young as five and the attack...

One of my American friends asked me this question a couple of weeks ago: "Do you think what is happening in France will happen in Canada?" Now, I'm not sure the average Canadian would even know what has happened in France, but take it from me, the Islamic Revolution in Europe has begun. Not that the average Canadian (a class which, of course, excludes Western Standard readers) is without an excuse. For if he listens to CBC, he will be under the impression that the rioting has been by "underprivileged French youths." The fact that they had been chanting "Allahou...

POLICE prepared to impose a virtual blockade on Sutherland Shire last night, erecting checkpoints on every main access road to prevent a repeat of the race riots at Cronulla. And State Parliament will be recalled tomorrow to give police emergency powers to lock down parts of Sydney, ban the sale of alcohol, conduct random searches and confiscate vehicles. An extra 450 police took to the streets in expectation of a third night of racial tension. Officers restricted in-bound traffic to Cronulla to one lane and checked every car passing a checkpoint on Kingsway, at the corner of Wilbar Avenue, from...

POLICE have made their first arrest over the bashing of three North Cronulla surf lifesavers as details emerged that the violence was not completely unprovoked. Detectives arrested an 18-year-old Bankstown concreter at his Petersham workplace shortly before 10am. Police took a statement from him about the assault on Sunday at North Cronulla beach before he was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company and affray and granted conditional bail. Shortly before 2pm the man emerged in the back of a police car. Detectives drove him to nearby Railway Ave, where he left the police car and jumped into...

Although the French riots have been officially proclaimed over, forty to sixty vehicles are still being burnt by rioting Muslims each night, a senior member of the Minstry of Internal Affairss, Stéphane Fratacci, said Thursday. Mr. Fratacci made the announcement at a special session of the French State Council, convened to review a request made by a group of University professors to abolish the State of Emergency, which was imposed in the aftermath of the mass riots that engulfed France last November.

Wasn't it only yesterday the media were telling us that the French are so wise in choosing diplomacy over the use of force, and so clever at handling relations with Third World people - in other words, so unlike the trigger-happy unilateralists on this side of the Atlantic? Well, guess what? After three weeks of rioting in Parisian suburbs, those sophisticated, worldly French have been transformed into a nation of repressive, racist pigs, in the eyes of the U.S. press. All it took was a few thousand burning Citroens to illuminate the situation. For the mainstream media (inveterate root-causers), riots...

AMID ALL the philosophising about secularism and multiculturalism in French society, some simpler and more relevant aspects of the French riots have been overlooked. Other countries have seen such disturbances — and worse — in the past few decades and much can be learnt from their responses. These responses fall into two groups. The first group can be described as social engineering: affirmative-action and desegregation programmes of various kinds. Racial quotas, positive discrimination and programmes such as school bussing may have had damaging unintended consequences in America (and to a lesser extent in Britain), but they did help to prevent...