Nigeria’s police chief on Thursday ordered around-the-clock enhanced security at public venues across the country throughout the Easter weekend, fearing religious violence in a country where Christians are under almost constant attack.
“‘Imran bin Husain narrated that the Messenger of Allah(s.a.w) said: ‘In this Ummah there shall be collapsing of the earth, transformation and Qadhf.’ A man among the Muslims said: ‘O Messenger of Allah! When is that?’ He said: ‘When singing slave-girls, music, and drinking intoxicants spread.’” (Jami` at-Tirmidhi 2212) “It was narrated from Abu Malik […]
Giulio Meotti warns in Israel National News that after the European Parliament, “the UN is easy prey. Funding has allowed Islamic countries to form the most powerful bloc in UNESCO.” Money equals power, and the UN is virtually being bought out by Islamic countries which are promoting the Sharia. Take, for instance, the United Nations […]
“Bangladesh has a secular legal system and applying Sharia in criminal cases is illegal.” The stoning was certainly in accord with Sharia. Stoning adulterers is not “extremist”; it is Islamic law. The caliph Umar, one of Muhammad’s closest companions, even maintained that it was originally in the Qur’an: ‘Umar said, “I am afraid that after […]
The Islamic Republic continues to try to frighten people into submission. This is the only tool they’ve got, as per the Qur’an: “Make ready for them all that you can of force and of warhorses, so that by them you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60) “Iran Vows […]
Last month, Iran’s judiciary chief reiterated that “removing one’s hijab is equivalent to showing enmity to the Islamic Republic,” and then instituted a new law to fine women 2.5 billion rials ($60,000) for flouting hijab rules. It’s all part of the Islamic Republic’s adherence to the Sharia, as it ramps up efforts even further to counter protests: […]
At the age of six, a Turkish girl — identified only by her initials HKG — was married off to 29-year-old Kadir Istekli, a friend of her family, by her father. Why at the age of six? That was the age at which little Aisha was called in from playing on her swing to be […]
Mercy is not part of Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s world view or modus operandi. He works according to this principle: “Make ready for them all that you can of force and of warhorses, so that by them you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60) “Iran’s judiciary chief threatens to […]
It was in 1683 that the Muslim Turks, in their invasion of south and central Europe, lay siege to Vienna for the second and last time. They did not obtain their objective; the Viennese withstood the attack. That unsuccessful siege was the high water mark of the Ottoman entry into Europe. Now, in 2023, there are […]
“According to the public prosecutor’s office, 213 sheep were slaughtered without the prescribed stunning.” That’s just standard halal butchering practice. Soon the Austrian authorities will back down, release these men, and apologize for their “Islamophobia.” “213 sheep illegally slaughtered: Six Viennese Muslims in court,” translated from “213 Schafe illegal geschächtet: Sechs Wiener Muslime vor Gericht,” […]
I would like to clarify at the outset that it is the evils of Islam theology, and not necessarily the individual character of Muslim parents, that make raising children in Islam such a troublesome matter. Muslim individuals, including parents, can be either good or bad human beings. It is the extent to which a person […]
With unchecked mass migration from Muslim-majority North Africa and Middle East, the German authorities are struggling to cope with the surge in child marriages across the country. Germany’s top constitutional court on Wednesday urged the government to ease the child marriage law which nullifies such marital unions, and requires the separation of child brides from […]
The UK shows promise in one area just as it sabotages itself in another. The latest: the Minister of State in the Department for Business and Trade, Lord Johnson “will lead a series of roundtables with the world’s leading Islamic banks to map out a path for the UK achieving its goal of becoming a […]
Iran is the world’s representative Shia state. To expect the Islamic Republic to change course in order to suit infidel ideals of human rights is to expect its mullahs and ayatollahs to disobey the Sharia. The Qur’an instructs: (Quran 24:31) And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and be modest, and to display […]
This new Glazov Gang episode is hosted by Anni Cyrus and features Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a free-speech champion, author of The Truth is No Defense and host of her own weekly show on EncounterTruth.com. Elisabeth discusses Western Feminists’ Betrayal of Muslim Women in Hijab, exposing Leftist hypocrisy, cruelty and cowardice. Don’t miss it! [Show your support […]
A lesson to learn about what fascists of all stripes mean by “terrorism”: this man was “convicted and sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court.” In Pakistan, blasphemy constitutes “terrorism,” so Syed Muhammad Zeeshan is deemed a “terrorist” under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act and Anti-Terrorist Act in Peshawar, and was thus convicted of […]
We’re constantly told in the West that Sharia pertains only to Muslims, and that laws attempting to restrict it are unnecessary, as it will never impinge upon the rights of non-Muslims in any case. Here is the reality. “SHO suspended after assaulting Hindus for ‘violating’ Ramazan ordinance,” by Hafeez Tunio, Express Tribune, March 25, 2023 […]
Did the Security Police know he was wanted for war crimes and Syria and just didn’t care? Or did they not know, which is even worse? “Syrian migrant requested to be detained for serious war crimes in Syria,” translated from “Syrisk migrant begärs häktad för grova krigsbrott i Syrien,” by Mattias Albinsson, Samnytt, March 23, […]
There is, of course, domestic violence in all cultures. So to post this is just “Islamophobic,” right? Wrong: there is domestic violence in all cultures, but only in one does it have divine sanction. Islam doesn’t teach that man may kill his wife, but once you’ve allowed him to beat her, accidents will happen. The […]
What fun the Sharia enforcers will have before too long in, say, the south of France. “Report: Kelantan Islamic law enforcers haul up seven men for wearing shorts baring thighs,” by Keertan Ayamany, Malay Mail, March 22, 2023 (thanks to The Religion of Peace): KUALA LUMPUR, March 22 — Seven men who wore shorts exposing […]
This new Glazov Gang episode is hosted by Anni Cyrus and features Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a free-speech champion, author of The Truth is No Defense and host of her own weekly show on EncounterTruth.com. Elisabeth discusses Islam’s Assault on Human Rights, unveiling The Real ‘Religion of Peace’. Don’t miss it! [Show your support for Mike Lindell […]
Zlatan Ibrahimović says he is a Catholic. His father was a Muslim, however, and he grew up in Muslim-dominated Malmö; these details may explain how he came to have such a Sharia-positive viewpoint. In any case, he just needs to be patient. Sharia will be along in Sweden soon enough. “Zlatan wants to see Qatar’s […]
The possibility cannot be discounted. “The Prophet said, ‘War is deceit.’” (Bukhari 4.52.269) “I was an ISIS slave – I saw Shamima Begum at camp where she learnt how to use suicide belts & guns, she’ll never change,” by Henry Holloway, The Sun, March 18, 2023: AN ISIS slave has told how she saw Shamima […]
It’s telling that Ajmal Shahpal thought he would get more followers by praising a jihad murderer and encouraging beheading for blasphemy. We’re constantly told that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the West reject “extremism.” So if that were true, wouldn’t praising a jihadi and calling for the beheading of blasphemers make Shahpal less popular? […]
Islamic law forbids the construction of new churches. Christians are “forbidden to ring church bells or display crosses, recite the Torah or Evangel aloud, or make public display of their funerals and feastdays, and are forbidden to build new churches” – Reliance of the Traveller o.11.5 (6,7) “Muslims Block Christians’ Construction in Indonesia,” Morning Star News, March […]
No one in this case seems to be in the least concerned with whether or not what this fellow said was true. Imagine the embarrassment of French authorities when they discover that he was simply enunciating a mainstream Sharia position. A hadith depicts Muhammad specifying the punishment for homosexual activity: “The Messenger of Allah (peace […]
Although the Iraqi constitution “guarantees personal, religious and cultural freedom,” the aggressively expansionist aspect of Islam is no secret. Protestors called the alcohol ban “ethnic discrimination,” since there are in Iraq “sizable communities of Christians, Yazidis, Zorastrians, Mandaeans and others.” But since when do Islamic supremacists care about kaffirs? “Some analysts believe the law is […]
Read my latest over at The American Thinker. We are seeing an unprecedented erosion in our First Amendment rights, increasingly prohibiting the flow of ideas and free expression in the public square (social media). Run by left-wing self-possessed snowflakes, social media giants are indulging their worst autocratic impulses. And because they can, it is getting worse. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Having grown up in the 1970s, I can tell you it was a vastly different country then. It was free. But we aren’t any no longer, and it is time we took back what is ours — our unalienable freedoms.
January 30, 2018
The Urgent Case for Legislation against Facebook and Google
Having been one of the early targets of social media censorship on Facebook, YouTube et al, I have advocated for anti-trust action against these bullying behemoths. It is good to see establishment outlets such as the Wall Street Journaland National Review coming to the same conclusion, or at least asking the same questions.
Just this week, Facebook launched its latest of many attacks on my news site, the Geller Report. It labeled my site as “spam” and removed every Geller Report post — thousands upon thousands of them, going back years – from Facebook. It also blocked any Facebook member from sharing links to the Geller Report. The ramping up of the shutting-down of sites like mine is neither random nor personal. The timing is telling. The left is gearing up for the 2018 midterm elections, and they mean to shut down whatever outlet or voice that helped elect President Trump, the greatest upset in left-wing history.
In fighting this shutdown, we had to go back to the drawing board in our lawsuit against these social media giants. The basis of our suit was challenging Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) under the First Amendment, which provides immunity from lawsuits to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, thereby permitting these social media giants to engage in government-sanctioned censorship and discriminatory business practices free from legal challenge.
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Facebook and Google take in roughly half of all Internet ad revenue. According to the Wall Street Journal:
In the U.S., Alphabet Inc.’s Google drives 89% of internet search; 95% of young adults on the internet use a Facebook Inc. product; and Amazon.com Inc. now accounts for 75% of electronic book sales. Those firms that aren’t monopolists are duopolists: Google and Facebook absorbed 63% of online ad spending last year; Google and Apple Inc. provide 99% of mobile phone operating systems; while Apple and Microsoft Corp. supply 95% of desktop operating systems.
Both companies routinely censor and spy on their customers, “massaging everything from the daily news to what we should buy.” In the last century, the telephone was our “computer,” and Ma Bell was how we communicated. That said, would the American people (or the government) have tolerated AT&T spying on our phone calls and then pulling our communication privileges if we expressed dissenting opinions? That is exactly what we are suffering today.
Ma Bell was broken up by the government, albeit for different reasons. But it can and should be done.
It’s not a little ironic that, according to Breitbart:
AT&T has called for an “Internet Bill of Rights” and argued that Facebook and Google should also be subjected to rules that would prevent unfair censorship on their platforms.
AT&T, one of the largest telecommunications companies, called for Congress to enact an “Internet Bill of Rights” which would subject Facebook, Google, and other content providers to rules that would prevent unfair censorship on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Comcast or AT&T as well as content providers such as Facebook and Google.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson wrote, “Congressional action is needed to establish an ‘Internet Bill of Rights’ that applies to all internet companies and guarantees neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination and privacy protection for all internet users.”
Stephenson posted the ad in the New York Times, Washington Post, and other national news outlets on Wednesday.
We must get behind this — all of us — and fast. Because what is happening is being engineered at the government level. A chief officer from a major American communications company went to the terror state of Pakistan to assure the Pakistani government that Facebook would adhere to the sharia. The commitment was given by Vice President of Facebook Joel Kaplan, who called on Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. “Facebook has reiterated its commitment to keep the platform safe and promote values that are in congruence with its community standards.”
Why the block? Because under Islamic law, you cannot criticize Islam. Facebook adhering to the most extreme and brutal ideology on the face of the earth should trouble all of us, because Mark Zuckerberg has immense power. He controls the flow of information.
Early last year, I wrote: “The US government has used anti-trust laws to break up monopolies. They ought to break up Facebook. Section 2 of the Sherman Act highlights particular results deemed anticompetitive by nature and prohibits actions that ‘shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations.’ Couldn’t the same be applied to information? The United States government took down Standard Oil, Alcoa, Northern Securities, the American Tobacco Company and many others without nearly the power that Facebook has.”
NRO has come to that same conclusion:
Tech companies such as Google and Facebook are also utilities of sorts that provide essential services. They depend on the free use of public airwaves. Yet they are subject to little oversight; they simply make up their own rules as they go along. Antitrust laws prohibit one corporation from unfairly devouring its competition, capturing most of its market, and then price-gouging as it sees fit without fear of competition. Google has all but destroyed its search-engine competitors in the same manner that Facebook has driven out competing social media.
Clearly Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos are contemporary “robber barons.” So why are they not smeared, defamed, and reviled like the robber barons of yesteryear? Says NRO:
Why are huge tech companies seemingly exempt from the rules that older corporations must follow? First, their CEOs wisely cultivate the image of hipsters. The public sees them more as aging teenagers in T-shirts, turtlenecks, and flip-flops than as updated versions of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, or other robber barons of the past. Second, the tech industry’s hierarchy is politically progressive.
In brilliant marketing fashion, the Internet, laptops, tablets, and smartphones have meshed with the hip youth culture of music, television, the movies, universities, and fashion. Think Woodstock rather than Wall Street. Corporate spokesmen at companies such as Twitter and YouTube brag about their social awareness, especially on issues such as radical environmentalism, identity politics, and feminism. Given that the regulatory deep state is mostly a liberal enterprise, the tech industry is seen as an ally of federal bureaucrats and regulators. Think more of Hollywood, the media, and universities than Exxon, General Motors, Koch Industries, and Philip Morris.
The groovy t-shirt-turtleneck vibe may keep the great unwashed under their spell, but it’s the shared political ideology with the left that keeps these corporate managers free from accountability. The WSJ writes that antitrust regulators have a narrow test: Does their size leave consumers worse off? Surmising that if that’s the test, “there isn’t a clear case for going after big tech.”
I disagree. The consumer is far worse off. If we are not free to speak and think in what is today’s Gutenberg press, than we could not be worse off.
Pamela Geller: Dallas Billboard Company Refuses My Ad Offering Help to At-Risk Muslim Girls
Mark Lennihan/AP; Insets: ICNA, Pamela Geller
It is quickly becoming impossible to criticize any aspect of Islam, no matter how violent or repressive, in the public square. My latest billboard battle is a case in point.
A month ago, a number of concerned Texans wrote me about a hijab promotion campaign on Outfront (previously known as CBS Outdoor) billboards running in Dallas. Local media wrote it up in glowing terms, of course.
KERA News ran a puff piece with the enthusiastic headline “Billboard Campaign In Dallas Aims To Dispel Misconceptions About Islam And The Hijab.” It featured a large photo of the billboard itself, which read “Respect – Honor – Strength. HIJAB. The Dress of Modesty.” It also offered a phone number for those with “questions about Islam and women.” Not a word, of course, about the many girls and women who have been threatened and even killed for not wearing the hijab in a practice commonly known as “honor killing.” This ad’s use of the word “honor” is especially cynical.
And then, of course, comes the post-ad followup describing horrific responses to the ad. The New York Post just ran yet another Muslims-are-victims-of-Islamophobia piece: “Muslim call center gets hundreds of hate calls for promoting hijabs on billboard.”
American media companies run these ads without hesitation, for fear of violating Islamic mores and traditions and appearing “Islamophobic” — a thought-crushing device designed to silence criticism of Islam, thereby enforcing sharia. The ads garner media attention, paint Muslims as victims, admonish Americans for things they haven’t done, and decry a non-existent epidemic of Islamophobia.
This billboard is the handiwork of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Neither KERA News nor any other news outlet that ran glowing coverage of this billboard bothered to mention that ICNA, according to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, and a report by Discover the Networks, is linked to radial Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the pro-Sharia organization from which Hamas and al-Qaeda come.
Says Emerson: “The ICNA’s hatred of the Jews is so fierce that it taunted them with a repetition of what Hitler did to them… The ICNA openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terror attacks, issues incendiary attacks on western values and policies, and supports the imposition of Sharia.”
ICNA’s January 2019 conference, with 20,000 attendees, featured a disquieting roster of participants and speakers with extremist views on slavery, homosexuality and Jews.
My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), on the other hand, is a human rights group dedicated to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and individual rights. We have been targeted for death multiple times and escaped death in recent assassination attempts because of our work in defense of freedom.
AFDI submitted an ad to run on Dallas billboards right next to ICNA’s hijab “honor and respect” ad. But as of this writing, I have had to revise the ad over a dozen times to comply with Outfront (CBS) Outdoor’s constantly changing ad policy.
The first ad I submitted featured photos of a number of Muslim girls who were honor-murdered by their families for refusing to wear the hijab. Above the photos was the legend, “Muslim Girls Killed By Their Families Because They Refused Hijab,” and underneath, “Are you forced to wear hijab? Is your family threatening you? We can help. Go to FightforFreedom.us.”
Outdoor wouldn’t allow that; its General Manager Zack Danielson wrote me: “Good morning. I just received word that we cannot accept this copy due to the top tag line ‘Muslim Girls Killed By Their Families Because They Refused Hijab’. Is there any way you all can remove that line and leave everything else as is? Thank you.”
I responded: “But they were honor murdered by their families because they did not want to wear hijab – they wanted to be free. If I take that line out nobody understands who those girls are and by the way there from America and Canada. So what would be acceptable? ‘Honor killed by their families’ Would that work?”
To that, Senior Account Executive Sammy Tamporello replied: “I understand what you are saying, but as mentioned below whether I agree or not ultimately I cannot post creative that goes against our companies [sic] policy/approval process. Anything with the killed, murdered, or type of violence is not going to get approved.”
So I changed the top line to “Muslim Girls Who Refused the Hijab – R.I.P.” Tamporello responded: “Thanks for your assistance. If you all can eliminate the RIP, we will be good to go and I can send over the contract.” I said: “Sammy, I cannot eliminate the RIP – those girls are dead. How else would you have me convey that message? How about, ‘Rest in peace.’” Then I sent in a new ad reading: “In Memory of the Muslim Girls Who Refused Hijab.”
That was refused as well. Tamporello wrote: “Our corporate office just informed me that the top line needs to be removed or needs to not include a ‘death reference’ i.e. In Memory, RIP, or Condolences, etc.”
Then I wrote: “Sammy, Can you explain how Outfront is running a campaign promoting the hijab but refuses to allow a campaign offering help to Muslim girls who don’t want to wear the hijab? Why? Why would Outftont take sides against freedom in Texas of all places. What wording would Outfront if not in memoriam? Is there a decision maker I can speak with?” To that, Zack Danielson wrote: “We are happy to seek approval for your campaign with a message that is positive in nature. If you would like to send me the revised creative I would be happy to pass it along to our legal team.”
I answered: “Zack, Isn’t the message positive? We offer sanctuary to girls whose life is in dangerous. Saving a life. What could be more positive than that?” Danielson responded: “How about offering a positive message that speaks to that exactly, with a tagline that reads: We offer a sanctuary to young woman / girls who may feel that there life is in danger.” Note that in Danielson’s “positive” ad, all reference to the girls being in danger because they refused to wear hijab was removed.
This is in Texas, where Amina and Sarah Said were honor-murdered in cold blood by their father, according to police. But we can’t talk about it. Nothing remotely critical of Islam can be discussed.
Finally, I submitted an ad reading: “Are you forced to wear hijab? Is your family threatening you?” And underneath the photos: “These girls could have been saved.”
To that updated submission, Outdoor has not yet responded.
Our ad is a public service announcement, and public service ads offering help to women threatened by domestic violence run all the time. But when it comes to the cause of Islamic honor, suddenly we must be “positive” and show “respect.”
We’re not going to let these appeasers and useful idiots stop us.
Pamela Geller: Dallas Billboard Company Refuses My Ad Offering Help to At-Risk Muslim Girls
Mark Lennihan/AP; Insets: ICNA, Pamela Geller
It is quickly becoming impossible to criticize any aspect of Islam, no matter how violent or repressive, in the public square. My latest billboard battle is a case in point.
A month ago, a number of concerned Texans wrote me about a hijab promotion campaign on Outfront (previously known as CBS Outdoor) billboards running in Dallas. Local media wrote it up in glowing terms, of course.
KERA News ran a puff piece with the enthusiastic headline “Billboard Campaign In Dallas Aims To Dispel Misconceptions About Islam And The Hijab.” It featured a large photo of the billboard itself, which read “Respect – Honor – Strength. HIJAB. The Dress of Modesty.” It also offered a phone number for those with “questions about Islam and women.” Not a word, of course, about the many girls and women who have been threatened and even killed for not wearing the hijab in a practice commonly known as “honor killing.” This ad’s use of the word “honor” is especially cynical.
And then, of course, comes the post-ad followup describing horrific responses to the ad. The New York Post just ran yet another Muslims-are-victims-of-Islamophobia piece: “Muslim call center gets hundreds of hate calls for promoting hijabs on billboard.”
American media companies run these ads without hesitation, for fear of violating Islamic mores and traditions and appearing “Islamophobic” — a thought-crushing device designed to silence criticism of Islam, thereby enforcing sharia. The ads garner media attention, paint Muslims as victims, admonish Americans for things they haven’t done, and decry a non-existent epidemic of Islamophobia.
This billboard is the handiwork of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). Neither KERA News nor any other news outlet that ran glowing coverage of this billboard bothered to mention that ICNA, according to terrorism expert Steven Emerson, and a report by Discover the Networks, is linked to radial Islamic movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the pro-Sharia organization from which Hamas and al-Qaeda come.
Says Emerson: “The ICNA’s hatred of the Jews is so fierce that it taunted them with a repetition of what Hitler did to them… The ICNA openly supports militant Islamic fundamentalist organizations, praises terror attacks, issues incendiary attacks on western values and policies, and supports the imposition of Sharia.”
ICNA’s January 2019 conference, with 20,000 attendees, featured a disquieting roster of participants and speakers with extremist views on slavery, homosexuality and Jews.
My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), on the other hand, is a human rights group dedicated to freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and individual rights. We have been targeted for death multiple times and escaped death in recent assassination attempts because of our work in defense of freedom.
AFDI submitted an ad to run on Dallas billboards right next to ICNA’s hijab “honor and respect” ad. But as of this writing, I have had to revise the ad over a dozen times to comply with Outfront (CBS) Outdoor’s constantly changing ad policy.
The first ad I submitted featured photos of a number of Muslim girls who were honor-murdered by their families for refusing to wear the hijab. Above the photos was the legend, “Muslim Girls Killed By Their Families Because They Refused Hijab,” and underneath, “Are you forced to wear hijab? Is your family threatening you? We can help. Go to FightforFreedom.us.”
Outdoor wouldn’t allow that; its General Manager Zack Danielson wrote me: “Good morning. I just received word that we cannot accept this copy due to the top tag line ‘Muslim Girls Killed By Their Families Because They Refused Hijab’. Is there any way you all can remove that line and leave everything else as is? Thank you.”
I responded: “But they were honor murdered by their families because they did not want to wear hijab – they wanted to be free. If I take that line out nobody understands who those girls are and by the way there from America and Canada. So what would be acceptable? ‘Honor killed by their families’ Would that work?”
To that, Senior Account Executive Sammy Tamporello replied: “I understand what you are saying, but as mentioned below whether I agree or not ultimately I cannot post creative that goes against our companies [sic] policy/approval process. Anything with the killed, murdered, or type of violence is not going to get approved.”
So I changed the top line to “Muslim Girls Who Refused the Hijab – R.I.P.” Tamporello responded: “Thanks for your assistance. If you all can eliminate the RIP, we will be good to go and I can send over the contract.” I said: “Sammy, I cannot eliminate the RIP – those girls are dead. How else would you have me convey that message? How about, ‘Rest in peace.’” Then I sent in a new ad reading: “In Memory of the Muslim Girls Who Refused Hijab.”
That was refused as well. Tamporello wrote: “Our corporate office just informed me that the top line needs to be removed or needs to not include a ‘death reference’ i.e. In Memory, RIP, or Condolences, etc.”
Then I wrote: “Sammy, Can you explain how Outfront is running a campaign promoting the hijab but refuses to allow a campaign offering help to Muslim girls who don’t want to wear the hijab? Why? Why would Outftont take sides against freedom in Texas of all places. What wording would Outfront if not in memoriam? Is there a decision maker I can speak with?” To that, Zack Danielson wrote: “We are happy to seek approval for your campaign with a message that is positive in nature. If you would like to send me the revised creative I would be happy to pass it along to our legal team.”
I answered: “Zack, Isn’t the message positive? We offer sanctuary to girls whose life is in dangerous. Saving a life. What could be more positive than that?” Danielson responded: “How about offering a positive message that speaks to that exactly, with a tagline that reads: We offer a sanctuary to young woman / girls who may feel that there life is in danger.” Note that in Danielson’s “positive” ad, all reference to the girls being in danger because they refused to wear hijab was removed.
This is in Texas, where Amina and Sarah Said were honor-murdered in cold blood by their father, according to police. But we can’t talk about it. Nothing remotely critical of Islam can be discussed.
Finally, I submitted an ad reading: “Are you forced to wear hijab? Is your family threatening you?” And underneath the photos: “These girls could have been saved.”
To that updated submission, Outdoor has not yet responded.
Our ad is a public service announcement, and public service ads offering help to women threatened by domestic violence run all the time. But when it comes to the cause of Islamic honor, suddenly we must be “positive” and show “respect.”
We’re not going to let these appeasers and useful idiots stop us.
Read my latest over at The American Thinker. We are seeing an unprecedented erosion in our First Amendment rights, increasingly prohibiting the flow of ideas and free expression in the public square (social media). Run by left-wing self-possessed snowflakes, social media giants are indulging their worst autocratic impulses. And because they can, it is getting worse. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Having grown up in the 1970s, I can tell you it was a vastly different country then. It was free. But we aren’t any no longer, and it is time we took back what is ours — our unalienable freedoms.
January 30, 2018
The Urgent Case for Legislation against Facebook and Google
Having been one of the early targets of social media censorship on Facebook, YouTube et al, I have advocated for anti-trust action against these bullying behemoths. It is good to see establishment outlets such as the Wall Street Journaland National Review coming to the same conclusion, or at least asking the same questions.
Just this week, Facebook launched its latest of many attacks on my news site, the Geller Report. It labeled my site as “spam” and removed every Geller Report post — thousands upon thousands of them, going back years – from Facebook. It also blocked any Facebook member from sharing links to the Geller Report. The ramping up of the shutting-down of sites like mine is neither random nor personal. The timing is telling. The left is gearing up for the 2018 midterm elections, and they mean to shut down whatever outlet or voice that helped elect President Trump, the greatest upset in left-wing history.
In fighting this shutdown, we had to go back to the drawing board in our lawsuit against these social media giants. The basis of our suit was challenging Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) under the First Amendment, which provides immunity from lawsuits to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, thereby permitting these social media giants to engage in government-sanctioned censorship and discriminatory business practices free from legal challenge.
Facebook and Google take in roughly half of all Internet ad revenue. According to the Wall Street Journal:
In the U.S., Alphabet Inc.’s Google drives 89% of internet search; 95% of young adults on the internet use a Facebook Inc. product; and Amazon.com Inc. now accounts for 75% of electronic book sales. Those firms that aren’t monopolists are duopolists: Google and Facebook absorbed 63% of online ad spending last year; Google and Apple Inc. provide 99% of mobile phone operating systems; while Apple and Microsoft Corp. supply 95% of desktop operating systems.
Both companies routinely censor and spy on their customers, “massaging everything from the daily news to what we should buy.” In the last century, the telephone was our “computer,” and Ma Bell was how we communicated. That said, would the American people (or the government) have tolerated AT&T spying on our phone calls and then pulling our communication privileges if we expressed dissenting opinions? That is exactly what we are suffering today.
Ma Bell was broken up by the government, albeit for different reasons. But it can and should be done.
It’s not a little ironic that, according to Breitbart:
AT&T has called for an “Internet Bill of Rights” and argued that Facebook and Google should also be subjected to rules that would prevent unfair censorship on their platforms.
AT&T, one of the largest telecommunications companies, called for Congress to enact an “Internet Bill of Rights” which would subject Facebook, Google, and other content providers to rules that would prevent unfair censorship on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Comcast or AT&T as well as content providers such as Facebook and Google.
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson wrote, “Congressional action is needed to establish an ‘Internet Bill of Rights’ that applies to all internet companies and guarantees neutrality, transparency, openness, non-discrimination and privacy protection for all internet users.”
Stephenson posted the ad in the New York Times, Washington Post, and other national news outlets on Wednesday.
We must get behind this — all of us — and fast. Because what is happening is being engineered at the government level. A chief officer from a major American communications company went to the terror state of Pakistan to assure the Pakistani government that Facebook would adhere to the sharia. The commitment was given by Vice President of Facebook Joel Kaplan, who called on Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. “Facebook has reiterated its commitment to keep the platform safe and promote values that are in congruence with its community standards.”
Why the block? Because under Islamic law, you cannot criticize Islam. Facebook adhering to the most extreme and brutal ideology on the face of the earth should trouble all of us, because Mark Zuckerberg has immense power. He controls the flow of information.
Early last year, I wrote: “The US government has used anti-trust laws to break up monopolies. They ought to break up Facebook. Section 2 of the Sherman Act highlights particular results deemed anticompetitive by nature and prohibits actions that ‘shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations.’ Couldn’t the same be applied to information? The United States government took down Standard Oil, Alcoa, Northern Securities, the American Tobacco Company and many others without nearly the power that Facebook has.”
NRO has come to that same conclusion:
Tech companies such as Google and Facebook are also utilities of sorts that provide essential services. They depend on the free use of public airwaves. Yet they are subject to little oversight; they simply make up their own rules as they go along. Antitrust laws prohibit one corporation from unfairly devouring its competition, capturing most of its market, and then price-gouging as it sees fit without fear of competition. Google has all but destroyed its search-engine competitors in the same manner that Facebook has driven out competing social media.
Clearly Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos are contemporary “robber barons.” So why are they not smeared, defamed, and reviled like the robber barons of yesteryear? Says NRO:
Why are huge tech companies seemingly exempt from the rules that older corporations must follow? First, their CEOs wisely cultivate the image of hipsters. The public sees them more as aging teenagers in T-shirts, turtlenecks, and flip-flops than as updated versions of J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, or other robber barons of the past. Second, the tech industry’s hierarchy is politically progressive.
In brilliant marketing fashion, the Internet, laptops, tablets, and smartphones have meshed with the hip youth culture of music, television, the movies, universities, and fashion. Think Woodstock rather than Wall Street. Corporate spokesmen at companies such as Twitter and YouTube brag about their social awareness, especially on issues such as radical environmentalism, identity politics, and feminism. Given that the regulatory deep state is mostly a liberal enterprise, the tech industry is seen as an ally of federal bureaucrats and regulators. Think more of Hollywood, the media, and universities than Exxon, General Motors, Koch Industries, and Philip Morris.
The groovy t-shirt-turtleneck vibe may keep the great unwashed under their spell, but it’s the shared political ideology with the left that keeps these corporate managers free from accountability. The WSJ writes that antitrust regulators have a narrow test: Does their size leave consumers worse off? Surmising that if that’s the test, “there isn’t a clear case for going after big tech.”
I disagree. The consumer is far worse off. If we are not free to speak and think in what is today’s Gutenberg press, than we could not be worse off.
Reutersreported Thursday that “a man who vandalized a Florida mosque in January 2016 and left a raw slab of bacon on its doorstep was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a hate crime conviction.Reuters ”
Hamas-tied Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokesman Wilfredo Ruiz commented: “The Florida Muslim Community is suffering an unprecedented number of hate crimes. Multiple mosques and Islamic institutions have been broken into, vandalized, and even set on fire.”
But Michael Wolfe, the mosque vandal, got 15 years in prison and another 15 years of probation, to be served after his prison sentence, for leaving bacon on the doorstep of a mosque and breaking a few windows.
Have you ever heard of such a thing in America? Sharia has taken hold in America. Madness.
A man in Chicago was ordered to pay restitution and seek mental-health treatment for vandalizing a synagogue in the city’s Loop business district last February. He broke windows and plastered swastikas on the synagogue walls. Under a plea agreement with prosecutors, 32-year-old Stuart Wright was also sentenced to the two days he has already served in jail. He was charged with putting swastika stickers on the front door of the Chicago Loop Synagogue and smashing windows. The same type of crime.
Anti-Jewish crimes are four times that of “anti-Muslim” crimes, and you never heard of such convictions.
15 years.
Nicholas Rovinski, one of the jihadis plotting to behead me, faces 15 years.
The article explains: “A North Carolina man is accused of committing a ‘sex act’ with a copy of the Koran while serving time in jail. Jonathan Ross Compton, 35, was charged with ethnic intimidation on Friday at 4 a.m., according to jail records. The incident occurred around 2 a.m. while Compton was in Gaston County Jail on a felony charge for failing to appear, the Charlotte Observer reported.”
Since when is “disrespect” for the Koran or Islam indictable in the United States? Since Islamization took hold. Mandatory respect of Islam is central tenet of Islamic law (sharia), not Western law.
How is this even a news story? Yet look at how the authorities are cracking down hard on Compton. Newsweek reports: “Abdur Abdulkhafid, a Muslim, was being held in the same jail cell when Compton ejaculated into his copy of the Quran, jail officials said. After conducting the lewd act on the religious text of Islam, Compton called 39-year-old Abdulkhafid a racial slur, officials said. Jail policies allow inmates to carry religious texts with them in their cells.”
What was the result?
“Compton stayed in the jail on Friday and his bond was raised from $5,000 to $15,000.” Then Newsweek quotes the notorious Ibrahim Hooper of the Hamas-tied CAIR: “Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said he hopes law enforcement will treat the case no differently than a hate crime committed outside of jail walls.”
Then Newsweek informs us that “this is not the first time this year the Quran has been the subject of a hate crime. In June, a woman from Houston, Texas sent a Quran submerged in a tub of pork lard to the Sacramento chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Authorities said the package was sent from a shipping center in Houston by a white woman, but police do not know her name, ABC 13 reported.”
Newsweek explains the sharia reasoning behind all this: “The Quran prohibits Muslims from eating pork, and there’s a perception that Muslims find pork offensive. But, Ruth Nasrullah of the Houston Chapter of Cair says it’s offensive because of how the book was treated. ‘While we don’t eat pork, there’s this idea that if we somehow see pork that it would be offensive,’ Nasrullah told ABC13. ‘When you have something like a holy book, no matter what book it is — whether it’s the Quran, the Talmud or the Bible — when it’s treated in that way, it’s really disrespectful.’”
Disrespectful. Now you must respect Islam, or be punished by law.
Yes, Compton’s act was a gross thing to do. I am sure a good deal of not nice things happen in prisons across the country. So why does this one stand out among all the others, and matter to Newsweek? Because the offended party was Muslim. This is sharia law in America.
Get the jihadi a new Koran. No big deal. If this was a Bible, no one among prison authorities would have cared, and the media wouldn’t be saying a word about “respect”; they would be loving it.
I bet if the perp Jonathan Ross Compton converts to Islam and joins the jailhouse jihad (prison are huge recruitment centers for jihad terrorists), the charges will be dropped.
Supreme propagandist Hooper of the terrorist group CAIR said he hopes law enforcement will treat the case no differently than a hate crime committed outside of jail walls: “It’s the same kind of act, and should be treated the same for someone whose is an inmate as it would be for someone who was attending a mosque during daily life. We hope they (deputies) are taking it seriously and it will be moved through the legal system and the alleged perpetrator is punished.”
And I am sure the leftist dogs who step and fetch for jihad will do as commanded by their Islamic overlords.
Exclusive: Pamela Geller explains why D.C. Metro barred Christmas ad
The Washington Times reported last Tuesday that “the Catholic church is taking Metro to court after the Washington-area transit agency rejected an ad campaign promoting a website aimed at encouraging attendance at parishes throughout the D.C. area.” Why did the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority reject these ads? Because of the Geller Ban.
This goes back to June 2015, when my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), created a free-speech ad campaign defying the blasphemy laws under the Shariah. We put up 100 billboards around St. Louis, depicting the winning cartoon in our Muhammad cartoon contest that was fired upon by jihadis in Garland, Texas, under the headline, “SUPPORT FREE SPEECH.” The cartoon depicted Muhammad being drawn by an artist. Muhammad says, “You can’t draw me!” The artist responds: “That’s why I draw you.” It was an apt summation of the courage and refusal to be bullied that we need to have in the face of violent intimidation from Islamic jihadis.
The billboards featuring this Muhammad cartoon also went up in and around the northern tri-county area of Marion, Baxter and Boone counties in Arkansas. But in what could only called an end-run around the First Amendment, when we tried to run them in the Washington, D.C., subway, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) enforced the Shariah under the guise of banning all “political ads.” No other ad had compelled WMATA to take such drastic action. My ads violating Islamic blasphemy laws led to Shariah bans in New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco et al.
The ban itself is mutable and unclear. No contemporary medium of communication may pass the test of being merely commercial and non-political. The New York Times runs an editorial page every day – not to mention the slant of their “straight news” – and therefore, if they can advertise, so can the Village Voice, the Socialist Militant and Dabiq (ISIS’ four-color magazine), for that matter.
The WMATA threw in public safety for good measure, as if these craven quislings knew what was conducive to the public good. Color me skeptical. They said the buses would be a target for jihadis. Yet if we’ve learned anything since 9/11, it is that America is the target. The West is the target for Islamic terrorism. Abridging our freedoms so as not to offend savages is surrender and un-American. It results in more demands, more surrender, more capitulation to Shariah law (which is what WMATA did).
Running and hiding is no strategy in a war. Operation Fetal Position is a recipe for disaster.
No one cared when my ads were banned, but it was never about me. The enemedia makes it about me, monsterizes me, so that people run in horror at the bogeyman and say yes, yes, shut her up, shut her down. It’s covert totalitarianism.
The Catholic Church, of course, would not have dreamed of sticking up for my free-speech rights at the time the Geller Ban first was put into place. But it’s like the famous Martin Niemöller poem:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.
Now they have come for the Catholic Church, and who will speak up for their free-speech rights?
What most people don’t know is the Geller Ban is not unique to Washington, D.C. In fact, the Geller Ban is in effect in every major city in the United States: New York, Boston, Miami, Chicago, liberal San Francisco, Denver and more.
So who will speak up for the other organizations that want to run perfectly reasonable ads, as mine were, and run afoul of this ban?
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