The religion of peace went on a rampage through parts of Nigeria, burning, looting, and beating to death Christians — in the name of being “offended” by the Danish Mohammed cartoons.
Thousands of rioters burned 15 churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order, Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi said. Iwendi said security forces arrested dozens of people in the city about 1,000 miles northeast of the capital, Lagos.
Chima Ezeoke, a Christian Maiduguri resident, said protesters attacked and looted shops owned by minority Christians, most of them with origins in the country’s south.
“Most of the dead were Christians beaten to death on the streets by the rioters,” Ezeoke said. Witnesses said three children and a priest were among those killed.
Meantime, the Muslim world is telling the rest of us that everything will be all right, as long as we adhere to the dictates of their religion and make insulting Islam illegal — globally.
In Cairo, Bishop Karsten Nissen, of Denmark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, met with Grand Imam Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi of al-Azhar University, the world’s highest Sunni Muslim seat of learning.
Tantawi said the Danish prime minister must apologize for the drawings and further demanded that the world’s religious leaders meet to write a law that “condemns insulting any religion, including the Holy Scriptures and the prophets.” He said the United Nations should impose the law on all countries.
In response, Nissen did not address the issue of a global law but said it was impossible for Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to apologize.
“I have brought to his excellency (Tantawi) the apology of the newspaper, but our prime minister did not draw these cartoons. Our prime minister is not the editor of this newspaper. He cannot apologize for something he did not do,” Nissen said.
And what does the U.S. spokeswoman have to say?
At the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, U.S. Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes said U.S. newspapers generally did not reprint the caricatures “because they recognize they are deeply offensive, even blasphemous to the precious convictions of our Muslim friends and neighbors.”
Oh, stop lying. American newspapers are refusing to publish the cartoons because they are afraid of violent reprisals. The offensiveness thing is a cover.
You know what I’d like to see? An international day of solidarity for the freedom of the press, where every single newspaper in the free world publishes all twelve of the Danish cartoons. What do you suppose would happen then?
Yes, I know. The radical Islamists would stage-manage more riots. But the point would have been made. We are free. We will not bow to the dicates of a religion we do not follow.
The Muslim world is not free. The unrelenting totalitarianism of the Soviet Union has been replaced by the unrelenting bigotry and repression of radical Islam. I see no real difference between the two. The Soviet Union wanted the world to be entirely Communist. The Muslim world wants everyone to be Muslim. But for now, they’ll settle for making the rest of us bow to their religious laws and conventions.
I am a citizen of the United States. I refuse.
I choose freedom.
We have to stand with Denmark on this. I know about their boycott of Israeli goods, and their support of the palestinians. But there is a larger issue here, and frankly, our freedoms are at stake. Denmark is the 21st century Poland. If she falls, the Islamists will have won a major battle.
This isn’t a left-right thing. This is about the freedom to choose the way you want to live.
I choose the freedom to offend religions — theirs, mine, and yours — without suffering death threats.
Does anybody think Muslims would obey an international law not to insult Judaism, or for that matter, any other religion? Under Sharia Muslims are free to abuse everybody else, but anybody who insults (or is falsely accused of insulting) Islam is to be punished, generally by death. That is the law radical Muslims wish to impose on the West now.
I love the suggestion that the UN should pass a law on this subject. Riiight. Like the UN has any authority to pass laws binding on the citizens of the member countries. Before we start passing silly laws abridging freedom in the West how about getting the Muslim countries to treat their people in accordance with the UN Declaration of Human Rights? Oops, can’t do that. Anyway, says President Amehinejan of the Psychotic Republic of Iran, all that freedom stuff is too Western and infidellish for the Musims, who like to live under psychotic, murdering, oppressors. It’s a cultural thing you see.
Radical Muslims are trying it on. If this goes through what will be the next thing that we must change lest the Muslims be offended and go on a killing spree as a result? All you ladies got your burkas picked out yet?
Muslims who are offended by living in the West should be invited to go live somewhere else, somewhere they can enjoy the fruits of living under Sharia. It’s amazing that Muslims should come to the West to get away from their country of origin then riot and complain that they do things differently in the West than in their former home. Gee, ya think so? Could the differences have something to do with the reason that the old country, Khafulistan ruled by President-for-Life Sy Kotik, is a sewer and Denmark is not?
I’m getting fed up with Musims reacting to every little thing with riots, terrorism, and death threats. You Muslims really do NOT want the rest of us to conclude that the only answer to your shouts for jihad is Deus Vult.
This Cartoon-War is really a mistake for the Islamists. Two words come to mind to in regards to their stupidity:
Casus Belli.
The West has been deeply divided over how to deal with the Islamist issue and this craziness is shifting the balance more into polarization.
The people of the West are not ready to deal with the Islamists yet, but with each ridiculous incident such as this one, they are another step closer to outright action.
It is sad that so many people have to suffer in the meantime.