By: Julia Gorin
Republican Riot

I can certainly understand being a little girl with an idol. Mine was Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, and my sister’s was Isis. But her Isis looked like this:

Not like this:

I understand Isis being your idol, but this is ridiculous. Maybe the girls below were just confused? I mean, the goddess Isis was Egyptian, not Syrian:

Austrian teenage girl jihadist ‘killed in Syria’ (Telegraph, Sept. 15)

One of a pair of Austrian [ahem, Bosnian] teenage girls who left Vienna homes in April to join Syrian jihadists reportedly killed

Sabina Selimovic, 15, (left) and Samra Kesinovic, 16, travelled to Syria Photo: INTERPOL

One of two young Austrian women who travelled to Syria to fight with Islamic extremists has reportedly been killed just months after arriving in the country.

[No!]

Sabina Selimovic, 15, and Samra Kesinovic, 16, both the daughters of immigrant families from Bosnia, left their homes in Vienna in April with the apparent intention of fighting for Syrian rebels.

They are thought to have travelled to Turkey and then to have crossed the border into Syria, having become radicalised after attending a local mosque in Vienna and reading about jihad on the internet.

[Vienna? You don’t say!]

They posted on social media photographs of themselves handling assault weapons and wearing black, full length burkas.

But Austrian authorities now think one of them – they have so far refused to divulge which one – may have been killed during fighting.

Refused to divulge which one. Does it really make a difference?

…Austrian authorities fear that the two teenagers’ example is inspiring other young, radicalised Muslim women to travel to Syria and volunteer to fight.

Now, ISIL et al have taken violence to such a level that even al Qaeda has distanced itself from it, and yet something about the former’s methods clearly appealed to these Bosnian (of all things!) girls. Where might they have acquired this taste for blood? Surely they would have been so traumatized by their parents’ tales of the Bosnian war and the supposed Serb killing machine that they’d have no stomach for violence. Unless the tales — like the war itself — had precisely the opposite effect.

In Germany, meanwhile, an alleged jihadist went on trial on Monday, accused of fighting in Syria for Isil.

In the first German criminal proceedings involving Isil, Kreshnik Berisha, a 20-year-old born near Frankfurt to a family from Kosovo, has been charged with membership of a foreign terrorist organisation.

Well, if this isn’t the article that just keeps on articulating. A German first, and a Kosovo Albanian is involved. Who could have seen that coming throughout the ’90s?! Frankfurt and Kosovo. What a couple.

…Berisha is believed to have become radicalised when he fell in with a group of Muslim fundamentalists while on a job training programme.

Federal prosecutors say Berisha travelled to Syria via Turkey in July 2013 with other Islamists planning to join the fight to create an Islamist “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq.

Soon after his arrival, Berisha allegedly underwent firearms training and was put to work as a medic and a guard.

In the six months he spent in Syria, he is believed to have fought in at least three battles on the side of the jihadists against President Bashar al-Assad’s troops.

He returned home for reasons that are unclear to German authorities in Dec 2013 and was arrested at Frankfurt airport…

Now, if 15 and 16 sound young for Bosnian Muslims to be all about The V (violence), check out these over-achievers. They’re barely out of their terrorist twos. I mean, terrible twos:

Al-Hayat Media Center, the media wing of ISIS, posted a video showing Bosnian children playing with guns and chanting ISIS slogans in Syria. The video was posted on the Internet on July 12, 2014.

Closing with some more Kosovo Albanians being arrested:

Kosovo ‘imams held’ in raids on Islamic State recruitment (BBC, Sept. 17)

Fifteen people have been detained in Kosovo in an operation aimed at tackling recruitment of fighters for Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.

Among them are several imams, including the head of Pristina’s Grand Mosque, Shefqet Krasniqi, local reports say.

Some 200 Kosovo Albanians have gone to fight in Syria and several have died.
…
Kosovo police did not name those arrested, publishing only their initials, but said the operation had been carried out following threats and due to the importance of national security. [Which of course first would require a nation, but who’s keeping track. Oh yes, they are.]

Many of those held were from Pristina, Prizren or the flashpoint town of Mitrovica. [Wasn’t this ‘Serb’ sellout just talking about how lovely Prizren was?]

Islamist leader Fuad Raqimi was detained after a raid on his flat, reports said.

US envoy Tracey Jacobson, in a tweet, praised Kosovo’s “pro-active response against fighters and terrorism”.

[Again, Saudi Arabia arrests terrorists too.]

Last month, 40 people were arrested as police searched dozens of sites across Kosovo, including makeshift mosques thought to have been used as recruitment centres. […]

ICLA

Statement by the International Civil Liberties Alliance
OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Session 12: Tolerance and Non-Discrimination II

Warsaw, September 30, 2014

Mr moderator, ladies and gentlemen, thank you.

We in the International Civil Liberties Alliance agree that hatred can be dangerous and lead to serious crimes. As mentioned in the opening speech, today is the anniversary of the mass murder of many Jews at the Auschwitz death camp, undoubtedly a crime motivated by hatred propagated by Nazi Germany. However when terms such as hate crimes, and speech are poorly defined, there is a risk of malicious prosecutions and even cover-ups to shut down debate inconvenient for certain groups.

Lately, we have seen many examples of this — to cite just two, in Poland, the owner of a webpage, Damian Kowalski, was investigated by police over a supposed hate crime. His webpage, ndie.pl or “No to Islamisation of Europe” reported on cases of Islamic extremism in Western countries, often simply translating reports into Polish from mainstream Western media. The police justified their investigation, and confiscation of computer equipment, by saying the accused “incited to hatred of believers of Islam”, did not elaborate on where he had done this. Meanwhile in the UK city of Rotherham, a report found that 1400 underage girls were sexually abused and groomed for prostitution by gangs that were (more or less) unanimously acknowledged to be mainly Pakistani in origin. Such abuses were found to be covered up by police and child protect services, partly as the ethnic origin of gangs made this a sensitive issue. In other words — the need not to be even suspected of inciting hatred took precedence over physical protection of young vulnerable girls.

Such abuses can take place when terms such as hate speech are loosely defined — indeed, reasons such as fascism and hate speech have been used to crack down on inconvenient viewpoints, in this very part of Europe not so long ago.

ICLA recommends terms such as hate speech are clearly defined before being considered for implementation into domestic legal systems by participating states, and that the potential for related legislation to be abused to stifle democratic debate is recognised and taken into consideration.

Thank you.

ICLA

Statement by Bürgerbewegung Pax Europa
OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Working Session 12: Tolerance and Non-Discrimination II

Warsaw, September 30, 2014

Dangerous trends in hate crimes against Jews and Christians

BPE welcomes with great pleasure the recent demonstration in Berlin against anti-Semitism, which was graced by the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This event, which also expressed support for Israel’s right to defend herself against terrorist forces, marks a new high point in awareness of this rising problem. Similar manifestations in Denmark have received significant media attention, which is good.

While not nearly as bad as in many Middle Eastern countries, intolerance and harassment against Christians is a rising problem in several OSCE pS [participating States]. The rising awareness of anti-semitism is good news, but similar awareness of ‘Christianophobia’ is needed. Intolerance of Christians on religious grounds is on the rise, and this needs countering.

Danish media are reporting that in many cases Christians of immigrant background are being persecuted and even threatened with stoning, interestingly to great extent by immigrants of Muslim background. This happens also among asylum seekers, who should be escaping persecution, not propagating it. While the situation is nothing like the catastrophic levels we are witnessing in the Middle East, it would appear that the Middle Eastern conflict patterns are being replicated in European states. This must be addressed.

It is worth noting that Islamic groups (in particular Salafist) have taken upon themselves to denigrate Jews and Christians. This inter-religious tension and conflict deserves attention and action from our secular states and institutions. Identifying not only the victims of hate crimes but also their sources should be standard operating procedure.

BPE recommends:

• That statistics be made not only about the victims of hate crimes, also about the perpetrators, in order to identify if any political or religious group appears to be causing particular problems in the field, and as a basis for further legal action if this is the case.
• That OSCE pS undertake a vetting of Islamic organizations in the political sphere to ensure that they do not give rise to radical views on adherents of other religions, and in particular that their literature and other material be investigated for endorsement of such views.
• That OSCE pS call upon Islamic organizations to issue official statements that harassment of and hate crimes against Jews, Christians or other non-Muslims is against the teachings of Islam, and that such intolerance of other religions cannot be tolerated.

ICLA

Statement by Mission Europa
OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Session 12: Tolerance and Non-Discrimination II

Warsaw, September 30, 2014

From the OSCE published document “Freedom of Expression and Hate Speech,” from the Mission to Skopje in December 2013, the following statement is made^[1]:

“Freedom of opinion is an absolute civil right, meaning no-one can jeopardize or limit human thinking, whereas freedom of expression is treated as a political right.”

What is thought if it cannot be expressed? When the right to free expression is made conditional, a mockery is made of the “absolute civil right” of freedom of opinion. An artificial distinction designed to suppress expression is created — and through it, so is thought. We cannot allow narratives the power to reduce rights to meaninglessness.

Just outside this room, we then find OSCE publications with Orwellian titles like:

• Handbook on Monitoring Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, OSCE, ODIHR
• Online Media Self-Regulation Guidebook – OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media
• Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly, 2nd – OSCE

It is with great concern that these titles are associated with discussions on hate speech where “hate speech” lacks a coherent — reasonably concrete — definition.

When hate crimes lack definition, the state is given a powerful hand against its citizens (and dissent) to make arbitrary decisions as to what constitutes hate that will end up being what the state says it is. The powerful get to impose their will on weak.

Some of my European friends noted to me recently that Europe does not have a developed doctrine on the protection of free expression comparable to the American doctrine of “Prior Restraint” (or formal censorship before publication). From Black’s Law Dictionary:

“The legal doctrine of prior restraint (or formal censorship before publication) is probably the oldest form of press control. Certainly it is one of the most efficient, since one censor, working in the watershed, can create a drought of information and ideas long before they reach the fertile plane of people’s minds. In the United States, the doctrine of prior restraint has been firmly opposed by the First Amendment, and by the Supreme Court. But the philosophy behind that doctrine lives zestfully on, and shows no signs of infirmities of age.” Black’s Law Dictionary, 9th, Bryan A. Garner, Editor in Chief, West Publishing (Thomson Reuters), St. Paul, 1314; (citing David G. Clark & Earl R. Hutchinson, Mass Media and the Law 11, 1970)

This doctrine seems especially alive and well in this forum.

Recommendation:

MISSION EUROPA recommends that heightened awareness to legal theories like “Prior Restraint” be developed and considered when assessing concepts that concern state action — including non-state actors acting under color of authority — when considering activities involving free expression.

It also recommends that distinctions between thought and expressions be considered suspect deserving strict scrutiny.

Notes: