Cri De Coeur: A Civil Society Appeal To Politicians, Academia And The Media

By: Aeneas Lavinium
ICLA

On March 13th, 2013, it became known that only an energetic, last-minute intervention of police averted a brutal attempt by radical Muslims in Leverkusen, Germany, to assassinate Markus Beisicht, chairman of a right wing regional party. Also if, for whatever reasons, you may be strongly critical of the political position of Markus Beisicht and his party, one must not turn a blind eye to the facts here, that the imported Islamic extremism and terrorism constitute a growing and ever more dangerous threat potential.

Five weeks earlier, the newspaper editor Lars Hedegaard, who is also chairman of the Danish Free Press Society, narrowly survived an assassination attempt in Copenhagen, by a still unknown gunman. Significantly less lucky were the Dutchmen Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, murdered in 2002 and 2004 respectively. Numerous other Islam-critics need round-the-clock protection from police and security agencies. Pim Fortuyn explained, while he was alive, that in case something was to happen to him, politicians and the media would be responsible for it, “because they have created the public sentiment to facilitate that.”

Since the terrible Islamic terrorist attacks in the US on September 11th 2001, where almost 3000 innocent people died, all of those who have spoken critically against the ideology of Islam have been demonized by our media and our politicians in ways that encourage radical Muslims to perform such acts. We protest this procreation of an aggressive enemy stereotype of Islam-critics, which increasingly poses a threat to domestic peace.

Affirming that:

The 57-member Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has been trying for years to undermine and criminalize criticism of Islam worldwide, and in contempt of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is seeking to substitute it with the so-called “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam,” which subordinates human rights to Shariah.
The OIC, through the so-called “Istanbul Process,” is attempting to force its agenda on non-Islamic countries through influencing governments, lawmakers, multinational organizations, NGOs, docile academics and media professionals.
Politicians of all stripes worldwide, either willfully or out of ignorance, have created a political climate in which it has become dangerous to address the human rights abuses due to Islam without being stigmatized as “racists,” “right wing extremists” or “Islamophobes.”
Academics at universities and other institutions promote a form of cultural relativism, which lets civil liberties and individual human rights be determined by ethnic origin, favoring culturally justified collectivism over individual rights.
Large parts of the media promote a form of multiculturalism which greatly impedes open discourse about the actual problems in our societies that are caused by uncontrolled immigration from the Islamic world.
Representatives of Islamic organizations loudly protest every perceived disadvantage or imaginary discrimination against their clientèle, but are remarkably silent when it comes to cases of terror attacks, immigrant violence and assassination attempts.
This has led to social distortions and even reversal of cause and effect, between victim and perpetrator, leading to the precarious situation that potential assassins and terrorists may actually feel encouraged, since the requisite social ostracism for their actions does not materialize, or that their actions appear to be justified by their contemporaries, even possibly causing “clandestine joy” among them.

We therefore invite all stakeholders in civil society to join this appeal, to call upon our politicians, academics and the media:

To recognize that criticism of Islam is perfectly legitimate as is criticism of any other kind of religion or ideology.
To immediately cease smearing factual criticism of Islam as “racism,” “right wing extremism,” “right wing radicalism” or so-called “Islamophobia.”
To facilitate and conduct an open and unbiased discourse on problems related to immigration from Islamic areas, to Islam and to integration of immigrants.
To protect equally the constitutional rights of all citizens, regardless of genealogy, gender or political or philosophical preferences.
To give freedom of expression, artistic freedom and academic freedom their legally guaranteed precedence over personal and religious sensitivities.
To effectively stop all efforts of the OIC, its allied states and agencies, to limit freedom of expression through legal means.
To bring about a political climate, in which violence as a tool to accomplish political or religious goals can find no justification.
To proceed, under the rule of law, with equal consistency against violent right wing extremists, left wing extremists as well as religious extremists.
To safeguard legal certainty by giving higher priority to protecting victims of crimes than protecting perpetrators’ rights.
To assure that religious law, for instance Shariah, may not be enforced in any way.
To call for a halt to all activities that would lead to the Islamization of civil society.