RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quillette.com/2018/10/30/upholding

In his provocative essay The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine didn’t mince words on Christianity. ”What is it the Bible teaches us?” he asked, and answered: ”rapine, cruelty and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us?—to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.”

In 1819, the English deist Richard Carlile was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in prison for selling the Age of Reason.

Today Tom Paine is celebrated as one of the Enlightenment’s foremost champions of human rights. But even 200 years after his conviction Carlile might not have been vindicated had he been able to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights. In a recent ruling, the Court upheld the conviction of an Austrian citizen for an ”abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam which could stir up prejudice and threaten religious peace” for denouncing the Prophet Muhammad as a “pedophile.” The Court insisted that the comments could arouse “justified indignation” in religious believers who have a right to have their religious feelings protected. Moreover, states have wide discretion to prevent such “improper attacks on religious groups” in order to ensure social and religious peace. Paine would have been shocked and horrified by such logic. And it is deeply regrettable that the Court declined to revisit its long-held doctrine that the freedoms of religion and speech are conflicting rather than complementary rights.

Paine’s scathing attack on holy scripture was clearly offensive to many Christians—US President Theodore Roosevelt later called Paine “a filthy little Atheist.” But the harsh attacks on the authority of religion by Paine and other Enlightenment figures contributed to a broadening concept of tolerance encompassing both the right to express, critique and reject religious doctrines. So the Court’s insistence that the freedoms of religion and speech are in conflict when the latter is used to attack the former is regressive, however noble the purposes of securing “social peace” and “tolerance.” The Court’s reasoning is ultimately based on protecting the secular aim of peaceful co-existence rather than religious doctrine. But the underlying idea that expressions offensive to religious dogma constitute a threat to the social and religious peace of society has deep roots stretching back centuries.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/china-global-maritime-commerce-ambitions-us-must-respond/

Beijing’s ambitious campaign to dominate global maritime commerce is in full swing. Here’s how the U.S. must respond.

In a speech at the Hudson Institute earlier this month, Vice President Mike Pence said that the American people deserve to know of the strategy behind China’s economic and political competition with the U.S. — and of what the Trump administration is doing to counter the Middle Kingdom’s challenge to U.S. security.

“Beijing is employing a whole-of-government approach, using political, economic, and military tools, as well as propaganda, to advance its influence and benefit its interests in the United States,” Pence said, and “applying this power in more proactive ways than ever before, to exert influence and interfere in the domestic policy and politics of our country.”

While the vice president was speaking of the U.S., the American people also deserve to know that China is employing the same playbook beyond our shores, with considerable success. In effect, China has landed, not only by militarizing artificial islands it built in the South China Sea, but by building or acquiring seaports, logistics terminals, and related transportation, communication, and energy assets in more than a dozen countries around the globe, including U.S. allies in the EU and Latin America.

Unlike the high-profile takeover of an American technology company by a Chinese one, the threat to U.S. security posed by China’s new maritime network is all too easy to overlook. Although 90 percent of the world’s energy, commodities, and manufactured goods are transported by ship, few consumers have any direct exposure to shipping or the logistical operations that comprise the “supply chain” of our globalized economy.

But maritime commerce is the operating system of that economy, running constantly in the background in much the same way the operating system of a smartphone powers apps. Control of the components of the system — ports, terminals, and the roads and railways that connect ships to stores — gives China significant leverage over the essential economic functions of the countries where those assets are located.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13208/pakistan-asia-bibi-acquitted

Asia Bibi was sentenced to death in 2010 because she is a Christian and because she was thirsty. Today, justice was served when her conviction was overturned.

Now, Bibi may be targeted for assassination when she is released. Islamists have placed a bounty on her head of 50 million rupees ($375,000). Salman Taseer, a brave Muslim who was governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, was murdered just for expressing support for her. Pakistan’s federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, was also murdered for defending Bibi.

Lawyers defending Christians and others accused of blasphemy are sometimes murdered as well.

In the ultimate irony, just a few days ago, the so-called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld this same blasphemy law. The ECHR ruling is unspeakable. It is time to remove the unelected judges of that unaccountable and unappealable court.

After 3,422 days of cruel and unjustified imprisonment as “the first woman to be sentenced to death for blasphemy,” the death penalty verdict against Asia Noreen Bibi has finally been overturned.

Pakistan’s Supreme today set aside the death sentence against Bibi, a Roman Catholic mother of five. After being convicted in a trial in 2010 for false accusations of “blasphemy”, now justice has actually prevailed. Killing Bibi because her Muslim co-workers were offended that she, an “unclean” Christian, drank water from a communal well, was too much even for Pakistan, where Christians are habitually persecuted.

Bibi is now being “held at an undisclosed location for security reasons.” Islamist hardliners have already threatened the judges that if she is freed, those responsible would meet a “horrible” end.

On June 14, 2009, Asia Bibi drank water from a communal well on a hot day, while working in a field. Two Muslim women alleged that because she, a Christian, had touched the water from the well, the entire well was now haram (forbidden by Islamic law). Asia responded by saying “I think Jesus would see if differently from Mohammed,” that Jesus had “died on the cross for the sins of mankind,” and asked, “What did your Prophet Muhammad ever do to save mankind?” This enraged the other women, who pushed and spit on her.

Five days later, as she worked in another field, a crowd of “dozens of men and women,” calling for Bibi’s death, beat her savagely and carried her to the village, where police arrested her. Qari Muhammad Sallam, the village imam (who had not been present at the water dispute), and the women who said Bibi had defiled the well-water, told the police chief that Bibi had “insulted the Prophet Mohammed.”

On November 8, 2010, after just five minutes of deliberation, Asia Noreen Bibi, under Article 295 of Pakistan’s Penal Code, was sentenced to death by hanging.

Asia Bibi was sentenced to death because she is a Christian and because she was thirsty.

Islamists cheered the verdict. Asia Bibi was alone against an entire country ready to sacrifice its weak Christian minority to appease the Islamists. After Bibi’s arrest, her family moved houses 15 times in five years. In the last weeks there have been reports of Asia suffering dementia. Eight years of solitary confinement, with the daily risk of being murdered in prison, have been a brutal form of psychological torture. For fear of being poisoned in prison, Bibi was allowed even to prepare her own meals.

A few days ago, during the plenary meeting in Strasbourg, the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, said:

“Asia Bibi enraged some women for having drunk from a well. According to those women, such contact with Christian lips would have contaminated the water. After being attacked and reported for blasphemy, Asia Bibi risks being hanged. I ask the Pakistani authorities… to make sure that woman can have a fair trial and to avoid any form of discrimination or religious prejudice.”

Now, we must fear that when Bibi is released, she will be targeted for assassination. Islamists have placed a bounty on her head of 50 million rupees ($375,000).

Salman Taseer, a brave Muslim who was governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, paid with his life just for expressing support for Asia; he was murdered by his own bodyguard, who said “he did this because Mr Taseer recently defended the proposed amendments to the blasphemy law.” In another example of justice prevailing, his murderer, Mumtaz Qadri, was executed.

However, lawyers defending Christians and others accused of blasphemy in Pakistan are sometimes murdered as well. Pakistan’s federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, was also murdered for defending Bibi. Although no one has even been officially executed in Pakistan for the crime of blasphemy, “many have been murdered purely on the basis of accusations against them”, Newsweek reported. According to Human Rights Watch, since 1990 at least 60 people accused of blasphemy have been murdered. Last year, a student was lynched by a mob for allegedly committing blasphemy.

Thousands of extremist Muslims rallied in Pakistan in the last few weeks in order to pressure judges to uphold the death sentence. They chanted “Hang infidel Asia” as they marched through the streets. Now Pakistani Islamists say that the judges who acquitted Asia Bibi “deserve death”. That is why Bibi now needs to flee the country. Several countries have already offered her asylum.

Since Asia Bibi was condemned to death, Christians in Pakistan have suffered a string of especially deadly terror attacks. An Islamist suicide bomber even targeted and slaughtered Christian children at a playground in a public park. Where was the West?

French priest Pierre-Hervé Grosjean asked in Le Figaro:

“How could the country of human rights be silent in the face of this injustice? … How can one want to save the Christians of Iraq from the barbarians of ISIS, if one is not able to save a Christian from the laws of an allied country?… Non-believing friends, her fate also concerns you: through her, it is the freedom and the dignity of each one that you defend. Your word is precious and courageous. Your silence would be terrible”.

But the silence has been terrible.

No one took the streets of Europe to protest Asia Bibi’s imprisonment. No major Western columnist penned articles proclaiming “Je Suis Asia Bibi.” Western secular human rights groups, always ready and willing to embrace any cause, largely remained missing in action. The campaigners to free terrorists from a relatively comfortable prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had no time to ask for Asia Bibi’s release. No feminist organization supported this Christian mother. The United Nations, which just condemned France for its law banning the niqab, also stood silent. It was a conspiracy of cowardice.

After years in a windowless cell, Asia Bibi has triumphed over her would-be executioners. Injustice against Christians will continue, however, along with the West’s craven silence in the face of their persecution. Asia Bibi’s case is also the story of the West’s moral suicide.

Where have our philosophers, humanists and journalists been during these last nine years of injustice? It is this sad indifference that is devouring the West.

In the ultimate irony, just a few days ago, the so-called European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld the same sort blasphemy law. The ECHR ruling is unspeakable. As Grégor Puppinck, head of the European Centre for Law and Justice, said, “the decision by the ECHR would have justified the conviction of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons…” It is time to remove the unelected judges of that unaccountable and unappealable court.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

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