RUTHFULLY YOURS

The protests in Iran send a cogent message: The clerical regime stands on shaky ground, and the Iranian people are unwavering in their quest to bring it down. Slogans against velayat-e faqih, or absolute clerical rule, called for a real republic and explicitly targeted the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani. This dispels the myth, still harbored by some governments, that Iranians distinguish between moderates and hard-liners in Tehran. It also undercuts flawed arguments depicting a stable regime.

Millions of Iranians live in poverty. Yet Tehran has spent upward of $100 billion on the massacre in Syria, according to reports obtained by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. The chants of “Death to Hezbollah” and “Leave Syria, think about us instead” clearly demonstrate the people’s opposition to the regime’s belligerent regional schemes.

The country’s official budget this year allocates more than $26.8 billion to military and security affairs and the export of terrorism. This is in addition to the $27.5 billion in military spending from institutions controlled by Mr. Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The budget for health care is a mere $16.3 billion. Weak and vulnerable, the regime spends such astronomical sums on regional meddling as part of its strategy for survival.

Skeptics might point out that Iran has faced protests before. What makes the current uprising different from the 2009 protests?

Iran’s new offensive against social media is showing signs of backfiring.

Authorities in Tehran have ratcheted up their policing of the internet in the past week and a half, part of an attempt to stamp out the most far-reaching protests in Iran since 2009.

But the crackdown is driving millions of Iranians to tech tools that can help them evade censors, according to activists and developers of the tools. Some of the tools were attracting three or four times more unique users a day than they were before the internet crackdown, potentially weakening government efforts to control access to information online.

“By the time they wake up, the government will have lost control of the internet,” said Mehdi Yahyanejad, executive director of NetFreedom Pioneers, a California-based technology nonprofit that largely focuses on Iran and develops educational and freedom of information tools.

An official at Iran’s United Nations mission didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In recent days, Iran has said it has contained days of public demonstrations against the regime. Protesters used social media to spread the word about, or bear witness to, the protests, as people did during the Green Movement in 2009.

Iran blocked major social-media sites, such as Twitter Inc. and Facebook Inc., in 2009. CONTINUE AT SITE

“I… make a distinction between those who choose to practice Islam in peace and harmony with others, and those with an agenda to subvert democratic constitutions, demand special privileges over other creeds, and attack innocent people as a supremacist entitlement. It is odd to be removed from a race relations foundation for my private work in criticizing Islam, which is not a race.” — Christine Douglass-Williams, Jihad Watch, December 21, 2017.

Canada’s Motion M-103 puts Islam above all other religions in that any other religion can be discussed openly, criticized openly and even be mocked openly without punishment or state penalty.

“The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — Muslim Brotherhood Plan for North America.

Political Islam espouses the opposite of all I stand for as an activist for human rights for all. I oppose its treatment of women, female genital mutilation (FGM), child brides, killing of gays, goals to obliterate Israel, raping of infidel women, blasphemy laws etc., as any proponent of human rights and those who battle intolerance should.

For writing and warning about political Islam, I was terminated as a director at the federal government’s Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF), an agency usually at arms-length from the federal government.

As I wrote at Jihad Watch:

I have been terminated from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, four months after a threatening letter by Heritage Minister Melanie Joly about my writings on Islam at Jihad Watch,

Joly made good on her threats. The Privy Council has terminated my appointment, despite my years of dedicated commitment to the Foundation, on which I also served as Chair of the Investment Committee, and as a member of the Human Resource and Executive Committees. Why? Because I dared to criticize political Islam on Jihad Watch, and because of My Personal Warning to Icelanders, in which I warned about the deceptive works of Muslim Brotherhood operatives in their infiltration of the West. Their tactics are well documented.

I personally make a distinction between those who choose to practice Islam in peace and harmony with others, and those with an agenda to subvert democratic constitutions, demand special privileges over other creeds, and attack innocent people as a supremacist entitlement. It is odd to be removed from a race relations foundation for my private work in criticizing Islam, which is not a race.

Canadian Press (CP) gave my story balanced coverage. It was run by Post Media outlets, Canoe, The National Post and even Huffington Post. The lengthy Toronto Star story — “Board member of anti-racism agency fired amid accusations of Islamophobic commentary” — however featured a number of far-left, pro-Islamist sources; among them: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), CAIR-CAN/NCCM and the Mosaic Institute.

Happy New Year to you. On the Eighth Day of Christmas the multiculti fetishists gave to us:

An eight o’clock curfew:

VAST areas of East, North and South London have been declared “no-go zones” by terrified delivery drivers because of the acid attack epidemic, The Sun can reveal.

Moped riders say they won’t go to the violent hotspots after 8pm because they fear being attacked with acid or knives.

They have been forced to cut down their hours – taking a massive pay cut – thanks to the dangers.

The House of Commons heard last week that London has more acid attacks per head of population than any other world city.

Seven sexual assailants:

At least seven people were arrested for sexual assault in the German capital, police said, as cited by Die Welt newspaper…

In most cases, women were “groped between their legs or their buttocks,” Thomas Neuendorf from the Berlin police press office told Ruptly. “The suspects were predominantly young men from Syria or Afghanistan,” he said.

Six stabbers arrested:

Six people have been arrested following four fatal unrelated stabbings that took place on New Year’s Eve and in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Five homes raided:

Police have raided five homes as part of an anti-terror operation to foil a suspected Christmas terror plot.

Loud bangs were heard as an army bomb squad was deployed following a raid in Chesterfield and there were also operations by counter-terror officers in three parts of Sheffield.

Four women gang-raped:

Another woman has been attacked and gang raped by several men in the Swedish city of Malmö… Police have searched an area in Högaholm with a special dog for semen. The victim was taken to hospital but had no severe injuries.

Mirek Topolánek is the former prime minister of the Czech Republic and a candidate for the upcoming presidential elections, to be held January 12-13, 2018. His speech was translated by Josef Zbořil, and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

“Let us look… at the parallel legal system that is gradually creeping into the EU….The emergence of these enclaves, reinforced by elite policies of multiculturalism, group identity politics, and the deconstruction of Western heritage, has contributed to the fracturing of Western European nations and has weakened the overall sense of mutual responsibility for one’s fellow citizens.” — Andrew Michta, The American Interest, June 6, 2017

The roots of the radical Muslim behavior that is now sweeping Europe can be traced to elements of Islamic law and doctrine created in the 7th century that are being maintained today. These include polygamy for men; allowing men to buy and sell women as sex slaves or concubines; divorce rights [for men that] discriminate against women; insistence on a dress code for women that includes hiding their faces; and discriminatory inheritance laws.

These are the types of laws that Muslim communities in Europe are pushing for and adhering to, and they are based on inequality of gender, religion, ethnicity and social status. In sharia law, there is no freedom of religion, speech, thought, artistic expression or the press…There is no united protection for all people. Justice is different for Muslims and non-Muslims, for men and women… There is no democracy… Jews and Christians are dhimmi, third-class citizens…

The following are excerpts of a speech delivered by Mirek Topolánek, former prime minister of the Czech Republic and former president of the European Council, at the Legal Salon in Prague on November 2, 2017.

Equality, in the legal sense, is based on the principle of freedom and the right of every person to dignity and equal treatment before the law [such that] the law… does not [make a distinction]… between people [based on] their economic or social status, age, ethnicity, [etc.]

The principle of equality is enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, a declaration that is part of the constitutional order of the Czech Republic…

The philosophical roots of the idea of human rights based on equality can be found not only, but especially, in European culture — from the Code of Hammurabi, through the Cyrus Cylinder, the Magna Carta Libertatum, the US Declaration of Independence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The current concept and understanding of human rights as inalienable, definite and universal is a matter of the past four centuries, [culminating in] the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which includes equality as one of the basic human rights sets…

These extraordinary legal actions are almost exclusively reserved for the punishment of those who have criticized Islam.

On the contrary, it seems clear that the real reason for these prosecutions is that people in positions of authority fear violence by Muslims if their critics go unsilenced.

The same reporters and commentators who insist that it is absurd to worry about sharia coming to the West are, in fact, ideologically arm-in-arm with those in authority who are aggressively introducing sharia-style laws in the West, prosecuting speech that violates those laws, and issuing dark warnings — in tones unbefitting public officials in a free country — that you had better learn to be sharia-compliant or you will be sorry. The real lesson of all this is that we had better learn to be aggressive in our resistance to this proliferation of sharia-influenced prohibitions or we will, indeed, end up being very, very sorry.

Last September, a man named Mark Feigin posted five comments on the Facebook page of an Islamic center. They were not Islam-friendly. “THE MORE MUSLIMS WE ALLOW INTO AMERICA,” he wrote, “THE MORE TERROR WE WILL SEE.” He called Islam “dangerous” and said it has “no place in western civilization.” A couple of his comments included vulgar or profane language. On December 20, the State of California sued Feigin, charging him with violation of a penal code that reads, in part:

“Every person who, with intent to annoy or harass, makes repeated telephone calls or makes repeated contact by means of an electronic communication device… to another person is… guilty of a misdemeanor.”

According to the state Attorney General’s office, Feigin was guilty of a crime because he had engaged in “repeated harassment” of people whose religion he sought to “mock and disparage.”

Eugene Volokh, the UCLA law professor whose “Volokh Conspiracy” blog is a popular site of legal debate and discussion, wrote about Feigin’s case on December 29, noting that by the Attorney General’s logic, the state would be able to sue citizens who had written equally critical comments on, for example, an NRA or pro-Trump website. “This can’t possibly be consistent with the First Amendment,” Volokh said.

No, it certainly is not. But it is thoroughly consistent with Islamic law, sharia. The simple fact is that nowadays it would be exceedingly unlikely to see an individual in the Western world being prosecuted by a government for mocking and disparaging a gun-rights organization or a Christian politician. No, these extraordinary legal actions are almost exclusively reserved for the punishment of those who have criticized Islam.

Consider the case of Danish author Lars Hedegaard, convicted of hate speech in 2011 for mentioning in a private conversation in his own home that many Muslim women and girls are raped by members of their own families. (His conviction was later reversed by the Danish Supreme Court.) Or Dutch politician Geert Wilders, tried three times in the Netherlands — the third time successfully — for “hate speech” directed at Muslims. Or the late Italian author Oriana Fallaci, tried in both France and Italy for, respectively, “inciting religious hatred” and “defaming Islam.” Or Finnish politician Terhi Kiemunki, found guilty of “slandering and insulting adherents of the Islamic faith” because she had “claimed that all of the terrorists in Europe are Muslims.”

We were told three years ago that showering Cuba with U.S. tourists and business investments would eventually work in the interest of Cubans.

Well, it’s not working yet! It’s the same old Cuba, according to The Washington Post:

IN HAVANA on Dec. 20, a group of artists and activists were preparing to perform a piece titled “Psychosis.”

The plot revolves around a person enclosed in a very small space, showing signs of madness, who wants to leave.

The play was inspired by events in 2010 at a psychiatric hospital in Havana, where 26 patients died of hunger and cold.

The story is obviously a metaphor about the regime of Fidel and Raúl Castro, who have ruled the island for nearly six decades, intolerant of dissent and free speech.

In the performance, there were to be allusions to Raúl Castro and terms such as “dictatorship.”

Predictably, before the performance, the authorities swooped in and made arrests.

The director was detained temporarily, as well as the chief actor.

Also arrested was activist Lia Villares. When released Dec. 22, she said she had scratched a message on the prison cell walls: “Art Yes, Censorship No. I am free.” She was fined for defacing the walls.

The authorities warned her sharply against any activity on behalf of Cuba Decide.

If there is one lesson the world should have learned from Iran’s ‘Green Revolution’ of 2009 and the so-called Arab Spring that followed, it is this: the worst regimes stay. Rulers who are only averagely appalling (Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak) can be toppled by uprisings. Those who are willing to kill every one of their countrymen stay. So it is that after almost half a million dead we enter 2018 with Bashar al-Assad still President of Syria and with Iran’s mullahs approaching the 40th anniversary of their seizure of power in 1979.

Last week this lesson got a chance to be learned again when protests broke out on streets across Iran, and the world wondered which date this one might echo. A revolution finally to counter 1979? Or just another replay of the brutally suppressed protests of 2009?

The origins and cause of these latest protests are already contested. The regime claims foreign interference. Others warn of clerics even more hardline than the regime. But most early reports indicate that protesters began by highlighting the country’s living standards. Specifically, they complained about the government’s use of its recent economic bonus (from the lifting of sanctions) not to help the Iranian people, but to pursue wider regional ambitions. Iranian forces are currently fighting in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. This from a power whose defenders still claim is not expansionist.

Iran is experiencing low growth, high unemployment and inflation (10 per cent) and the increasing unaffordability of necessities such as eggs and milk. But the most striking factor is how swiftly the protests became not just critical of the government, but openly anti-regime. Outside the gates of Tehran University a crowd chanted slogans against the nation’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, including ‘Death to the dictator’. The nationwide demonstrations, which have not been led by any single demographic, class, or group, have included cries of ‘Leave Gaza, leave Lebanon, my life (only) for Iran’. Chants of ‘Death to Hezbollah’ (Iran’s terrorist proxy currently fighting in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria) have also been heard from Mashhad to Kermanshah. After several days, Ayatollah Khamenei tried to dampen this motif by appealing (unsuitably for a cleric who claims to be devoted solely to Allah and the Imam) to the patriotism of all Iranians. The regime may be worrying. Whereas 2009’s protests centred on Tehran, these are rural as well as urban, and remarkably widespread.

Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, formerly the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s research division, believes the latest protests in Iran have dealt a strategic blow to the ayatollah regime, and warns of a “domino effect” in Iran.

Even if the Iranian regime survives this, it will have sustained a serious strategic blow,” says Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, who previously headed the Israel Defense Force’s intelligence research division, referring to the wave of anti-government protests across Iran in recent weeks.

Kuperwasser knows, as does any intelligence expert, that in the Middle East, perception sometimes becomes reality. And like anyone who has served in Israeli intelligence since the 1973 Yom Kippur War debacle, he also knows that sometimes the seemingly impossible can suddenly become a reality.

In his view, the unrest that has engulfed Iran suggests that the Iranian masses have finally managed to smash the concept the ayatollah regime has perpetuated since its rise to power in 1979.

“All of a sudden, it became apparent that there is not a lot of support for the big undertaking – turning Iran into a hegemonic power in the region – and for the Islamic idea. It turns out that it is just an empty slogan,” Kuperwasser says.

He adds that unlike the protests of 2009, when the Iranian masses took to the streets to protest against election fraud, the current protests are not about a specific grievance but against the very idea of the Islamic republic.

“The protests, in large part, reflect a demand not just for reform but for a revolutionary change,” he says.