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Counterjihad, In many European countries, freedom of speech no longer exists

Bowing to the Islamists



Last Thursday, a group of 80 people from 15 European countries, plus Israel, Canada and the United States, convened in a conference room on the seventh floor of the European Parliament building in Brussels for a "counterjihad" meeting.

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They listened to speakers such as the Egyptian-born scholar Bat Ye'or, author of the book "Eurabia," who explained how the European Union (EU) has become a vehicle for the Islamization of Europe and how the EU has promoted "a massive Muslim immigration [...] hoping that the Euro-Arab symbiosis through economic development, soft diplomacy and multiculturalism would guarantee [Europe] peace, markets and oil." The citizens of Europe are extremely worried by this Islamization process, but their political leaders impose it on them against their wish. Europe is in worse shape than America because European democracies lack two pillars of freedom that America still has -- solidly enshrined in the first and second amendments of its Constitution. In many European countries, freedom of speech no longer exists. It has been restricted by laws intended to curb so-called "hate speech." These laws forbid people to express their worries about massive immigration and about the Islamization of their nations. Europe, with few exceptions, such as Switzerland, is also unfamiliar with the second pillar of free societies: the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. In countries such as Belgium even pepper spray is an illegal weapon. The result is that the law-abiding citizens are at the mercy of criminals, many of them of foreign extraction. While the delegates at the counterjihad meeting, who had been invited to the European Parliament by one of Europe's so-called far-right parties, discussed strategies to counter the spread of Islamism, EU bureaucrats convened in a meeting room two floors below. On the fifth floor of the parliament building, they discussed the "harmonization" of self-defense legislation in the 27 EU member states. This means that, if the EU gets its way, the citizens of all member states will soon be submitted to Belgium's strict rules and that pepper sprays will be banned everywhere. Meanwhile, as became clear from the country reports given at the counterjihad meeting, Europe's no-go zones are multiplying. These are areas where the police no longer dare to venture and where Islamists hold sway. Every night since the beginning of last week, immigrant youths have been torching cars and clashing with police in Amsterdam's Slotervaart district. The incidents started Oct. 14 when a policewoman shot dead a 22-year old ethnic Moroccan while he was stabbing her and a colleague with a knife. Senior police officers compare the current situation in Amsterdam to the 2005 Ramadan riots in Paris. Media outside the Netherlands, however, hardly mention the riots, which aim to drive the police from Slotervaart and turn the neighborhood into a new no-go area--yet another pocket of Eurabia on Europe's soil. Similar events are currently taking place in Brussels, the capital of neighboring Belgium and of the EU. Last Sunday, demonstrating Turkish youths ransacked an Armenian pub in the Sint-Joost-ten-Node borough. According to the pub owner, police were present at the scene but did not interfere while his pub was being demolished. The Armenian owner, who by Belgian law is not allowed to possess pepper spray, had to flee for his life. The situation in Brussels remains tense. Fortunately, there is some good news as well. Last Sunday, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) won 29 percent of the votes and 62 of the 200 seats in Switzerland's federal parliament, the National Council. This is the largest number of seats that any Swiss party has ever won since 1919. During its campaign the SVP used a controversial poster, showing three white sheep standing on the Swiss flag. One of the white sheep kicked a black sheep off the flag. The caption read: "Bringing safety." The SVP poster wanted to emphasize that foreigners commit four times as many crimes as the Swiss do and that this situation will no longer be tolerated. Everyone knows which segment of the foreign population the term "black sheep" refers to. Even law-abiding foreigners living in Switzerland realize what the SVP's true message is: Get rid of those aliens who perpetrate crimes. Parties in the rest of Europe would be persecuted for using similar posters because people are not allowed to contemplate the issue, but the Swiss are able to raise their voices. It is no coincidence that the freedom-loving Alpine republic consistently refuses to join the EU. This piece was originally published in The Washington Times on October 24, 2007. Paul Belien is the editor of Secessie and The Brussels Journal. Paul is a columnist at the Flemish weekly Pallieterke and at the Flemish monthly Doorbraak and a regular contributor to the Flemish conservative monthly Nucleus, which he co-founded in 1990. Older articles by Paul Belien, Brussels Journal Paul can be reached at: paul.belien@pandora.be


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