ISLAMIC JIHAD AGAINST FREE SPEECH

Another good article from Michael Totten.  Islamic blasphemy laws are impacting the West's free speech.

This Islamic jihad against free speech started in 1989, when Iran’s tyrant Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the murder of British novelist Salman Rushdie because the author supposedly blasphemed the Islamic religion in his novel The Satanic Verses. Dozens of people connected with him, his book, and his publisher were attacked—some even killed—in countries as far away as Japan. Bookstores in the United Kingdom and United States were firebombed. The British government took the threat so seriously it provided Rushdie with an around-the-clock armed security detail, and he had to live in hiding under an assumed name for years.

Paul Marshall and Nina Shea published a grim book in 2011 called Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide. They conclude that “in Muslim-majority countries and areas, restrictions on freedom of religion and expression, based on prohibitions of blasphemy, apostasy, and ‘insulting Islam,’ are pervasive, thwart freedom, and cause suffering to millions of people.” Tragically, those millions will have to keep suffering for a while.