# Ultimatum to US: Criminalise blasphemy or lose consulate



## Big Don (Sep 17, 2012)

[h=1]Ultimatum to US: Criminalise blasphemy or lose consulate[/h] 		 		 									By Rana Tanveer International Herald Tribune EXCERPT:

 						Published: September 17, 2012

*LAHORE: * *Several Muslim parties and a Christian group held rallies on Sunday to protest against a movie released in America.*

 Around 10,000 people participated in the main rally organised on The  Mall by the Tehreek Hurmat-i-Rasool (THR). The participants marched from  Nila Gumbad to Masjid-i-Shuhada on The Mall. Despite a ban on rallies  on The Mall, the road remained blocked for vehicular traffic from noon  to 6pm.
 The rally was addressed by Jamatud Dawa chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed,  THR head Ameer Hamza, JD leader Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Pakistan  Muslim League (Zia) head Ijazul Haq, Jamaat Ulema Islam-Sami (JUI-S)  leader Asim Makhdoom and Jamaat Ahle Hadith ameer Hafiz Abdul Ghaffar  Ropari.
 One of the participants of the rally, Abdullah Ismail, passed away  after he was taken to Mayo Hospital. Witnesses said he had complained of  feeling unwell from the smoke from US flags burnt at the rally.
 Hafiz Saeed alleged that the film, Innocence of Muslims, had been  produced with the backing of US establishment. He said the director, the  producer and all those involved in the production and release of the  movie must be hanged publicly. The US must make a law against blasphemy   or we will not let the US consulates in Pakistan function, he said.
End excerpt


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## Sukerkin (Sep 17, 2012)

:shakes head at the insanity that is being shown for all to see:

Why is it that otherwise intelligent people (so I assume) are acting with such evident lack of regard for how their actions (and the actions of those they whip up to a fervour) paint an abhorent picture of their faith before the rest of the world?

It is this sort of action that dances on the edge of the volcano of World War III when governments begin to be flavoured by their religious/ideological fanatics.  Given Pakistan's awful track record on many other issues they would be better served to try to present a more rational front than acquiesce to this eye-popped-froth-lipped extremism.


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## jezr74 (Sep 17, 2012)

Did this really happen?
That's insignificant number considering the alleged "several" groups involved,why would the press even print this. The photo looks like a royalty free image used else where as well for other stories. 

Not sure I've seen Muslims and Christian activism working together much before. Looks like propaganda to me.


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## jezr74 (Sep 17, 2012)

Is this meant to be an article around the YouTube video?


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## Big Don (Sep 17, 2012)

Assistant Attorney General dodges question re:blasphemy


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## Big Don (Sep 17, 2012)

Sukerkin said:


> :shakes head at the insanity that is being shown for all to see:
> 
> Why is it that otherwise intelligent people (so I assume) are acting with such evident lack of regard for how their actions (and the actions of those they whip up to a fervour) paint an abhorent picture of their faith before the rest of the world?


During the early 80's, when the IRA was really rough and tumble in Ireland, we would regularly see other Christians decrying their actions as UNCHRISTIAN. When Muslim terrorists commit acts of terrorism, the people loudly claiming that those actions aren't inline with Islam, are mostly politicians...
Why does the silent majority of Muslims remain silent? Is it fear of reprisal? Or, tacit approval?
IMO, their fear of reprisal keeps them silent, which looks to all the world, including those Muslims who are terrorists, as tacit approval of terrorism.


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## Omar B (Sep 17, 2012)

Ultimatum?  Criminalize blasphemy?  Thinking religious zealots outside our country will have any effect on the way we run things.  Don't these people realize that even the president (who technically runs things) doesn't run things at all, it's still us, the people.  

The muslim community outside the US needs to speak up in terms of what they think of the actions of their zealots.  Politicians lie, I would rather hear from their people themselves.  Or do they not see that the entire world sees them as bat-crap insane.


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## Tgace (Sep 17, 2012)

Big Don said:


> Assistant Attorney General dodges question re:blasphemy




Hmmmm...


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## Sukerkin (Sep 17, 2012)

By pure coincicence, I think it's coincidence at least, today I have been listening to a podcast about Salman Rushdie.  Part of it, of course, touched on the notions of censorship and the perhaps more insidious self censorship that fear of repurcussions.  It is a most thought provoking fourty minutes or so and reminded me, who had forgotten, just how similar the extremes of emotion and proclaimation were back then for Salman Rushdie's book as they are in the case of that deliberately offensive film:

*Start the Week with Andrew Marr
**Salman Rushdie 17th September 2012
Mon, 17 Sep 12*
*Duration:42 mins 
In a special edition of Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to Salman Rushdie.

*http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/stw/stw_20120917-0950a.mp3

I don't know if that link will work for those outside the UK, so I've included the details of the podcast to allow people to search for it themselves.


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## Tez3 (Sep 17, 2012)

Andrew Marr is a good one to interview someone about censorship as he took a 'super' injunction out to stop the press even mentioning his name in conjunction with words such as extra martial affair and cheating etc. He was knocking off some woman and he stops anyone even talking about it, nice.


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## Sukerkin (Sep 17, 2012)

Err, okay ... I don't see why that could be thought to be relevant?

For clarity's sake, I'll just reiterate that it's Salman Rushdie talking about *his* experiences with the fatwah rather than Andrew Marr talking about his legal right to curtail salacious gossip.  

The nature and nurturing of the freedom of thought as well as speech is rather a different kettle of fish to scandal mongering.  Just ask a certain French photographer and magazine .


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## cdunn (Sep 17, 2012)

Omar B said:


> Ultimatum? Criminalize blasphemy? Thinking religious zealots outside our country will have any effect on the way we run things. Don't these people realize that even the president (who technically runs things) doesn't run things at all, it's still us, the people.
> 
> The muslim community outside the US needs to speak up in terms of what they think of the actions of their zealots. Politicians lie, I would rather hear from their people themselves. Or do they not see that the entire world sees them as bat-crap insane.



We don't hear about the others very often. Covering crowds in the street apologizing to America draws neither the eyeballs of the people who just want to get by, nor the haters, therefore, isn't profitable; and since they're corporations, the only point to the news media is the profit of the shareholders, right, kids?


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## granfire (Sep 17, 2012)

cdunn said:


> We don't hear about the others very often. Covering crowds in the street apologizing to America draws neither the eyeballs of the people who just want to get by, nor the haters, therefore, isn't profitable; and since they're corporations, the only point to the news media is the profit of the shareholders, right, kids?



yeah, screw unbias _news_ 
(man, we are so F.......)


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## Omar B (Sep 17, 2012)

cdunn said:


> We don't hear about the others very often. Covering crowds in the street apologizing to America draws neither the eyeballs of the people who just want to get by, nor the haters, therefore, isn't profitable; and since they're corporations, the only point to the news media is the profit of the shareholders, right, kids?



So where are the muslims who want to go out and make a positive image for themselves and their people.  How about an Imam record one of their sermons one day teaching peace and upload that, I bet it'll be a hit.  What happened to the rational ones who would make a video, write an article, do something of the sort?  In the age of the internet we don't need news outlets to make a statement.  If the news is not giving them an outlet how come they can't post a few videos on youtube?  How many times has a video started trending then become a world wide phenomenon, like the last lecture.  Where's their positive statement?  Where's their outreach to help make the world as a whole a better place.


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## granfire (Sep 17, 2012)

Omar B said:


> So where are the muslims who want to go out and make a positive image for themselves and their people.  How about an Imam record one of their sermons one day teaching peace and upload that, I bet it'll be a hit.  What happened to the rational ones who would make a video, write an article, do something of the sort?  In the age of the internet we don't need news outlets to make a statement.  If the news is not giving them an outlet how come they can't post a few videos on youtube?  How many times has a video started trending then become a world wide phenomenon, like the last lecture.  Where's their positive statement?  Where's their outreach to help make the world as a whole a better place.



It would be.

But with all reasonable people in this world, there is one problem: 
They are busy making a decent living. They don't have the time to stand on street corners (btw, protests are cheap to by in the US, I can't imagine what 20 dollars buys you in term of a mob in Pakistan...)
And since they are reasonable, they don't tend to be making a lot of noise. 

Maybe we should demand better from our media...to not film the loud mouths, but show the whole picture.

There were a small group of Iranians protesting the 9/11 events, pro US. I don't think many people have heard about that.


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## blindsage (Sep 17, 2012)

cdunn said:


> We don't hear about the others very often. Covering crowds in the street apologizing to America draws neither the eyeballs of the people who just want to get by, nor the haters, therefore, isn't profitable; and since they're corporations, the only point to the news media is the profit of the shareholders, right, kids?



Let's just post some of those.


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## granfire (Sep 17, 2012)

blindsage said:


> Let's just post some of those.



That is touching!


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## WC_lun (Sep 17, 2012)

There are Muslims who are trying to make thier lives better.  Many of the people involved with the "Arab Spring" would fit that bill.  Remember many of those countries have not seen democracy not in decades, but thousands of years.  It is niave to think that such revolution in the Middle East is not going to have some problems. There are also an extremist minority that are taking advantage of the vaccumn of power to promote thier own agenda.  Normal men and women struggling with such upheaval are doing thier best just trying to survive.  So while they do not support the violence, they do not have the resources to make a big deal of it. Add that our own media highlighting the violence because it is great for the news cycle, yet do not show those Muslims who do show support for the US.  An example of this is ignoring that the government of Lybia had nothing to do with the attacks and there were even protest against the violence there showing support for both the US and Chris Stephens.  Yet many condemned Lybia for the attacked.  Violent images sells and the ignorant abound.


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## Sukerkin (Sep 18, 2012)

To round this out a little from other sources, here is a link to the BBC where ordinary peoples reactions are being reported:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19593578


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## Omar B (Sep 18, 2012)




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## Carol (Sep 18, 2012)

Omar B said:


> So where are the muslims who want to go out and make a positive image for themselves and their people.  How about an Imam record one of their sermons one day teaching peace and upload that, I bet it'll be a hit.  What happened to the rational ones who would make a video, write an article, do something of the sort?  In the age of the internet we don't need news outlets to make a statement.  If the news is not giving them an outlet how come they can't post a few videos on youtube?  How many times has a video started trending then become a world wide phenomenon, like the last lecture.  Where's their positive statement?  Where's their outreach to help make the world as a whole a better place.




https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugex...qf.&fp=cbcf3e5d8bf8da4a&biw=1366&bih=667&bs=1


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## Tez3 (Sep 19, 2012)

Sukerkin said:


> Err, okay ... I don't see why that could be thought to be relevant?
> 
> For clarity's sake, I'll just reiterate that it's Salman Rushdie talking about *his* experiences with the fatwah rather than Andrew Marr talking about his legal right to curtail salacious gossip.
> 
> The nature and nurturing of the freedom of thought as well as speech is rather a different kettle of fish to scandal mongering. Just ask a certain French photographer and magazine .



It's got a lot to do with free speech actually, was it salacious gossip or was the fact he thought he could talk about politicaians affairs as being in the public domain but not his? The idea of super injunctions where you aren't even allowed to mention a peson name is an insidious breach of free speech in this country and is in fact the thin edge of the wedge. These super injunctions are being used to hide from the public not just what politicians and 'celebrities' are up to but quite a bit of what the government is up to and that does concern us. If you don't know about a lot of things the government is doing, look to the super injunctions.


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## Sukerkin (Sep 19, 2012)

Ah I see. I think we were talking about slightly different things, Tez.  I see and appreciate that you wanted to raise the issue of free speach in general rather than the rise of self censorship, especially when it comes to speaking about the more extreme religions in the world .


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## Instructor (Sep 19, 2012)

As a Christian I also hate blasphemy.  I've walked out of movies before because the language got to be more than I cared to allow.  However, as an American I love freedom and the right to pretty much say or do what you want so long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of others.

If movies offend you, don't watch them.  In our country the most powerful thing you can do is vote with your wallet.


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## WC_lun (Sep 19, 2012)

Instructor, I appreciate what you are saying, but I think the key phrase in your post is "In our country."


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## Big Don (Sep 19, 2012)

WC_lun said:


> Instructor, I appreciate what you are saying, but I think the key phrase in your post is "In our country."



Then you woefully missed the point. 





Instructor said:


> If movies offend you, don't watch them.


If you don't like something, by all means avoid it. It's called being an adult.


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## arnisador (Sep 19, 2012)

Surely anyone making a 'criminalize blasphemy' demand would know the demand would never be met and would be using it just to fan the fires.


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## WC_lun (Sep 20, 2012)

Big Don said:


> Then you woefully missed the point.
> If you don't like something, by all means avoid it. It's called being an adult.



I think you woefully miss my point.  No worries, I'll try to make it simpler for you. The idiots causing the violence and upheaval haven't seen the movie.  They are reacting to much more than the movie, some of it real and some of it not.  Thier wallet has NOTHING to do with thier actions.  Thier spending or not would not effect  what is going on at all because it isn't about paying to support or not support a movie.  Instructor's second sentence is moot and does not apply in this circumstance.


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