http://www.tweedekamer.nl/leden_com...merdet7798.html

A Dutch court sentenced the killer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh to life in prison Tuesday, the harshest sentence possible for a murder that heightened ethnic tensions and raised concerns about homegrown Islamic terrorism.

Muhammad Bouyeri, 27, had mounted no defense at his two-day trial earlier this month for the November 2 slaying of Van Gogh, whom he accused of insulting Islam, and told the court he would do it again if given the chance.

Presiding Judge Udo Willem Bentinck said life in prison was the only fitting punishment for a crime that sought to undermine Dutch democracy and the political system. He said the three-judge panel had concluded there was no possibility for Bouyeri to return to society, citing his lack of remorse.

Bouyeri showed no emotion as he shook his lawyer's hand following the verdict. He had earlier told the court he had intended to die in the action and become a martyr for his faith.

Bouyeri has two weeks if he wants to lodge an appeal, but that appeared unlikely.

He was convicted of the murder, described in the judgment as a terrorist attack, the attempted murder of bystanders and police officers, illegal possession of firearms and of impeding the work of a member of parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whom he had threatened to kill in a letter impaled in Van Gogh's chest.

The judgment said Bouyeri had shown "a complete disregard for human life." Van Gogh was "butchered mercilessly," it said, and it was "a miracle that only two bystanders were hit by stray bullets."

Bouyeri ambushed the filmmaker on an Amsterdam street, shot him repeatedly, stabbed him and slit his throat before thrusting his manifesto into his chest on the point of a knife.

Some witnesses said he was so calm "it looked like he was out walking his dog," the judge said, describing the murder and the subsequent shootout with police.

In his earlier court appearance, Bouyeri said he had acted in the name of Islam and felt no pain for Van Gogh's family. "What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith," he told the court. "I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet."

Bouyeri is the son of Moroccan immigrants but was raised and educated in the Netherlands.

Van Gogh, a distant relative of the 19th-century painter Vincent van Gogh, was a social critic and columnist who attacked the treatment of women in fundamentalist Islamic households in a short film, Submission, which offended many Muslims.

The film's scriptwriter was Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of parliament who went into hiding for several months after Van Gogh's murder because she was named in the note left on the corpse.

The killing led to dozens of arson attacks against Islamic schools and mosques and has strained relations with the country's 1 million Muslim immigrants.

The judgment referred to Bouyeri's links with a terrorist cell known as the Hofstad Network. He was said to have attended private prayer sessions with a Syrian spiritual leader, Redouan al-Issar, who is reportedly in custody in Damascus.

On Wednesday, another Dutch court will review the case of a dozen suspected Hofstad Network members. Though they were not accused of having links to Van Gogh's murder, prosecutors say they were plotting other terrorist attacks.

The Satanic Verses

In the religion of Islam, The Satanic Verses refer to a short passage of text purported to have existed in an early draft of the Koran. Islamic scholars today disagree as to whether these verses ever actually existed, or if their history is a fable.

Translated from Arabic, the satanic verses are "these are exalted females whose intercession is to be desired" in the 53rd sura[?] of the Koran, Surat-annajm ("The Star"). The females referred to were the goddesses Lat, Manat, and Uzza[?], who were popular deities in pre-Islamic Arabia. According to legend, Mohammed originally accepted these verses as part of the Koran, until a visit from the angel Jabril revealed that the verses were actually a deception planted in Mohammed's head from Satan, and they were therefore not the authentic word of Allah.

The events surrounding the Satanic Verses were documented by the four earliest biographers of Mohammed; Ibn Ishaq, Wakidi, Ibn Sa'd, and Tabari. Additionally, the Hadith and the Koran both contain passages that can be interpreted as referring to these events.



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In a completely separate definition, The Satanic Verses is a novel by Salman Rushdie, inspired thematically in part by the historical incident that Mohammed experienced. It caused much controversy upon publication in 1989, as many Muslims considered it to contain blasphemous references.

Shortly after, a fatwa was placed on the author by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini promising his execution. Rushdie was condemned not for insulting Islam per se, but rather for comitting apostasy, or attempting to leave the faith, as Rushdie communicates in the novel that he now believes Islam is a sham. Committing apostasy is usually recognised as being a crime that carries the death sentence under Islamic law.

The book, like many others of Rushdie's, concerns Indians living in England, and Indians imbued with English culture[?] returning to India. It opens with a terrorist attack by supporters of a Sikh homeland on an aeroplane above the English Channel (based upon real events). The two protagonists miraculously survive the fall about the explosion; indeed, feel they are reborn: Gibreel Farishta grows angelic wings and Saladin Chamcha later, to his dismay finds himself growing horns on his head.

The controversy arose over Rushdie's portrayal of Prophet Mohammad as a fallible human character and more so, the interpretation of the Satanic Verses as evidence that the Quran was not infallibly divine. ISBN 0312270828


External Links
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/anglophone/satanic_verses/
http://www.flightpath.com/stories/1992/04/10/satanicVersesAndLastTempta.html : This is a very good account of the actual reasons for the controversy surrounding this book. It also discusses a similar attack on a film by the name The Last Temptation of Christ.

Why I Am Not A Muslim


A review of the book
By Dr. Ali Sina
In Why I Am Not A Muslim, Ibn Warraq, exposes the bitter truth about Islam without sugarcoating it. He is learned and his book is well documented. He lashes out at the western intellectuals who instead of condemning the assassination order of a savage man like Khomeini against Salman Rushdi, chose to criticize Rushdi for his book The Satanic Verses because it was not “politically correct”. Warraq talks about the brutal treatments of all those who fell under the domination of Islam, from the time of Muhammad to the present days. He talks about the minorities, philosophers, women and slaves in Islam. Jews were massacred and exiled by Muhammad in Medina and Kheibar; their belongings were distributed among the “believers”, their women and children taken as slaves. This heinous act of barbarism was repeated time and again throughout history with Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus, and in recent years with Ahmedies, Baha’is and other minorities in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, India, Syria and everywhere Islam reined.

Warraq talks about the origin of Islam, its pagan background and the influence of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism on Muhammad. He talks about the origin of Allah in Arab culture, about the early days of Muhammad as a preacher and his rivalry with another storyteller “Al Nadir” and his revenge against him. Warraq traces back the origin of many Islamic rituals to Arab superstitions and Muhammad’s strange belief in jinns, demons and other shadowy beings. He also describes how Muhammad rehashed the biblical nonsense about creation, Noah’s Ark, birth of Christ etc. while misunderstanding a lot of it, like confusing Mary the mother of Christ with Miriam sister of Aaron, or the Christian belief in Trinity. You will learn about Muhammad’s bizarre view of cosmology, science, history, and medicine. (He prescribed drinking the urine of camel as a remedy against stomachache!).

Then you will learn about Muhammad’s metamorphosis from preacher to despot. How his call for tolerance, when he was still in Mecca and weak changed to the cry of killing and looting when he became powerful in Medina. You will learn how Muhammad encouraged his handful of followers to attack the caravans, kill the men, rape the women and bring the booty (20% for himself) to please Allah, while assuring them that if they are killed their rewards will be “young boys”, rivers of wine, and many hurries in the other world. All what Warraq says is backed by Quran and Ahadith.

The reader becomes familiar with Muhammad’s favorite way of eliminating his opponents, namely assassination. Asma Bint Marwan a poetess who wrote against the prophet was assassinated by his order in the middle of the night while nursing her infant. Her five small children where forced to convert to Islam. Muhammad’s hit list also included Ka’b Ibn al-Ashraf and Abu Rafi who spoke against him and had to be taken out traitorously. This policy was adopted by Muslims throughout the history and is being practiced up to this day. What we call terrorism, to a Muslim is Jihad (holly war). The much-publicized fetwa against Rushdi is an example. Among other things we learn about Muhammad’s preference for young girls (Ayesha was 9 years old when he consummated his “marriage” with her) rather at an advanced age and how he is unabashed to make Allah reveal Quranic verses to justify his lust for women and his sexual appetite.

Warraq makes a thorough study of the totalitarian nature of Islam. He even goes as far as to compare the impact of monotheism on human rights versus polytheism and atheism. For all those who still wonder why Muslims hate so much the west I recommend reading this book. There is a whole chapter dedicated to this subject.

Winwoods Reade said; “A sincerely religious man is often an exceedingly bad man” This fact applies to no one more than to Muslims. Here is the proof:

“When you meet the unbelievers, strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives.” (Quran47.4).

"And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with God [i.e. moshrekin.] wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush: but if they shall convert, and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way, for God is Gracious, Merciful."(Quran 9:5)

And as for Christians and Jews who rejected him he has this to say:

"Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given and believe not in God, or the last day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle have forbidden..."( Quran. 9:29)

These are the injunctions of Muhammad’s Gracious and Merciful God. How can a “good Muslim” disobey these explicit “divine” mandates? And how can one who observes them be a “good person”? This is the question that sincere Muslims must ask themselves. I am not insinuating that there are no good people amongst Muslims. Good and bad people are distributed in equal proportions in all nations. Yet in Islam good people are often forced to do bad things and go against their conscience. They often convince themselves that in this apparent injustice there must be a hidden wisdom that they do not understand and that God knows better. Many good people who claim to be Muslims are often ignorant of true Islam and dismiss the real orthodox Muslims as hard-liners and fundamentalists. But as Ibn Warraq in “Why I am not a Muslim” points out, unlike Christianity, Islam does not leave room for leniency and tolerance. Islam and fundamentalism are synonymous terms. You have to break the laws of Muhammad, just to keep your humanity and be good. No amount of intellectual acrobatics performed by Muslim apologists can justify the intolerant and ruthlessness of Muhammad’s religion.

“Why I Am Not A Muslim” is worth its weight in gold. Warraq’s book by far is the best source I found on Islam. He tells the truth and pays no lip service. The book’s only flaw is that it is not translated into the language of people who are victims of Islam. I am sure that will be taken care of too.

Islam was established through force and bloodshed. No argument, no reason, no logic was ever given but the blade of the sword. Masses were kept in ignorance. Muslims have no knowledge of Quran and are not aware of its naivete and inhumane character. Should they read Quran in their own language and understand it, they would be disappointed to see the book, far from being a “miracle”, is a hoax; poorly written, full of errors and bereft of beauty.

Islam has silenced all voices of reason throughout the history. But now is a different time. The Internet, although strictly censored in Islamic countries, is becoming accessible even to Muslims. Freethinkers can write and publish without the fear of persecution. I foresee that ere long, the same devout Muslims will turn their back, against their religion and will endeavor to liberate the rest of humanity from the claws of religion in general and Islam in particular.

Warraq talks about “Arab Imperialism and Islamic Colonialism”. He explains eloquently how through Islam, many civilized nations lost their identity, their dignity and humanity to bow in front of a savage god of a bunch of uncultured Arabs and follow the wimps of a fanatic and schizophrenic bloodthirsty madman of Arabia. Islam is the enemy of science, of freethinking, of reason and of human rights. It acts as a powerful break on the advancement of civilization. Warraq keenly points out that “Islamic Civilization” is a contradiction in terms. You can either be Islamic or civilized. In another place he argues that also “Islamic Philosophy” is a contradiction in terms, because philosophy was regarded as a “foreign science, which led to heresy, doubt, and total unbelief”. Brilliant minds like Zacharia Razi and Avicena never believed in Islam and were attacked by Muslims. More recent intellectuals and freethinkers don’t fare better. For example Ali Dashti, the brilliant scholar and the author of “23 years”; a book written about Muhammad and his 23 years of prophetic life, was incarcerated while in his 80s during Khomeni’s rule and died in prison. In Warraq’s own words: “Thus we had the spectacle of periodic persecution of various group considered either doctrinally suspect or politically subversive; individuals (philosophers, poets, theologians, scientists, rationalists, dualists, freethinkers, and mystics) were imprisoned, tortured, crucified, mutilated, and hanged; their writings burned. Significantly, none of the heretical works of Ibn Rawandi, Ibn Warraq, Ibn al-Muqaffa, and al-Razi has survived. Other individuals are forced to flee from one ruler to another more tolerant ruler (e.g. al-Amidi). Some were exiled or banished (Averroes). Many were forced to disguise their true views and opinions by difficult or ambiguous language. Those who managed to get away with blasphemy were those protected by the powerful and influential.”

ужас!

и я и я и я того же мнения

Vatican talks about the Israeli retaliations being sometimes against international law. The British police shot dead a civilian, the Egyptians are haunting the terrorists....and this seems acceptable to the Pope. It is only when the Jews retaliate that it is not acceptable. Presumably for this German pope he would prefer to see the Jews treated as his own people did 60 years ago...
Retaliation to terrorism should be acceptable for anybody if we want to erradicate it. The Muslims worldwide are "playing" with our sensitivity, our sens of freedom of speech, our democracies. We have to wake up before it is too late.

I`m sick and tired of world leaders bending over backwards to find some reason or other why terrorism against Israelis is somehow `different`.
Now the Pope says its because Israels reaction to it is sometimes against international law.
And putting 7 bullets into the head of a Brazilian carpenter on the London Underground wasn`t against the law?
Until the world realises that Islamic terrorism is the same the world over, including against Israelis, terrorism will continue. The terrorists will just choose whichever excuse is seen to be accepted by the world at large.
George