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The Spectacle Blog

Switzerland Should Tell Muslim Critics: Shut Up!

By Doug Bandow on 12.1.09 @ 4:51AM

In a national referendum the Swiss people voted to ban the construction of minarets on mosques. Not mosques, but minarets.

Oh, my, are Muslims in Muslim nations upset. Reports the Daily Telegraph:

Maskuri Abdillah, head of Indonesia's biggest Muslim group, Nahdlatul Ulama, said: "This is the hatred of Swiss people against Muslim communities. They don't want to see a Muslim presence in their country and this intense dislike has made them intolerant."

Egypt's Mufti Ali Gomaa, the Egyptian government's official interpreter of Islamic law, denounced the minaret ban as an "insult" to Muslims and "an attack on freedom of beliefs".

In Pakistan, Khurshid Ahmad, vice president of Jamaat-e-Islami, a hardline Islamic political party that is represented in the parliament, said: "This development reflects extreme Islamophobia among people in the West. This is an effort to provoke Muslims and prompt a clash between Islam and the West."

In fact, I believe the restriction is an unjustified restriction on religious liberty. But I can say that because I live in a country which actually protects the freedom of people to worship as they see fit. All people.

In contrast to Indonesia, Egypt, and Pakistan, in which religious minorities are routinely victimized and persecuted. In Indonesia it is mostly private violence--even Christian school girls have been murdered. I have visited the ruins of churches and Bible schools destroyed by Muslim mobs. Local authorities then have refused to allow the facilities to be rebuilt.

Eqypt does little to punish those who kill Coptic Christians and destroy their homes and businesses. The government routinely discriminates against non-Muslims. Pakistan also discriminates against Christians and other religious minorities in many ways, including jailing anyone convicted of "blaspheming" the Prophet. Non-Muslims face mob violence.

As I've previously written for the Spectator, this is simply the way of life in most Muslim nations. Even moderate Islamic countries, such as Morocco, generally are less than hospitable to Christians and other religious minorities.

So Switzerland's response to its Muslim critics should be a simple "Shut up!" When Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, and other Islamic nations start protecting the rights of Jews, Christians, Bahais, and other religious minorities, then they can lecture the West on religious liberty. Until then, they should just Shut up!

View all comments (12) | Leave a comment

Hamounta| 12.1.09 @ 8:28AM

Your article is based either on lies or on utter ignorance and trivial knowledge.

Interested Conservative| 12.1.09 @ 9:01AM

Such as?

Eric Cartman| 12.1.09 @ 10:37AM

Well, Hamounta, tell us all the lie or "utter ignorance" of the blog! I wish this country would grow a pair and bar Muslims and their smelly hordes from our shores. Ann Coulter was right, we should inveade you sand-pit countries, kill your leaders and convert the smelly masses to Christianity. That way maybe you would respect woman, Jews, Christians, etc. AND become familiar with what is known in civilized countries as a bathtub!

Richard Baker| 12.1.09 @ 8:59AM

Hamounta:
What! Another whining Moslem? Take your "Religion of Peace" and begone. Belonging to a murder cult called Islam doesn't recommend one. Let's hear it for the Swiss!

KarlinPhoenix| 12.1.09 @ 10:28AM

I think it is all well and good for the Swiss to take this "first step" to slowing and then preventing the spread of this death cult that is Islam, in their country. Islam is a political movement whose goal is world domination. Islam exhorts its cult members to polygamy for the express purpose of making more Muslims to conquer non-Islamic states by population increase.

The pupose of immigration in Islam is to conquer by population. There is no intention to assimilate to the host country, just convert them to Islam, in time.

Islam is incompatible with Western Civilization and should be banned from America as a violent, hate-spewing political movement.

Allah, the pagan Moon God of the pre-Muhammad Arabian Peninsula, is a small stone idol in Mecca and is kept in a little room with the other, lesser pagan stone idols the Muslims bray to several times per day. Islam is a "made-up" and fake "religion" by Muhammad, who cobbled together various tenets of Christianity, Judaism and Arabian paganism to create Islam. Islam is a conquering political movement; it was started this way and has continued in that same tradition for the past nearly 1,400 years.

Margie| 12.1.09 @ 12:52PM

Bravo! It's the truth.

redacro| 12.1.09 @ 11:52AM

Kudos to the Swiss. With honor killings and chants to kill America and take over Britain. Its about time someone stood up to them. If they hate Christians and everyone else why the heck are they even immigrating to non Muslim countries. Rid yourselves of your barbaric practices, especially towards women and other religions before coming to countries where women have an equal say in their way of life and religion does not call for the destruction of people of other religions.

Sheila| 12.1.09 @ 4:56PM

I was waiting for Doug to mention the ludicrousness of countries such as Indonesia to be preaching "religious tolerance" to others. I must vehemently disagree with his assertion that the Swiss vote is an "unjustified restriction" on freedom of religion. Islam is a worldview, a lifestyle, and a political ideology, not a religion as modern/secular westerners understand it. Turkey's prime minister himself approvingly recited a poem labeling minarets the muslims' missiles. For the Swiss to have taken even this small step in resisting the invasion/conquest of their country by Muslim immigrants is extraordinarily heartening. Would that the rest of us had a similar opportunity and similar resolve.

Gee Margie, how hypocritical of you - from an evil race realist perspective, of course.

Margie| 12.3.09 @ 11:11PM

Slick try.
You've posted previously that you are a "Race Realist."
This is what David Duke and gang call themselves.
Lessening the immigration of a "Death to America" so-called Religion has nothing to do with race.
Nice try though.

Trabando| 12.1.09 @ 9:00PM

This posting is full of inaccuracies and blanket statements. I wish the author used some solid evidence to back his claims. In Morocco, where I had lived for 22 years, you can find churches in most cities: Casablanca boasts two large cathedrals with huge towers and many churches; Rabat has cathedrals and churches, too; Larache has a sizebale Spanish church with nuns walking around the town unbothered; and Tangiers is host to several Anglican churches. Let alone synagogues all over the country where orthodox Jews walk around without anyone harrassing them. In Egypt, Copts are a large majority and they are doctors, businessmen, ministers, and diplomats. There are some tensions in some rural areas but it does not mount to sectarian war or killing, as the author had claimed here. Same thing for Indonesia and Malysia where Hindu and Christian minorities enjoy their protected rights. I would understand if the author had mentioned Saudi Arabia as an intolerant country of religious minorities, including Muslim ones; but I guess he was just talking out of ignorance.
This Minaret vote is a scam for the simple reason that 95% of should not be allowed to vote for or against the right of 5% (Muslim Swiss) to practice their religious freedom in a supposedly secualr country. Even more Ironic, the Muslim Swiss community is a lot richer than other European Muslim communities, as they are mostly businessmen, doctors and engineers who are not a budren on the country's social welfare system. So, it does not even make sense that the Swish far right has a reason to hate on Muslims, except for pure bigotry.

Richard Baker| 12.4.09 @ 7:33PM

Trabando:
I suppose that the Koran sanctioned violence around the world is just a figment of our imaginations. I forgot, you belong to the "Religion of Peace." How careless of me to forget. Calling Charles Martel, calling Charles Martel.