Freedom of Speech — If Nobody Complains

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the chilling effect on the First Amendment exerted by “hate speech” provisions. Even though the issue has not yet been codified by law, many people — university students, government employees, corporate employees, etc. — have felt the cold breeze of enforced silence as brought in by anti-harassment policies and “diversity” rules.

In order to end “exclusion”, speech which offends protected groups must be curtailed, and the list of the protected keeps expanding. First were African-Americans, then Hispanics, then women, then homosexuals, disabled people, and so on.

The latest protected group, of course, is Muslims. Those who speak out against any aspect of Islam instantly join the ranks of bigoted racists. Just ask Virgil Goode.

A similar process seems to be at work in Denmark. The Danish blogger Exile posted last Saturday about the selective suppression of free speech in Denmark:

There is an organisation here in little Denmark that is apparently not allowed to demonstrate peacefully and freely on the streets of Denmark. This organisation is made up of ordinary Danes with a peaceful and democratic message to all, but the Danish Minister for Justice, Lene Espersen, is denying them the right to publicly, and peacefully, go out and demonstrate by forbidding them to demonstrate because she fears for public order. Not from the demonstrators, but from their critics. Violent critics.

She fears the demonstration would cause public disorder because these peaceable demonstrators would be attacked by their opponents.

The organisation is called SIAD. Which freely translates into English as “Stop the Islamification of Denmark”.

I find it strange, that Hamas, Hezbollah and any other Islamic group can freely demonstrate in the middle of Copenhagen, waving their terrorist flags and carrying their hateful banners, burning our flag and inciting to murder unopposed, while a home grown grass roots movement that opposes the Islamification of their own society is banned from the same right to protest. Has Denmark gone mad? No. Only the politicians, especially Lene Espersen.

Holger Danske seems to be stirring — notice his appearance on SIAD’s logo. Modstandsavisen means “Resistance Newspaper”, and Fem-i-Tolv means “Five minutes to Twelve”.
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The 910 Group, working through some of its Danish members, took up the issue of SIAD. I have adapted the excerpt below from the 910 Group blog; it was translated from the Danish by Zonka from an article on the SIAD website:

An attack on all of Danish Democracy

SIAD is a legal and peaceful democratic party that supports democracy as we know it: democracy, freedom of speech, equality between the sexes, and animal welfare. Lately we have become mostly known in the media because of our demonstrations that pay homage to the Danish freedom of speech (look here). But countless times the Minister of Justice, Lene Espersen, has refused permission for our demonstrations in Gellerup [A suburb of Aarhus, with a majority of muslim immigrants — translator], Vollsmose [A suburb of Odense, with a majority of muslim immigrants], and Nørrebro [A part of Copenhagen that has a strong influx of muslim immigrants] and recently, since she has found that §79 in the Danish Constitution supports our side (read below), the Ministry of Justice has invoked emergency laws against SIAD.

Thus has she denied us our constitutional rights and indirectly legitimized the autonome attack on SIAD’s meeting at Valby Medborgerhus yesterday afternoon [Saturday] where we discussed SIAD’s bill. When the State demonstrates that one cannot freely speak all places in the country, and doesn’t support constitutional rights, the foggy brains can’t help but perceive that freedom of speech is a bad thing if it upsets immigrants. So, all in all, the spineless government has legitimized the attack on SIAD.

At approximately 3pm there was a forceful knock on the door to SIAD’s closed meeting. The door was opened and then the doorway was filled with hooded and masked autonomes armed with bottles which they threw at the people in the meeting, while yelling “Now you shall die, pigs!” But four courageous SIAD members jumped directly at them and thus saved the rest of the participants at the SIAD meeting, of whom some were elderly people. They took the fight into the hallway, but three of them were severely injured by thrown bottles. Despite being outnumbered and with blood running down their faces they forced the autonome gang of about eight people to flee.

The three wounded will later be rewarded with SIAD’s newly instituted medal for being wounded in battle against Islam. This event shows that Islam and the autonomes have shaken hands on fighting the democratic society, and attack people who dare to reveal the problem that Denmark faces today: Islam versus Democracy. The autonomes have found themselves comfortable in their dhimmi-status, useful idiots for Islam in the fight against freedom of speech. Thus it has been shown that the autonomes have become errand boys and shills for Islam.

Now is the time for society to react. This is not just an attack on a democratic and non-violent party, but on the Danish freedom of speech and assembly.

A note from Zonka:

As many are not familiar with the term autonomes I’ll explain: The autonomes are a spinoff of the BZ movement in the 70s and 80s who were squatters and very leftist youngsters, punkers and general troublemakers. They are a part of an alternative and rather aggressive youth movement found in many major cities in Europe.

There was a link to Den Danske Forening in the excerpt above, so Vicktorya, the 910 Group’s founder, wrote to a leader of the group with a message of support and encouragement. This is what he wrote back:

There is some kind of misunderstanding. Den Danske Forening is a serious anti-immigration movement. We have nothing to do with the self-promoting person who recently started SIAD, and we do not want to have anything to do with him. We have been fighting for Denmark and western democracy for 20 years against all odds.

In this connection we would like to cooperate with you and all other serious people.

It’s no surprise that the Counterjihad in Denmark has its factions and infighting, just as we have here in the U.S.A. Since my grasp of Danish is rudimentary, I can’t make out the subtleties of the politics involved. But Zonka had this to say in an email:

It seems that [the leader who wrote] is not affiliated with SIAD but Den Danske Forening (The Danish Society). There are several right-wing groups and anti-immigration groups in Denmark, and unfortunately they are often at odds with each other, as they are “fighting” for position and often the same potential members. From the 910 Group’s perspective, they may both be coalition partners, as we are not playing favorites here but trying to embrace all those who oppose the dangers of Jihad and Sharia.

Zonka’s right: the 910 Group is a “network of networks”, dedicated to coordinating and communicating with all those groups that oppose the Great Jihad. It must of necessity include under its umbrella various organizations which share common goals but would not otherwise be speaking to each other.

It’s painful to watch Holger Danske take up arms against himself. Will there come a time when these differences will have to be put aside in the face of a common enemy?

Quite a few Danish readers stop by here from time to time. If any of you want to weigh in on the pros and cons of these different groups, or supply additional stories, please feel free to do so.