Pointing the Way for Freedom of Speech and the Press

The following article about the Brussels Conference was published yesterday in Citizen Times. The author, Felix Strüning, was one of the German attendees at the conference.

Many thanks to JLH for the translation:

The Brussels Process Begins

By Felix Strüning
July, 2012

International Civil Liberties Alliance Conference 2012 in the European Parliament Points the Way for Freedom of Speech and the Press

Amid high security measures yesterday, in the European Parliament building, the first annual conference of the International Civil Liberties Alliance (ICLA) took place. Leaders of various citizens’ organizations and parties from all over Europe and the USA discussed theoretical aspects and strategies for the implementation of human rights and liberal, European values. At the end of the day, participants adopted the 2012 Brussels Declaration — To Safeguard Individual Liberties and Human Rights.

The focal point of the conference was the looming reduction of freedom of the press and of expression by means of Islamic lobbying organizations, above all the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation). Lars Hedegaard, chair of the International Free Press Society, was awarded the Defender of Freedom Award 2012 for his years-long battle for freedom of the press. In his encomium, Mark Steyn (America Alone, After America) emphasized how important courageous people like Hedegaard are for Europe, since Europe has nothing better to do than smother in the cradle any possible insult to Muslims. For which reason Hedegaard had to spend over two years in court for alleged hate speech, but was finally acquitted at the beginning of 2012.

Steyn warned all the do-gooder and politically correct human rights organizations that Islam was using them for its campaign through Europe, but would in the end declare them too as the enemy. Thus, feminism and the battle for homosexual rights are the exact opposite of Islam: “A society that becomes more Muslim has less of everything else. It becomes less Jewish, less homosexual, less feminist, less artistic — all those things which the Left supposedly supports. And for us ‘rightists’ too, it is less free.”

Other speakers at the conference were the well-known Dutch scholar of Islam, Hans Jansen, as well as the apostate and human rights activist, Sabatina James who, with her organization, is helping innumerable Muslim women on the way to freedom. Among other speakers were Ingrid Carlqvist (Swedish Free Press Society), Ned May (Gates of Vienna), Gavin Boby (The Law and Freedom Initiative), Conny Axel Meier and Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff (Citizen Movement Pax Europa) and Tommy Robinson (English Defense League, British Freedom Party).

The discussion paper of the Stresemann Foundation for the ICLA conference in Brussels, in German and English:

Felix Strüning presented the most important findings on alleged Islamophobia — one of the focal points of research of the Stresemann Foundation. Strüning gave the participants an overview of the so-called bias research in Germany. He showed how, above all with the model of the Group-Centered Misanthropy (GMF Survey), the attempt is made to support the Islamist Lobbyists and claim racist rejection of Muslims. But even the GMF Survey’s polls offer no conclusion in regard to the presence of such an Islamophobia, Strüning emphasized. To that extent, Islamophobia could only be characterized as a targeted polemic concept (see the accompanying discussion paper in German and English).

The 2012 Brussels Declaration, adopted in conclusion by the ICLA conference participants, calls on all political leaders to forego any cooperation with representatives of the so-called Cairo Declaration (Declaration of Human Rights in Islam) and instead facilitate initiatives which champion civil rights and freedom. In order to reverse the Islamization of Europe which began in Brussels in 1973, the initiators of the ICLA declared, the Declaration is intended to introduce a Brussels Process which would protect the hard-won values of the European countries.

Sidebar:

• Kampfbegriff Islamophobie
  
• Polemic Term Islamophobia

Previous posts about the Brussels Process:

2012		Jul		11		Beginning the Brussels Process
				11		The Brussels Declaration
				11		What is Sharia?
				11		The Brussels Conference
				11		Conference Agenda
				11		Conference Speaker Bios
				11		Brussels 2012 Defender of Freedom Award
				11		Proceedings — Brussels 2012
				11		Interview with Tommy Robinson at the European Parliament
				11		Press Release: Brussels Process Launched