Friday, January 13, 2012

The Silencing of Dissent in Germany

Ummah — German

Here at Gates of Vienna we often write about the attempts to silence political dissent in Western Europe. Those who oppose mass immigration and Islamization are particularly subject to state repression. The tactics of intimidation and state prosecution are so similar across the continent, and even in Canada, the United States, and Australia, that one must assume that the campaign proceeds under some sort of central direction, perhaps at the behest of the OIC.

The German government raised the stakes the other day in its struggle with anti-immigration dissidents. Most readers are familiar with Politically Incorrect, an Islam-critical website and the most popular alternative source of news in Germany. PI and other “Islamophobic” websites are now under official investigation for possible violations of the German constitution.

Soeren Kern has just written an article at the Stonegate Institute (formerly the Hudson Institute) about this ominous trend. Below are some excerpts:

Germany Attempts to Silence Criticism of Islam
by Soeren Kern


German authorities have officially confirmed that they are monitoring German-language Internet websites that are critical of Muslim immigration and the Islamization of Europe.

According to Manfred Murck, director of the Hamburg branch of the German domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), his organization is studying whether German citizens who criticize Muslims and Islam on the Internet are fomenting hate and are thus criminally guilty of “breaching” the German constitution.

The BfV’s move marks a significant setback for the exercise of free speech in Germany and comes amid a months-long smear campaign led by a triple alliance of leftwing German multicultural elites, sundry Muslim groups and members of the mainstream media, who have been relentless in their efforts to discredit the so-called counter-jihad movement (also known as the “Islamophobes”) in Germany.

Opinion polls show that growing numbers of ordinary German citizens are worried about the consequences of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged mass immigration from Muslim countries.

Germans are especially concerned about the refusal of millions of Muslim immigrants to integrate into German society, as well as the emergence of a parallel legal system in Germany based on Islamic Sharia law.

In an effort to reverse this tide of public opinion, the guardians of German multiculturalism have been working overtime to regain the initiative by accusing the critics of Islam of engaging in hate speech to try to intimidate the so-called “new right” into silence.

The media campaign has been led by two financially troubled newspapers, the Berliner Zeitung and its sister publication, the Frankfurter Rundschau, as well as Der Spiegel, a leftwing magazine based in Hamburg that has long served as the mouthpiece for German multiculturalism.

In a January 4, 2012 interview with the Berliner Zeitung andFrankfurter Rundschau, Murck said the owners of anti-Islam blogs “have a disturbed relationship to the democratic constitutional state” and often promote “infringements of human rights protected under our constitution.”

Murck continued: “I also see evidence of criminal relevance, such as making threats and public invitations to crime.” He said criticism of Muslims and Islam constitutes “an attack against the freedom of religion, which is protected by Article 4 of the Basic Law.”

The Berliner Zeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau interview was conducted by Steven Geyer und Jörg Schindler, two journalists and propagandists who have been leading an ongoing effort to shut down a highly popular German-language Internet website called Politically Incorrect (PI), which over the years has grown into a major information resource for Germans concerned about the spread of Islam in their country.

Read the rest at the Stonegate Institute.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

We live in interesting times and I see the parallels to 1930s Europe in regards to how we have an insatiable ideology hellbent on oppression and the powers that be trip over themselves to appease the monster. Every day I ask, "How long can we keep lying to ourselves?" Islam will never rest until it gains supremacy over all peoples and snuffs out free will and thought. Darkness is falling over Europe and it is creeping across the Atlantic yet many of us ignore the problem and hope it goes away. These monsters exploit the remorse Western civilization feels over colonization and the horrors of two World Wars to fashion themselves as victims when it is our own culture being victimized. Muslims, from my casual observations, have no psychological capacity for victimhood or remorse because they lack the empathy inherent in Judeo-Christian tradition.

Soon it will come to a point where it is either us and them, and our civilization will have to make the same hard decisions our forebears did seventy years ago. The left can continue to indulge in the delusion of cultural relativism but their naivete and stupidity will make them the first victims of the monster's appetite.

I don't hate Muslims, but I hate what their twisted ideology is turning me into.

Anonymous said...

As a regular reader of PI, I can say that none of those allegations have any basis unless one retorts to really bend the law to suit politics, which of course is not unheard of in this country. The only thing I can say is, among the multitude of Islam-critical websites PI is what a tabloid is among newspapers. And some commenters speak their minds in no uncertain terms, often simplistic and uneducated. However, if that becomes forbidden, say welcome to the fusion of Gestapo 2.0 and Stasi 2.0!

Green Infidel said...

There is handwringing, melodrama and hysteria. Then there is this...

He said criticism of Muslims and Islam constitutes “an attack against the freedom of religion, which is protected by Article 4 of the Basic Law.”

Is this "director of the Bundesverfassungschutz" being serious? Can a German typing away in Munich in any way "attack the freedom of religion" of a Muslim in Hamburg - or even in his own city?!

Well, that freedom of religion is being "attacked" so much that Muslims in Duisburg are planning to "take-over" six Catholic churches.

As for PI-news and other such sites, do they:

incite to violence, in the manner of Quran 9:29?

incite to hatred, in the manner of Quran 9:30?

paint "all" immigrants with one brush - in the way that the Koran paints all non-Muslims and "people of the book" with one brush?

If anybody should be investigated for "promoting “infringements of human rights protected under our constitution.” ", surely it should be publishers of the Koran in Germany... perhaps one or two of them could be taken to court in another trial?

Last year, Germany decided to close nuclear power-stations because of an incident half-way across the world - even though Germany has barely suffered any strong earthquakes, let alone tsunamis.

This year, the German government is using the Breivik case to push through more restrictions. Never let a big crisis go to waste, eh?

Columnist said...

This will lead to a rise of antisemitism.

Rodney Atkinson said...

There are few more avid promoters and appeasers of extremism than the politically correct. In the UK our religious hatred law deliberately excludes the holy books of each religion so the hatred and incitement to violence in the Koran is excluded from prosecution. But those who attack the incitement to hatred are not excluded! There is talk of freedom of religion but what is a religion? Islam covers the whole gamut of life not just belief in God! Perhaps the Thule Society (Nazi) could be a religion and any criticism prosecuted?

One also recalls the penchant Hitler had for the Grand Mufti whose anti semitism made Adolf look quite calm!

Rodney Atkinson
www.freenations.freeuk.com

Thomas O. Meehan said...

US Senator Frank Lautenberg called for the adoption of German hate speech laws in America. He did this Friday on New Jersey Television in response to an arson of a synagog. No perpetrators have been caught and no conclusions as to the motivations can be drawn.

Columnist said...

@Rodney

Develop your own religion.