Europe's Cities Absorb Sharia Law

Authored by Giulio Meotti via The Gatestone Institute,

• London Mayor Sadiq Khan banned advertisements that promote "unrealistic expectations of women"s body image and health". Now Berlin is planning to ban images in which women are portrayed as "beautiful but weak, hysterical, dumb, crazy, naive, or ruled by their emotions". Tagesspiegel"s Harald Martenstein said the policy "could have been adopted from the Taliban manifesto".


• The irony is that this wave of morality and "virtue" is coming from cities governed by uninhibited leftist politicians, who for years campaigned for sexual liberation. It is now a "feminist" talking point to advocate sharia policy.


• To paraphrase the American writer Daniel Greenfield, the irony of women celebrating their own suppression is both heartbreaking and stupefying.

Within days after the Islamic State conquered the city of Sirte in Libya two years ago, enormous billboards appeared in the Islamist stronghold warning women they must wear baggy robes that cover their entire bodies, and no perfume. These "sharia stipulations for hijab" included wearing dense material and a robe that does not "resemble the attire of unbelievers".

Two years later, Europe"s three most important cities - London, Paris and Berlin - are adopting the same sharia trend.

Paris has said au revoir to "sexist" ads on public billboards. The Paris city council announced its ban after the Socialist Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the move meant that Paris was "leading the way" in the fight against sexism. London Mayor Sadiq Khan also banned advertisements that promote "unrealistic expectations of women"s body image and health". Now Berlin is planning to ban images in which women are portrayed as "beautiful but weak, hysterical, dumb, crazy, naive, or ruled by their emotions". Der Tagesspiegel"s Harald Martenstein said the policy "could have been adopted from the Taliban manifesto".

The irony is that this wave of morality and "virtue" is coming from cities governed by uninhibited leftist politicians, who for years campaigned for sexual liberation.

There is a reason for this grotesque campaign banning these images. These cities host significant Muslim populations; and politicians -- the same who frantically are enacting mandatory multiculturalism -- want to please "Islam". It is now a "feminist" talking point to advocate sharia policy, as does Linda Sarsour. The result is that, today, few feminists dare to criticize Islam.

It is happening everywhere. Dutch municipalities are "advising" their employees to not wear mini-skirts. There are women-only hours at Swedish swimming pools. German schools are sending letters to parents asking children to avoid wearing "revealing clothes".

The first to suggest calling for a ban on posters or advertisements that "reduce women or men to sexual objects" was German Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a Social Democrat.

"To demand the veiling of women or taming of men," said Free Democratic Party leader Christian Lindner, "is something known among radical Islamic religious leaders, but not from the German minister of justice."

In 1969, Germany was overwhelmed by a debate on introducing into schools the "Sexualkundeatlas", an "atlas" of sexual science. Now the effort is to desexualize German society. The newspaper Die Welt commented:

"Thanks to Justice Minister Heiko Maas we finally know why on New Year"s Eve, at Cologne Central Station, about a thousand women were victims of sexual violence: because of sexist advertising. Too many eroticized models, too much naked skin on our billboards, too many erotic mouths, too many miniskirts in fashion magazines, too many wiggling rear-ends and chubby breasts in television spots. It is another step in the direction of a "submission"".

Instead of nipples and buttocks, Die Welt concludes, "should we urge the use of burqa or veil, as Mrs. Erdogan does?"

The same German élites who suggest banning "sexist" billboards censored the crude details of the mass sexual assaults in Cologne. Meanwhile, a liberal Berlin mosque, which banned burqas and opened its door to gays and to unveiled women, is now under police protection after threats from Muslim supremacists.

Europe"s élites have adopted a double standard: they are proud to host an exhibit of a Christian crucifix submerged in urine, but quickly capitulate to Muslim demands to censor cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed. The Italian authorities went to great efforts to spare Iran"s President Hassan Rouhani a view of nudity on ancient sculptures in the Capitoline Museums of Rome.

The Western public appears fascinated by Islamic veils. Ismail Sacranie, a founder of Modestly Active, the manufacturer that designs burkinis, told the New York Times that 35% of their clients are non-Muslim. Aheda Zanetti, a Lebanese woman living in Australia who invented the burkini, claims that 40% of her sales are to non-Muslim women. The Western public, which has been romanticizing Islam, is apparently absorbing the pieties of Islamic law. The Spectator called it "a new puritanism" and "why some feminists make common cause with Islam".

To paraphrase the American writer Daniel Greenfield, the irony of women celebrating their own suppression is both heartbreaking and stupefying.

Europe might soon have to apologize to the Mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker. She was criticized -- denounced -- for advising women to keep "at an arm"s length" from strangers to avoid sexual harassment.

If the West keeps on betraying the democratic value of individual freedom on which Western civilization is based, Islamic fundamentalists, like those who imposed burqas on Libyan women, will start imposing them on Western women. They may even begin with those feminist élites who first created the sexual revolution to emancipate women in the 1960s, and who are now infatuated with an obscurantist garment that hides women in a portable prison.

If the West keeps betraying the democratic value of individual freedom, Islamic fundamentalists, like those who imposed burqas on Libyan women, will do the same to Western women. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

Europe's Out-Of-Control Censorship

Authored by Judith Bergmann via The Gatestone Institute,

• If Facebook insists on the rules of censorship, it should at the very least administer those rules in a fair way. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness.


• Posts critical of Chancellor Merkel"s migrant policies, for example, can be categorized as "Islamophobia", and are often found to violate "Community Standards", while incitement to actual violence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebook"s "Community Standards".


• Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebook"s bias is so strong that it recently restored Palestinian Arab terrorist group Fatah"s Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews -- despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of 130 posts glorifying terror and murder of Jews.

Germany has formally announced its draconian push towards censorship of social media. On March 14, Germany"s Justice Minister Heiko Maas announced the plan to formalize into law the "code of conduct", which Germany pressed upon Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in late 2015, and which included a pledge to delete "hate speech" from their websites within 24 hours.

"This [draft law] sets out binding standards for the way operators of social networks deal with complaints and obliges them to delete criminal content," Justice Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement announcing the planned legislation.

"Criminal" content? Statements that are deemed illegal under German law are now being conflated with statements that are merely deemed, subjectively and on the basis of entirely random complaints from social media users -- who are free to abuse the code of conduct to their heart"s content -- to be "hate speech". "Hate speech" has included critiques of Chancellor Angela Merkel"s migration policies. To be in disagreement with the government"s policies is now potentially "criminal". Social media companies, such as Facebook, are supposed to be the German government"s informers and enforcers -- qualified by whom and in what way? -- working at the speed of light to comply with the 24-hour rule. Rule of law, clearly, as in North Korea, Iran, Russia or any banana-republic, has no place in this system.

Maas is not pleased with the efforts of the social media companies. They do not, supposedly, delete enough reported content, nor do they delete it fast enough, according to a survey by the Justice Ministry"s youth protection agency. It found that YouTube was able to remove around 90% of "illegal" postings within a week, while Facebook deleted or blocked 39% of content and Twitter only 1%. The German minister, it seems, wants more efficiency.

"We need to increase the pressure on social networks... There is just as little room for criminal propaganda and slander [on social media] as on the streets," said Maas. "For this we need legal regulations." He has now presented these legal regulations in the form of a draft bill, which provides for complaints, reporting and fines.

There also appears to be no differentiation made between primary-source hate speech, as in many religious tenets, and secondary-source hate speech, reporting on the former.

According to the draft, social media platforms with more than two million users would be obliged to delete or block any criminal offenses, such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint. The networks receive seven days for more complicated cases. Germany could fine a social media company up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law; it could fine a company"s chief representative in Germany up to 5 million euros.

It does not stop there. Germany does not want these measures to be limited to its own jurisdiction. It wants to share them with the rest of Europe: "In the end, we also need European solutions for European-wide companies," said Maas. The European Union already has a similar code of conduct in place, so that should not be very hard to accomplish.

Facebook, for its part, has announced that by the end of 2017, the number of employees in complaints-management in Berlin will be increased to more than 700. A spokeswoman said that Facebook had clear rules against hate speech and works "hard" on removing "criminal content".

If Facebook insists on operating under rules of censorship, it should at the very least aim to administer those rules in a fair manner. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness. Instead, Facebook"s practice of its so-called "Community Standards" -- the standards to which Facebook refers when deleting or allowing content on its platform in response to user complaints -- shows evidence of entrenched bias. Posts critical of Merkel"s migrant policies, for example, can get categorized as "Islamophobia", and are often found to violate "Community Standards", while incitement to actual violence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebook"s "Community Standards".

Facebook"s bias, in fact, became so pronounced that in October 2015, Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center filed an unprecedented lawsuit against Facebook on behalf of some 20,000 Israelis, to stop allowing Palestinian Arab terrorists to use the social network to incite violent attacks against Jews. The complaint sought an injunction against Facebook that required it to monitor incitement and to respond immediately to complaints about content that incites people to violence. Shurat Hadin wrote at the time:

"...Facebook is much more than a neutral internet platform or a mere "publisher" of speech because its algorithms connect the terrorists to the inciters. Facebook actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by offering friend, group and event suggestions ... Additionally, Facebook often refuses to take down the inciting pages, claiming that they do not violate its "community standards". Calling on people to commit crimes is not constitutionally protected speech and endangers the lives of Jews and Israelis".

In 2016, Shurat Hadin filed a separate $1 billion lawsuit on behalf of five victims of Hamas terrorism and their families. They are seeking damages against Facebook under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act, for Facebook"s having provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook services, which Hamas then used to carry out their terrorist activities. The US has officially designated Hamas a "Foreign Terrorist Organization" which means that it is a criminal offense to provide material support to such an organization.

Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebook"s bias is so strong that it recently restored Palestinian Arab terrorist group Fatah"s Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews -- despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of 130 posts glorifying terror and the murder of Jews.

It is only a small step from imposing censorship on social media companies to asking the same of email providers, or ordering postal authorities to screen letters, magazines and brochures in the event that citizens spread supposed "xenophobia" and "fake news". There is ample precedent for such a course of action on the continent: During the Cold War, people living behind the Iron Curtain had their private letters opened by the communist authorities; those passages deemed to be out of line with the communist orthodoxy, were simply blacked out.

Who would have thought that more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), Western Europe would be reinventing itself in the image of the Soviet Union?

Washington Post Admits Shutting Down 'Fake News' Will Move Us Closer To A Modern-Day '1984'

Submitted by Flemming Rose and Jacob Mchangama via The Washington Post,

Remember George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth? In his dystopian novel “1984,” its purpose was to dictate and protect the government’s version of reality. During the Cold War, Orwell’s book was banned behind the Iron Curtain, because readers perceived the novel as an allegory for their own repressive regimes.

It was a serious crime to distribute information defaming the Soviet social and political system. Such criminal laws were widely used by the Kremlin to silence dissidents, human rights activists, religious movements and groups fighting for independence in the Soviet republics. Similar laws were on the books in East Germany, Poland and other Eastern bloc countries.

Thankfully, today this landscape is much changed, but increasingly there are disturbing echoes of the past. Amid a debate about the rising influence of fake news and the danger it poses to the political and social order in the West, democratic politicians in Europe have proposed sanctions — and even prison terms — for those found responsible for distributing false information.

Euopean Union Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova has warned tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter that if they don’t find ways to eliminate hate speech and combat fake news, a law mandating action may be necessary. Commissioner Andrus Ansip reinforced that threat last month, albeit in softer language, prompting social-media giants and traditional media to announce a flurry of initiatives aimed at combating fake news.

Italy’s antitrust chief, Giovanni Pitruzzella, has said that E.U. countries should set up a network of government-appointed bodies to remove fake news and potentially impose fines on the media. Pitruzzella doesn’t hide his political agenda — he wants to target his opponents on the populist left and right. “Post-truth in politics is one of the drivers of populism, and it is one of the threats to our democracies,” he told the Financial Times.

In Germany, politicians eager to counter Russian meddling and populist movements in upcoming parliamentarian elections have issued similar calls. Justice Minister Heiko Maas argues that authorities need the power to impose prison terms for fake news on social media. “Defamation and malicious gossip are not covered under freedom of speech,” Maas said. “Justice authorities must prosecute that, even on the Internet. Anyone who tries to manipulate the political discussion with lies needs to be aware [of the consequences].”

It is understandable that liberal democracies are deeply worried about disinformation, which tears at the fabric of pluralistic democratic societies. John Stuart Mill famously argued that free speech would help exchange “error for truth” and create “the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” Yet this justification weakens considerably if lies and disinformation become indistinguishable from truth. In such an environment, “Democracy will not survive a lack of belief in the possibility of impartial institutions,” political scientist Francis Fukuyama recently wrote. “Instead, partisan political combat will come to pervade every aspect of life.”

That is indeed a nightmare scenario to be avoided. But using legal measures to counter disinformation is likely to be a cure worse than the disease. One does not need to go back to the Cold War to worry about what happens when governments become the arbiters of truth.

In the past two years, Egypt has sentenced six Al Jazeera journalists to death or long prison terms for, among other things, allegedly spreading false news. In 2013, Gambia — until the recent ouster of Yahya Jammeh, one of Africa’s worst dictators — introduced a punishment of up to 15 years’ imprisonment and hefty fines for those who spread “false news,” citing a need for stability and the prevention of “unpatriotic behavior” and “treacherous” campaigns. Russia, ironically the source of so much of the disinformation menacing liberal democracies, uses broad and vague anti-extremism laws to prohibit news that the Kremlin views as propaganda — including prison sentences for social-media users who insist that Crimea is part of Ukraine.

Of course, Europe’s established democracies have little in common with the Soviet Union or other illiberal regimes. But the legal tools proposed by European politicians to suppress fake news sound alarmingly like those used by authoritarian governments to silence dissent. This is dangerous. Not only are such measures incompatible with the principle of free speech, but also they set precedents that could quickly strengthen the hand of the populist forces that mainstream European politicians feel so threatened by.

Europe may soon find itself with populists such as France’s Marine Le Pen and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders with real power. Such leaders would draw the line between fake news and free speech very differently than mainstream politicians — perhaps aiming them at the supposedly corrupt established media rather than websites, blogs and social media trafficking in “alternative facts.” It is also unlikely that the increasingly illiberal governments of Poland and Hungary would agree with the European Commission or German Chancellor Angela Merkel on what constitutes false information or fake news.

And while the First Amendment prevents the U.S. government from overtly limiting press freedom, it’s clear that President Trump’s definition of fake news is vastly different from what his opponents or the media have in mind.

Above all, rather than strengthening established media institutions, banning fake news might very well undermine them in the eyes of the public.

If alternative outlets are prosecuted or shut down, mainstream media risk being seen as unofficial propaganda tools of the powers that be. Behind the Iron Curtain, nonofficial media outlets had more credibility than official media in spite of the fact that not everything they published was accurate or fact-checked. The hashtag #fakenews could become a selling point with the public if it were banned rather than rigorously countered and refuted.

As White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon replied when asked whether press secretary Sean Spicer, after making irrefutably false statements, had damaged his credibility with the media: “Are you kidding me? We think that’s a badge of honor.”