Online jihadis call for jihad murders of cartoonists in US, Australia

April 30, 2015 7:47 pm By Robert Spencer 4 Comments
Foreign Policy follows a generally dhimmi line, but the clueless Obama-era FBI reads it to gather its “intelligence,” so it is worth looking into occasionally. Here is a piece on ongoing attempts to intimidate the West into silence by calling for the murder of those who violate Islam’s blasphemy laws. It is precisely to show that we will not be cowed into silence by this violent intimidation that we’re holding our Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in the Dallas area this Sunday.
Very few people seem to grasp what is at stake. Some of said that they cannot support such initiatives because they find the Muhammad cartoons to be in poor taste, and consider them in the same way that Christians regard Piss Christ — it’s legal, but that doesn’t make the people doing it any more admirable than other louts and mockers.
The insuperable problem with that line of thinking is that once again it leads either to bowing to violent intimidation, or to some authority being granted the power to decide which speech is acceptable and which isn’t — which is the road to tyranny. What is at issue here is not being respectful, or refraining from mockery, or deliberately provoking jihadis — what is at issue here is whether the West will submit to murderous threats, which will only lead to more demands for submission and more murderous threats, and whether it will accept Sharia blasphemy laws or stand for a free and genuinely pluralistic society in which people put up with offense even to their core beliefs without resorting to violence or attempts to gain hegemony over the group doing the offending.
At issue, in short, is whether the West will remain free, or submit to being muzzled. At stake is the very foundation of what makes for a free society.
“Online Jihadis Call for Attacks on Cartoonists in United States, Australia,” by Elias Groll, Foreign Policy, April 27, 2015 (thanks to Paul):
Australian cartoonist Larry Pickering is no stranger to controversy. The right-wing provocateur has drawn former Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard clad in a ***** and is currently waging a campaign on his website against Halal meat. His depiction of the Prophet Muhammad being roasted on a spit as a pig sparked an array of threats, and in January, Australian authorities put Pickering under police protection.
In recent days, jihadis have once more begun an online drumbeat calling for Pickering’s murder, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi chatter and statements on the Internet. Other statements contained threats against American cartoonists as well.
On Monday, an Australian Twitter user and proclaimed supporter of the Islamic State militant group posted the address of the Australian, a newspaper that has published what the user, @AusWitness2, described as insulting images of the Prophet Muhammad. In the aftermath of the massacre at the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the Sydney-based newspaper was one of several outlets that published the magazine’s cartoons, which frequently depicted the prophet in satirical and sometimes unsightly ways. On Friday, @AusWitness2 complained about Pickering Muhammad cartoons.
On Thursday, an account purporting to belong to Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, an American jihadi reportedly fighting in Somalia, called for attacks to be carried out in the United States similar to those on the offices of Charlie Hebdo.
If only we had men like these brothers in the #States, our beloved Muhammad would not have been drawn. Allahu Akbar pic.twitter.com/NhxsytpKk5
— Mujahid Miski (@Hoor_Watermelon) April 23, 2015