Pakistan To US - Rethink Free Speech

In the age of Obama, Muslims lecture the United States on civility.

In the wake of anti-America protests in many parts of the world over an anti-Islam film, the US needs to rethink about its concept of free speech, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said.

“It is not good enough to say it’s free speech, it should be allowed. I think if this does provoke action against American citizens or Americans anywhere else in the world, then maybe we do need to rethink how much freedom is OK,” Hina told CNN in an interview.

“Is freedom to the extent of harming lives also OK? So, I think we need to find a way to manage this in a civilised manner in trying to bring all of our, you know, all of our minds together,” Hina said. “I think what we need is more tolerance for each other’s views. What we need is to be able to give mutual space for us to be able to demonstrate what is culturally, religiously important to us and not to hold each other, not to judge each other for that. “To give that space and to be able to create some space for ourselves. And really we have to be sensitive to religious sensitivities,” she said.

Hina said she does not want to ‘go deeper into discussion’ when asked one does not see massive demonstration or violence emerging because of ugly things that are said about other religions in the Arab and Muslim world, whether Christians or Jews. 

Of course, Barack Hussein Obama and Nancy Pelosi have promised to undermine the First Amendment if they win in November, so there are sympathetic ears in Washington.  But, in a rare example of honest journalism, the New York Times' Thomas Friedman holds up a mirror to Islam and it's lack of respect for other faiths.

On Christians:

Hasan Rahimpur Azghadi of the Iranian Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution: Christianity is "a reeking corpse, on which you have to constantly pour eau de cologne and perfume, and wash it in order to keep it clean"; www.memritv.org/clip/en/1528.htm -- July 20, 2007. 

Sheik Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi: It is permissible to spill the blood of the Iraqi Christians -- and a duty to wage jihad against them; www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5200.htm -- April 14, 2011.

On Shiites:

The Egyptian Cleric Muhammad Hussein Yaaqub: "Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Mohammed Morsi told me that the Shiites are more dangerous to Islam than the Jews"; www.memritv.org/clip/en/3466.htm -- June 13, 2012.

The Egyptian Cleric Mazen al-Sirsawi: "If Allah had not created the Shiites as human beings, they would have been donkeys"; www.memritv.org/clip/en/3101.htm -- Aug. 7, 2011.

On Jews:

 The Pakistani cleric Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai: "When the Jews are wiped out, the world would be purified and the sun of peace would rise on the entire world"; www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6557.htm -- Aug. 1, 2012. 

Dr. Ismail Ali Muhammad, a senior Al-Azhar scholar: The Jews, "a source of evil and harm in all human societies"; www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/51/6086.htm -- Feb. 14, 2012.