Updated 11/17/2007: See below for new material!

Mo-Toons

Gates of Vienna: The OIC Takes Note of the DPP

The Danish People’s Party and its election ad campaign involving the new/old Motoon has not escaped the notice of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). The OIC issued this press release a couple of days ago…

Gates of Vienna: The Motoons on the Hustings

Here’s what’s important about this: The threat of Muslim violence hasn’t been part of their deliberations about publication of the cartoon.

The threat of violence should never be a consideration when any group plans peaceful and lawful activities. When you modify your plans in anticipation of a violent reaction, you have ceded control to the Islamists as effectively as if you elected them to the parliament and allowed them to enact the country’s laws.

The simple truth, eloquently stated.

Censorware and Hacking

Armies of Liberation: Yemen Censors Internet Access After al-Badawi Release

Note: Jamal al-Badawi was a mastermind of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 US sailors.

They re-blocked my website, other news sites and are denying access to all the proxie sites.

Also hacked: Hewar Forums, a dialog forum in Yemen that hosts public figures who respond to questions from members. Hewar asked me to participate. I happily agreed.

(Added 11/7/07):
The Jawa Report – Yemen: “Surrendered” American Elbaneh Receives Terror Verdict In Absentia

So does Yemen have this evildoer in custody – or not? Is their legal system anything more than window dressing? And what else are they trying to cover up by censoring the Net?

USA Today: U.S. technology has been used to block, censor Net for years

Note: This article is from 2/21/2006, but unfortunately, little or nothing has changed since then.

According to this article in USA Today by Kevin Maney, an OpenNet Initiative (ONI) report reveals that Yemen uses censorware from Websense, based in San Diego, and Blue Coat Systems, based in Sunnyville, CA. Burma/Myanmar, the scene of recent widespread protests that were followed by a shutdown of Internet and cellular communications, uses censorware from Fortinet, also based in Sunnyvale.

How about Iran? This is a country that fears an open Internet the way the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz feared fire. When ONI did its study, it found that the predominant Iranian Internet service providers (ISPs) used SmartFilter from Secure Computing of San Jose, Calif.

A peer-reviewed paper published in January by University of Toronto professor Nart Villeneuve names Websense as the filter used by one major Iranian ISP, ParsOnline.

If you hunt around on the Web, you also find that an entity called Ertebatat Faragostar advertises as “the exclusive reseller of SurfControl in Iran.”

SurfControl, based in Scotts Valley, Calif., makes a powerful Web-filtering system.

Requests for comment from Secure Computing, Websense and SurfControl also went unanswered.

The whole Middle East seems to be a gold mine for U.S. Web-filtering companies.

Blue Coat brags in a November press release that quarterly revenue for Blue Coat Middle East leapt 15%, “with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia leading the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries in terms of sales revenue.” The Saudis block political opposition sites, Christian religion sites, pornography and gambling.

Wow. Just wow.

Censorship by Character Assassination

Pajamas Media: Meet Norway’s Answer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Racist. Xenophobe. These are just a couple of the epithets Europe’s cultural elite like to hurl at critics of Islamic fundamentalism. Bruce Bawer reports on the character assassination of Hege Storhaug, author of the new book Covered. Uncovered. and a courageous advocate of freedom.

City Journal: Muslim Mau-Mauing, by Rod Dreher

I knew something about ISNA [Islamic Society of North America] and asked Syeed why-if his group truly supported peace and suchlike-its board included members directly linked to Islamic extremism and anti-Semitism, including the notorious Wahhabi-trained Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj. The professorial Syeed dropped his polite mask, shook his fist at me, told me that I would one day “repent,” and compared my question with a Nazi inquisition.

. . . I then joined that Islamic site’s e-mail list-which contained several prominent Dallas Muslims-under my own name. Before the site operators discovered my presence and booted me off, I printed out e-mails in which participants discussed a plan to approach business and religious leaders in town and persuade them to lean on the News’s publisher to fire me as a danger to Muslims. “Dreher needs to be ruined,” one e-mailer wrote. “When people here [sic] the name ‘Rod Dreher’ the image of David Duke should appear in their mind’s eye. So, a campaign must be planned and carefully executed to expose this hate-monger and render him a joke.” Naturally, I publicized the plans and made sure that copies of the e-mails got into the hands of the newspaper’s lawyers. That apparently ended that.

American Thinker: Political Black Ops in Belgium?

James Lewis suspects that much the same may be happening across the pond:

A minor war has broken out in the conservative blogosphere, and it smells suspicious. I don’t have a smidgen of proof for what I suspect, but here’s the story.

. . . But now Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs fame, has gotten into a fight with Paul Belien [editor of Brussels Journal]. Forgetting the who-said-what-when minutiae, the question raised by Charles is whether Paul Belien is defending people who are tainted with racist or totalitarian ideas. In particular, the question is whether Paul Belien is too close to the Vlaams Belang party, which is accused of having racist or neo-Nazi associations. LGF is a very good site, and Charles Johnson is understandably passionate about keeping his reputation spotless.

So now we get into a classical hall of mirrors, of claim and counter-claim, and maybe even spy and counter-spy. Because it’s a good guess that the overheated Belgian political scene is full of mudslinging, disinformation, planted stories, and psyops.

. . . It’s a good guess that the Vlaams Belang party has been infiltrated for a long time by government agents. That adds another layer.

Belgium has long been a hotbed of secessionism. The French-speaking Belgians bear deep grudges against the Flemish, and vice versa. It’s pretty bad, much like the American South right after the Civil War.

So in Belgium today, the French-speaking population controls the power centers, while the Flamands work harder, are more productive, and have larger numbers. That doesn’t make the Flemish happy. They are constantly wondering whether to secede from the Walloons.

It is vital therefore, as a matter of survival, for the Walloons to keep the Flemish out of power. Splitting the Flemish vote is crucial, and one way to do that is to tar the most radical Flemish political party.

It is not beyond the ethics of a power elite to smear opponents with the worst political sin in sight, i.e., association with racists and neo-Nazis. . . .

So it’s not impossible that the governing elites are sending agents provocateurs into the ranks of the Flemish Interest party, to parade around in Nazi drag and make nice with White Power sleazoids in the US. . . .

GOV: Disinformation Being Spread by Belgium? (see comments)

Read the comments here for more details. I suspect that Lewis is right, but it’ll be quite awhile before we get to the bottom of this one.

(Updated 11/7/07, 11/17/07)

Anti-jihadist political speech is censored, but…

Incitement to riot and genocide? No problem!

Some activities are not protected under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and there are valid reasons why they are not. Nothing in the US Constitution requires the admission of a flagrantly neo-Nazi foreign national with a reputation for inciting mob violence and who openly calls for genocide. Both the US and Canada have carelessly agreed to let this “performer” in – and he is currently in the US!

TENC: Oppose Fascist Rock Star’s US Tour with the Truth – Part 1

Nazis: Coming soon to a concert venue near YOU!

Jihadist death threats? No problem!

YouTube (Google) ignores complaints and fails to take down a jihadist death-threat video. Think about it: The whole purpose of this video is de facto censorship by intimidation.

The Jawa Report: Video: Muslim Death Threat Against Mosque Opponent

November 06, 2007

Charles Johnson has the details, but here’s the vid. Despite numerous complaints–and a story in the Daily Mail–the death threat remains on YouTube.

My hope is that it remains up only so that the British authorities can look into it. The video not only shows images of the politician, Alan Craig, who opposes the building of the mosque, but of his family as well.

On the negative side, the video is an implied death threat against the family. But on the positive side it is done to the music of Elvis. So, it’s not all bad.

LGF: YouTube Asked to Curb Jihad Videos

Wed, Nov 7, 2007 at 7:50:26 am PST

Some European politicians are asking YouTube to crack down on the Islamic terrorist videos that are all over the site.

LGF: YouTube Jihadi Arrested, Account Still Active

Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 3:32:36 pm PST

That YouTube jihadi who threatened British councillor Alan Craig has been arrested.

But his account at YouTube is still active.

A man who placed an “obituary” on YouTube of one of the leading opponents of plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque near the London Olympics site has been arrested by police.

The video, “In memory of Councillor Alan Craig”, features the Leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance party, his wife and two daughters. The two-minute video, which has now be taken down, was added by a man calling himself “abdullah1425″…

Technorati : Ayaan Hirsi Ali, EU, Iran, Islam, Nazism, Saudi Arabia, Surf Control, Websense, YouTube, anti-Semitism, blog censorship, cartoon censorship, censorship, censorware
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Think It Couldn’t Happen Here?

Hat Tip: bamapachyderm

Also see:

• Burma-Myanmar stories on 1389 Blog
• Resource Page: Stop Blog Censorship!
• Censorship articles on 1389 Blog

Technorati : Burma, Myanmar, activism, blog censorship, cell phone, censorship
Del.icio.us : Burma, Myanmar, activism, blog censorship, cell phone, censorship
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Myanmar: Virtual revolution via Internet

Credit for this goes not to international media but to the efforts of hundreds of Myanmar’s citizens using the Internet and mobile phones to send first hand accounts, photographs and video footage to the rest of the world…this time technology is playing a crucial role in helping subvert the Myanmar government’s attempts to control the media meaning that the eyes of the world are on Myanmar and its oppressive regime like never before.

US Blasts Myanmar for Silencing Internet

The White House criticized Myanmar on Friday for cutting off Internet access and called on “all civilized nations” to pressure the military-run government to end its violent crackdown on protesters.

“They don’t want the world to see what is going on there,” White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said….(more)

Myanmar’s main Internet link not working: official

…Myanmar’s Internet service is tightly controlled and only sporadically available even in the best of times, but the military has tightened its controls amid anti-government protests.

In Bangkok, an official at a Thai telecom that provides satellite services to Myanmar also said some Internet service inside the country had been cut….

Myanmar: Internet Blocked

There have been massive support from Myanmar bloggers for the current protest activities, and the whole Myanmar blogosphere is overwhelmed with news and photos. Because of that, Myanmar Junta got chickened out and banned the political blogs, almost immediately followed by banning the whole blogger domain hence all other Myanmar blogs. A few bloggers tried to bypass proxy and blog using email-to-blog techniques….

Junta tries to shut down internet and phone links

The Burmese junta was last night desperately trying to shut down internet and telephone links to the outside world after a stream of blogs and mobile phone videos began capturing the dramatic events on the streets.

In the past 24 hours observers monitoring the flow of information have noticed a marked downturn, with the reported closure of cybercafes and the disconnection of mobile telephones.

Yes, but Myanmar is a Socialist nation, we’re all thinking…that could happen waaaay over there, but not here, in the west, where we have freedom of speech. You think? The methods may be different, but the results are the same. Check out these ongoing updates about internet censorship:

• FHK – resist! censorship
• Burma-Myanmar articles on 1389 Blog
• Resource Page: Stop Blog Censorship!
• Censorship articles on 1389 Blog
• :Gates of Vienna: Modoggies
• Foehammer on Censorship
• My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
• Burma or Myanmar: That’s not the question
• Real Citizen Journalism in Myanmar

Update – for Facebook users: Consider joining or supporting the “Support the Monks’ Protest in Burma” group. More info on Mashable.

Technorati : Burma, Jenn Sierra (author), Myanmar, blog censorship, cell phone, censorship, censorware
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