Publisher of ‘pro-Islam’ school textbook receives threats
1 October 2011
42 Comments
Police are looking into a series of online threats made against a Georgia textbook publisher after a parent complained that one of the books promoted Islam and polygamy.
The controversy began last week when Hal Medlin, the parent of a student at Campbell Middle School in Cobb County, Georgia, complained to the school about an assignment that he said “slanted positively” toward Islam.
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the part of the assignment in question was called the “letter from Ahlima”: “The assignment by a teacher at Campbell Middle School, which asked students to write on the issue of dress codes, included a fictional two-page letter ostensibly written by a 20-year-old Saudi Arabian woman. In it, the character writes approvingly of wearing the Islamic veil – and of her fiance’s multiple wives and the law of Sharia.”
The letter is part of a unit in the textbook devoted to the Middle East, and according to the AJC is paired with a letter from an Israeli woman discussing her own life.
The story was picked up by anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller, which she called “grotesque”. ”Misogyny, homicide bombing, Jew hatred, packaged in multi-culti tolerance of Islam, is being spoon fed to our young,” Geller wrote.
And the publisher, InspirEd Educators, complained that a number of other bloggers made “terroristic threats” and that it has “received what the police have classified as hate email and phone calls, and the company and its staff have been threatened and discussed with threatening language on various websites and blogs.”
Local police say they are investigating the threats, which include one blogger’s comment that “there will be a blood bath,” according to WSB-TV.
An official for the publisher defended the lesson: “It’s important for kids to have some empathy for other people in the world. Some people think we’re trying to teach their children to be Muslims, and that could not be more ridiculous.”
Original post: Publisher of ‘pro-Islam’ school textbook receives threats
If Pamela Geller ain’t crazy then according to international law she should be arrested.
From Wikkipedia:
Geller has also advocated against Islam elsewhere. She argued that the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites, should be removed because it was built on the same site as Judaism’s former First and Second Temples.[28] Geller also published an article defending Radovan Karadžic, indicted for genocide and other war crimes against Bosnian Muslims and Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo and Srebrenica Massacre.
from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/20/rightwing-blogs-islam-america
“Geller has also spoken out in favour of the English Defence League. When the anti-Islamic organisation was planning a rally outside parliament earlier this year, she wrote: “How I wish I could be there to stand with the English Defense League”.
Geller has claimed regular contact with the EDL leadership and recently published a screed by the organisation’s spokesman, Trevor Kelway. She said in one of her blogs: “I share the EDL’s goals … We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the West and not leave it solely to fringe groups like the BNP.”
Geller has also said the EDL is misrepresented. “The EDL is routinely smeared in the British media, as the Tea Party activists are smeared in the US media … There is nothing racist, fascist, or bigoted about the EDL,” she wrote.”
“She has allied herself with racist extremists in South Africa in promoting a claim that the black population is carrying out a “genocide” of whites.”
“The politicians and other opportunists are stoking the fires,” said Marc Potok, who heads the centre’s operation to monitor the extreme right. “The politicians are in it because they want to win more seats. The Pamela Gellers of the world apparently will do anything they can to attack Islam and this Islamic centre has provided them with a very large opening.”
“Potok says that Geller and others have crossed the line from legitimate debate”.
From
http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/issues/online_hate/when_is_hate_a_crime.cfm
Online Hate and the Law
Freedom of expression is central to a healthy democracy. Accordingly, although racist and hateful comments are offensive to the vast majority of Canadians, they are not necessarily illegal.
The following section surveys the federal laws that prohibit some forms of hate speech.
Criminal Code of Canada
Sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code make it a criminal offence to:
• advocate genocide
• publicly incite hatred
• wilfully promote hatred
against an “identifiable group.”
An identifiable group is defined as any section of the public distinguished by:
• colour
• race
• religion
• ethnic origin
• sexual orientation
The Criminal Code provisions are intended to prohibit the public distribution of hate propaganda. Private speech is not covered by the provisions.
This woman is inciting hatred against Muslims and black people as seen in the guardian article (see link). She is trying to spread her venom into Europe too.
Where is the new law on hatred incitement here?
1 October 2011 at 8:35 am