Muslim hatred of free speech

Anne Applebaum:

And now we come to what may be a truly fundamental test, maybe even a turning point, for that part of the world generally known as the West.

The test is this: Are prominent, articulate critics of radical Islam, critics who happen to be citizens of European countries or the United States, entitled to the same free speech rights enjoyed by other citizens of European countries and the United States?

Legally, of course they are. In practice, they can say what they want -- and then they can be murdered for doing so. That means that Western governments have a special and unusual responsibility to them, as many have long acknowledged. It is no accident that the writer Salman Rushdie, upon whom the Ayatollah Khomeini declared a fatwa on Feb. 14, 1989, is still very much alive. Though the details have not been publicized, it is assumed that Rushdie remains, one way or another, under the protection of the British police and secret services, both in Britain and abroad. This protection is completely uncontroversial -- in June, the queen even gave Rushdie a knighthood-- and as a result the fatwa has not prevented him from speaking, writing, publishing, even divorcing and remarrying several times over the past 18 years.

The case of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch-Somali politician and writer, is different. Hirsi Ali has been under Dutch police protection since 2002, when her public comments about mistreatment of women in the Dutch Muslim community and references to herself as "secular" led to death threats in Holland.

Though encouraged to remain in the country -- and promised security protection -- by the government then in power, the mood in Holland changed in 2004. That year, a fanatic named Mohammed Bouyeri infamously murdered Theo Van Gogh, the director of a film about the oppression of Muslim women -- and then thrust a knife bearing a note threatening Hirsi Ali, who wrote the film's script, into the victim's chest.

Dutch society became, and remains, bitterly divided in the wake of the Van Gogh murder. Some of Hirsi Ali's compatriots decided it was time to address the issues of women, Islam and integration head on. The Dutch writer Leon de Winter, a defender of Hirsi Ali, talks openly about his country's failure to integrate Muslim immigrants, attributing the problem to the Dutch "guilt complex": "As soon as we let people from the Third World come here to work in our rich country, we . . . somehow saw them as sacred victims."

Others simply want Hirsi Ali and her ilk to go away forever, thereby keeping Holland out of the headlines and Amsterdam off terrorists' hit lists. Unlike the British, who have gotten used to the idea that faraway events can affect them, the Dutch, at least in this century, are more insular. That helps explain why, in 2006, the Dutch government tried to revoke Hirsi Ali's citizenship over an old immigration controversy, and why her neighbors went to court that year to have her evicted from her home (they claimed the security threat posed by her presence impinged upon their human rights). But although she did finally move to the United States, the argument continued in her absence. Last week, the Dutch government abruptly cut off her security funding, forcing her to return briefly to Holland.

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There is a more proactive way to defend people like this than just being on the strategic and tactical defensive. Prosecute those calling for her death and the death of others who speak out for the crime of solicitation of murder. Indict the people calling for her death and if they live in another country, seek their extradition. Make it clear that if she is killed the indictment will be upgraded to murder. Until this is done the Islamic bigots will continue to throw tantrums and seek the murder of those who disagree with them.