Author: Mick Hartley

ckquote>Belgium’s laws severely restrict freedom of speech and opinion. Now, one of the major protagonists of these laws has fallen victim to them. On November 14, Brussels court ruled that Emir Kir, a Brussels regional government member, denies the Armenian genocide and hence is committing a hate crime.

The court proceedings began after Kir, the Turkish-born Secretary of State of the Brussels Region and a leading Socialist politician in the Belgian capital, lodged a complaint against a website which criticized him for taking part in a demonstration of Turkish immigrants denying the Armenian Genocide. The court ruling against Kir confirms that the Armenian Genocide was a crime against humanity and that, consequently, it is not protected in Belgium under freedom of expression.

The verdict said that the website was “by no means wrong” in branding Kir as a genocide denier. It went on to note that this type of clear labelling serves the common good and advances the purposes established by Belgian law to penalize genocide denial. Secretary Kir said that he will appeal against the verdict.

The only genocide one is allowed to deny in Belgium is the one perpetrated by the Belgian King Leopold II in the Congo from 1885 to 1908. Though internationally historians hold that Leopold’s rule cost the lives of up to 10 million people, Belgian historians maintain that there is no agreement among historians that there ever was a genocide in the Congo.

But, as Belien informs us, Kir has appealed against the verdict:

Laurette Onkelinx, the Belgian minister of Justice and the PS deputy Prime Minister, told the Belgian Senate on 17 November that “additional legal and historic research” is needed to ascertain what really happened in Armenia in 1915. Clearly, courting the Muslim vote has led the Belgian government to doubt the Armenian genocide. How long will it take before Belgian parties start questioning the Shoah in order to attract Muslim votes?

Christopher Hitchens reports from Uganda on the Lord’s Resistance Army (via ALDaily):

I am sitting in a rehab center, talking to young James, who is 11 and looks about 9. When he actually was nine and sleeping at home with his four brothers, the L.R.A. stormed his village and took the boys away. They were roped at the waist and menaced with bayonets to persuade them to confess what they could not know—the whereabouts of the Ugandan Army’s soldiers. On the subsequent forced march, James underwent the twin forms of initiation practiced by the L.R.A. He was first savagely flogged with a wire lash and then made to take part in the murder of those children who had become too exhausted to walk any farther. “First we had to watch,” he says. “Then we had to join in the beatings until they died.” He was spared from having to do this to a member of his family, which is the L.R.A.’s preferred method of what it calls “registration.” And he was spared from being made into a concubine or a sex slave, because the L.R.A. doesn’t tolerate that kind of thing for boys. It is, after all, “faith-based.” Excuse me, but it does have its standards.

Talking to James about the unimaginable ruin of his childhood, I notice that when I am speaking he stays stock-still, with something a bit dead behind his eyes. But when it comes his turn to tell his story, he immediately starts twisting about in his chair, rubbing his eyes and making waving gestures with his arms. The leader of the L.R.A., a former Catholic acolyte in his 40s named Joseph Kony, who now claims to be a spirit medium with a special mission to impose the Ten Commandments, knows what old Fagin knew: that little boys are nimble and malleable if you catch them young enough, and that they make good thieves and runners. Little James was marched all the way to Sudan, whose Muslim-extremist government offers shelter and aid—such an ecumenical spirit!—to the Christian fanatics. There he was put to work stealing food from neighboring villages, and digging and grinding cassava roots. Soon enough, he was given a submachine gun almost as big as himself. Had he not escaped during an ambush, he would have gotten big enough to be given a girl as well, to do with what he liked.

The galleries at SkyscraperPage.com are temporarily down, but it’s still a wonderful site. You can check skyscrapers by country or city, look up the ten tallest, or order their spiffy new poster of 33 World Buildings.

With the possibility that the height restrictions around St Pauls may be eased, here’s a list of London’s tallest buildings, existing and under construction, here’s a list of proposed buildings, and here are some computer-generated images of those under-construction and proposed buildings over 100m.

And, on the subject of tall buildings, Wikipedia have this list of the world’s tallest churches, and this history of the evolution of the skyscraper, and, to complete the picture, this list of the tallest buildings in world history, with the surprising (to me) information that Lincoln Cathedral was the first building to surpass the Great Pyramid of Giza in height, in 1311, though the central spire collapsed in a storm in 1549.

Not an item you’re likely to find in many UK papers (via):

A new survey in Afghanistan shows overwhelming popular support for U.S. and international troops in the country and huge opposition to Islamic militants linked to the former Taleban regime.

A new public opinion survey says most Afghans have a favorable view of U.S.-led forces providing security in the country as well as the fledging democratic government of President Hamid Karzai.

Results of the poll were released Wednesday by the private and nonpartisan Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

Mr. Karzai has a 93 percent approval rating and 83 percent of those surveyed think their country is headed in the right direction. And five out of six Afghans view the U.S. military presence as positive.

The group interviewed some two thousand Afghans during November and December – after the war-torn country was to convene its first elected parliament in more than 30 years.

More here.

A number of Imams and representatives of various British Muslim organisations have written to the Times in support of Sir Iqbal Sacranie, and to confirm that his views on homosexuals – for which he’s being investigated by the Metropolitan Police – faithfully reflect “mainstream Islamic teachings”. They conclude:

All Britons, whether they are in favour of homosexuality or not, should be allowed to freely express their views in an atmosphere free of intimidation or bullying. We cannot claim to be a truly free and open society while we are trying to silence dissenting views.

How very true. So they’ll no doubt be campaigning against the government’s proposed Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

e of a lack of funds.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said rapes and murders were continuing in Darfur, and a new force would need air support and sophisticated equipment.

The AU currently has about 6,000 peacekeepers stationed in Darfur.

In recent months, AU troops in the region have been attacked by gunmen. Who was behind these attacks is not clear.

Mr Annan said plans for the proposed force would need the co-operation of the Sudanese government.

The co-operation of the Sudanese government? That phrase says all you need to know about how effective the UN response has been, and will continue to be.

Update: No, the Sudanese government isn’t happy:

Sudan is not ready for a proposed UN peace force in Darfur, its foreign minister has told the BBC.

Lam Akol said no official request had been made and that the money spent sending a UN force would be better used on helping the existing African force.

In readiness for the tense negotiations ahead, the Iranians have appointed a new Foreign Minister, Moocher Mistake (via Secular Blasphemy):

The United States and the European Union’s three biggest powers said on Thursday that talks with Iran to curb its nuclear program were at an impasse and Tehran should be brought before the Security Council.

Iranian Foreign Minister Moocher Mistake warned that a referral would have “consequences” for the West.

The BBC, sadly, are still referring to Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki, as indeed are the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who might be expected to know about these things. But luckily for us Reuters are on the ball.

Stung into action after Taiwanese scientists unveiled their fluorescent green pigs to world-wide acclaim, British scientists announce plans to produce human-rabbit embryos:

British scientists are planning to create embryos that are part-human and part-rabbit to use in investigating treatments for motor neuron disease.

And hope, at last, for those whose lives have been blighted by their inability to grow long hairy ears.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Then he was reported to be on his way to Russia. Now, via North Korea Zone, a German press agency is speculating that the Great Leader has disappeared:

North Korean leader Kim Jong II has disappeared in China. His luxurious special train which reportedly crossed the border into China Tuesday morning at Dandong was nowhere to be found Wednesday.

‘We really would like to know where he is, but we simply don’t have a clue,’ said a South Korean military attache, who added he felt he was left in the lurch by his own intelligence services.

Although the train was seen travelling in the direction of Beijing by officials at two railway stations, Kim did not show up in the Chinese capital, sparking a torrent of speculation.

Some wondered whether Kim had only travelled through China on his way to Russia – a scenario ‘almost ruled out’ by one South Korean diplomat, given the fact that a direct rail connection exists between the North Korean capital Pyongyang and Moscow.

South Korean news agency Yonhap said it learned that the despotic North Korean leader had overcome his deep-rooted fear of flying and had flown to Shanghai, without explaining why his personal train would be travelling across China without him.

‘He’s not in Beijing at any rate,’ the diplomat said confidently.

According to a comment at Asiapundit, however, he’s now in Guangzhou.

It’d be nice to think this was the start of something big – maybe he’s getting out while he can, before the whole country unravels – but optimism is usually misplaced when it comes to North Korea and its Fat Controller.

And still it continues:

Danish Muslim organisations are planning to take the daily Jyllands-Posten to the European Court of Human Rights over controversial cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.

The decision was announced Monday (9 January) by Kasem Ahmad, leader of Danish Islamic religious body Islamsk Trossamfund, uniting various Muslim organisations, following an announcement that a Danish local attorney general had rejected their case.

Islamsk Trossamfund had sued the daily for the publication of drawings of the prophet Mohammed for blasphemy, as the Koran forbids all visual depictions of the prophet.

Meanwhile, as reported at Brussels Journal, a Norwegian paper has published the cartoons in an act of solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, and another has put them up on its website:

“We cannot tolerate this in a democratic society,” said Selbekk [the editor of Magazinet]. Asked if he was himself afraid of reprisals he said: “We have gone astray if we begin to concede on this issue out of fear. Many have already done much to prevent this problem from being hushed up. We hope that by publishing the cartoons we can do our bit.”

This latest move has, predictably enough, been condemned by the Muslim World League as part of a hate campaign:

The Muslim World League yesterday expressed its resentment over the cartoons published by a Norwegian magazine offensive to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

“The cartoons published in the magazine’s Tuesday issue are offensive to the Prophet and they deliberately chose Eid day to launch a sinister campaign,” WML Secretary-General Dr. Abdullah Al-Turki said in a statement.

He warned of the negative consequences that might follow.

“This will not affect international relations but give rise to hatred in the Muslim world for such countries,” he said and reminded the consequences that followed when a Danish newspaper published 12 offending cartoons some years [??] ago.

“Such incidents anger over 1.5 billion Muslims who want to live in peace and harmony the world over,” he said and urged cultural and social institutions across Europe to halt the hate campaign against Islam forthwith.

There seems to be a simple confusion here, between launching hate campaigns and being offensive. A hate campaign is when demagogues call for the murder or hatred of a group of people on account of their race or religion. Being offended is something you just have to learn to live with in this imperfect world, and despite the best intentions of our government, the right to offend is central to the idea of freedom of expression.

Any chance of a UK paper publishing the cartoons? I’m not holding my breath.