Related:Â Â The Law of BlasphemyÂ
* Does Blasphemy exist? God does not live in Victoria
                  
Freedom of speech is under threat – both in Australia and overseas.Â
With thanks to the Australian Coalition for Truth
In Australia a national Inquiry is being held on the freedom of religion and belief…
In The Netherlands Geert Wilders is to be prosecuted for ‘inciting hatred’.
Australia – Freedom of Religion and Belief
In Australia, the Australian Human Rights Commission is conducting an Inquiry called ‘Freedom of Religion and Belief’.Â
Their aim is NOT to give us MORE freedom but to limit the freedom we have.Â
It might sound nice – but this sort of law leads to vilification laws like Victoria’s which have seen two pastors at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal -Â charged with inciting hatred against Muslims…
The Inquiry asks questions about diversity, sexuality and the involvement of ‘religious’ people in politics!
When HREOC did a similar inquiry in 1998, they proposed a ‘Freedom of Religion Act’.Â
This time they are concerned about discrimination and vilification, particularly of Muslims. Any proposals to come out of this Inquiry are expected to restrict free speech.Â
Our Constitution already protects the free exercise of religion (S 116). The Inquiry also asks if a Bill of Rights will help protect religious freedom. A Bill of Rights is another avenue of restricting free speech and handing power to the courts so we reject that as well.
                   
PLEASE send a submission to the Inquiry opposing any limiting of our religious freedom.
Click here for the Inquiry’s home page. The Discussion paper is available there.Â
Submissions close on 31 January –
send submissions by email to frb@humanrights.gov.au
Â
Overseas – Free Speech threatened – Geert Wilders trial
Freedom of speech is already being restricted overseas. Just last week, Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who released the film Fitna, about radical Islam, has been charged with the inciting hatred against Muslims.Â
The Court of Appeal in Amsterdam overturned a decision by a lower court not to prosecute Geert Wilders. They have ordered that he stand trial for “the incitement to hatred and discrimination based on his statements in various media about Muslims and their belief in The Netherlands”.
The outline of the decision by the Amsterdam Court of Appeals is online. Click here.
Read the BBC news report on the decision to prosecute Wilders.
Â
Fitna – if you haven’t seen the short film Fitna – it is online…
On Live Leak – click here. It can be downloaded from this site.
It is also mirrored at this site.
* Garbage from Doha: “Muslim Brotherhood is non-violent”
Melanie Philips, writing in The Spectator in the UK, says it plainly:Â
“So the inevitable has now come about in the teetering civilisation of Europe, and it has happened first in the Netherlands. One of the supposedly most liberal societies on the planet wants to criminalise someone for telling the truth.”
She goes on to document the case, outline the message of the Fitna film, before talking of the support given by the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine to Hitler during World War 2 to Hitler, and giving Winston Churchill’s famous quote about Islam in The River War in 1899 and subsequent comments made by him during WW2.
A defining moment
Thursday, 22nd January 2009 – Melanie Phillips, The Spectator