The Media’s Assault on the Defenders of Free Speech
By Joseph Klein On May 7, 2015 In Daily Mailer,FrontPage
An American jihadist associated with the Islamic State is reported to have posted a message on social media vowing that the Islamic State would “slaughter” Pamela Geller, the blogger whose American Freedom Defense Initiative sponsored a “Draw Muhammad” contest in Texas last week. Two jihadists were killed by a policeman guarding the contest site as they tried to storm the meeting and conduct a Charlie Hebdo-style massacre. ISIS has taken credit for the attack. The chilling message claimed that ISIS has “71 trained soldiers in 15 different states ready at our word to attack any target we desire.” The message warned that everyone hosting an event put on by Geller or giving her “a platform to spill her filth are legitimate targets.”
Pamela Geller is defiant. She declared that she has no intention of cowering and intends to hold another free speech event in the near future. “This threat illustrates the savagery and barbarism of the Islamic State,” Geller told the Daily News in a statement she later posted on her website. “They want me dead for violating Sharia blasphemy laws. What remains to be seen is whether the free world will finally wake up and stand for the freedom of speech, or instead kowtow to this evil and continue to denounce me.”
The reaction of the self-proclaimed non-violent Islamist group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is no surprise. The Muslim Brotherhood-linked CAIR solemnly condemned the violent reaction to the event, but went after Geller and other prominent people associated with the Texas contest who dare to criticize Islam, such as Robert Spencer and Geert Wilders. CAIR lumped them together with the “perpetrators” of the violent attack because, in CAIR’s words, they “all seek to provoke a downward spiral of mutual hostility and mistrust in America and around the world.”
Disappointing to say the least is that mainstream commentators on both sides of the ideological spectrum have parroted the CAIR talking points. They have ganged up on Pamela Geller for being the prime instigator of a foreseeable violent reaction to her provocative event. They blamed the victim rather than viewing this latest Islamist violence for what it is – an assault on free expression. They have self-righteously declared that, while Geller had the legal right to conduct the Draw Muhammad contest, she was irresponsible for exercising her right.
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