UPDATED: Of Muslims, Islam and free speech

Four events over the last two weeks seem to be linked. I'll recap them and you can see how long it takes you to figure out the connection. [Kind of gave it away in the headline, didn't you? Ed.]

Item: Police in Albuquerque NM had their hands full, trying to figure out who was stalking and killing Muslim men. The lamestream press were quick to speculate that the murders were the work of a white supremacist, probably a Trump supporter. Fear struck the hearts of the local Islamic community, and politicians everywhere trumpeted the need for tolerance, and freedom of religion. 

There were not a few red faces -- not from sunburn -- when the coppers arrested Muhammad Syed, 51, a fellow follower of the Prophet. UPDATE ADDED 16/8/22: According to Reuters, Police now believe Shaheen Syed, 21, the son of the prime suspect, may have played a role in the murders.

"We have a free country here – why did he do that?", asked another member of the supposedly tight-knit Muslim community. Turns out Mr Syed was "possibly" infuriated that his daughter married into the "wrong" branch of Islam. Apparently Shia and Sunni Muslims don't mix in America any better than they do in Iraq.

Item: Last Tuseday a Texas jury found Yaser Abdel Said, 65, of Lewisville, guilty of the murder of his daughters, 18-year-old Amina Said and 17-year-old Sarah Said, in a taxi in 2008. Mr Said had evaded arrest for over 12 years following the slayings of his children, which was provoked, defenders said, by the girls' insistence on comporting themselves like other American teens.

Even though the crime was committed in Texas, prosecutors did not pursue the death penalty, so Mr Said received an automatic life sentence. Why was the death penalty not demanded? Perhaps because the killings were, according to Mr Said's religion and culture, a "matter of honour".  

No, those are not the Said girls. They are Asra Abdullah Alsehli, 24, and Amaal Abdullah Alsehli, 23, whose bodies were discovered in their Sydney, Australia, apartment on June 7th.  .

Item: The Alsehli sisters were last in the news five years ago, when they fled from a family holiday by jumping on a plane from Saudi Arabia to Sydney, where they claimed asylum, saying they renounced Islam and had become atheists. Their parents were said to be displeased and begged the girls to come home, but, so far as is known, made no attempts to repatriate them against their will.

When the rent on their apartment went unpaid for three months, the Aussie authorities went for a "welfare check" and found mail piled up outside the door. When they gained entry, they found the two women's bodies, fully clothed, in separate bedroom. There were no signs of forced entry or injury.

Police called their deaths as "suspicious" and "unusual", and are awaiting autopsy and toxicology results to figure out what could have happened. Although the sisters' background, and how they came to be in Australia, were common knowledge, Inspector Knacker said there is "nothing to suggest" their family should be considered suspects. So that's OK then.

Item: We come now to Friday's attack on author Salman Rushdie, as he was preparing to speak at the Chautauqua Institution, near Buffalo NY. Mr Rushdie suffered serious injuries to his neck, throat and liver when he was stabbed repeatedly by a Muslim now identified as Hadi Matar, 24, from Fairfield NJ.

Local police Sergeant Friday said they aren't sure what motivated the attack. Walt will explicate the muddification, and thereby come to the point of this article.

Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding after a fatwa (religious decree) issued by the Ayatollah Khomeini, for the grave sin of airing his "unacceptable views" of Islam and the Prophet Mohammed in his 1988 book The Satanic Verses.

 Mr Rushdie, who was born in India to non-practising Muslims and identifies as an atheist, was declared an apostate, and forced to go underground as a bounty was put on his head. He was granted police protection by the government in the UK, where he was at school and where he made his home, following the murder or attempted murder of his translators and publishers.

Hadi Matar reportetdly supported the Iranian government, which had demanded Rushdie's execution. He reportedly posted a picture of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei on his Facebook page. According to an analysis of Mr Matar's social media footprints, he supports Shia extremism and the goals of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Investigators found pictures of Iranian commander Qassem Solemani, muirdered in 2020, on Mr Matar's cellphone.

Got the picture now, fellas? Can you say "Islamic extremist"? Maybe not, because the real story here is not that the victims and suspects all are (or were) believers in the Religion of Peace, but that the lickspittle media have consistently downplayed, or not reported at all, the religion and ethnicity of those involved. Mustn't stoke the fires of Islamophobia!

The liberal elites, especially the literary types, were quick to decry the attempted murder -- for that's what it was -- of Salman Rushdie as a heinous attack on the freedom of speech which we cherish and which must be protected, yada yada yada. 

That's a bit rich, coming from the likes of Blackie McBlackface, Prime Minister of Canuckistan, who demonstrated his belief in free speech by clamping down on the Freeedom Convoy protesters, whom he called a "fringe minority" who held "unacceptable views". 

It was his government who forced the Canadian House of Commons to pass M-103, a resolution that enjoins the sheeple of Canada from saying anything bad about any religion... but especially Islam. The Dumbocrats, especially the likes of Ilhan Omar, would like to see similar legislation passed by Congress. 

Ms Omar is notorious for her anti-Israel/anti-Semitic rantings, but woe betide anyone who points out that Jews and Christians generally don't go around killing their family members or other co-religionists because of their "unacceptable views".

In our headlong rush to commit what James Burnham called The Suicide of the West (Random House, 1970), we allow followers of the Prophet to preach the triumph of Islam and the extermination of  apostates (like Salman Rushdie and the Alsehli sisters) and infidels (like us!), because to speak ill of Islam or its prophets and leaders is... wait for it... "unacceptable". 

Further reading (and the point of this post): "Don't mention the Muslims!", WWW 14/10/15.

Still more reading (added 16/8/22): "Trudeau, Biden won't name actual threat to Salman Rushdie", by the estimable Rex Murphy, National Post, 16/8/22. Quote: "They ignore radical Islamists in favour of platitudes about free expression."

Another quote: "To listen to Mr. Biden or Mr. Trudeau...he was stabbed for standing up for the generalized idea of 'freedom of expression.' No, he was not. He was stabbed because a fundamentalist strand of Islam and the leaders of Iran regarded his book as a 'blasphemy' for in their words 'insulting the prophet.'"

Rex says it better, but Walt said it first!

Nonono! The CORPUS CHRISTI Naval Air Station... TODAY!

Seems like just yesterday [in fact it was day-before-yesterday. Ed.] that I drew your attention to the fact that the US government, in the person of Attorney General William Barr, conceded that the Saudi air force officer who shot up the Naval Air Station at Pensacola FL last June, killing three people and wounding another seven, was, in fact, an Islamic terrorist with links to AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Pensinsula).

Well, folks, it happened again. This morning. At the Naval Air Station at Corpus Christi TX. According to ABC News, the shooting unfolded at about 0615 CDT when a man sped through a gate, activating vehicle barriers which stopped the car. The driver then got out of the car and began shooting, wounding a security guard before being "neutralized" (military-speak for being shot dead).

A spokesthingy for the FBI tole the meeja, "We have determined that the incident this morning at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi is terrorism related. They are working diligently with local, state and federal partners on the investigation, which is fluid and evolving." Wonder how they figured out it was "terrorism related"? Did someone hear the shooter yell "Alahu akbar!"?

The authorities have the shooter's car, obviously, but have not yet identified him. Not for publication, anyway. The FBI sez a second "person of interest may be at large." "May"? If you live in the vicinity, Walt suggests you keep your doors and windows locked, and beware of men who look like... errr... terrorists.

UPDATED: Pensacola shooter was Saudi airman! 6 others detained

Cazart!!!

The gunman who opened fire inside a classroom at the US Naval Air Station at Pensacola FL this morning, killing three people and injuring seven others, was reportedly a Saudi aviation student. The suspect has not yet been identified by authorities, nor will they admit that the mass murder was an act of Islamist terrorism. But according to the Clinton News Network (!), the shooter was a member of the Saudi military who was in the United States for training.

The suspect fired a handgun in the attack, which played out over two floors in a classroom building at a base whose main function is training. The FBI has taken over investigation into the shooting. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national attending training at the base as part of a long-standing Navy program open to US allies, of which the medieval Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one, apparently.

The motive for the violence was still under investigation. With his usual facility for ignoring the obvious, the Gov told the meeja, "There is obviously going to be a lot of questions about this individual being a foreign national, being a part of the Saudi Air Force and then to be here training on our soil. The government of Saudi Arabia needs to make things better for these victims. They are going to owe a debt here, given that this was one of their individuals."

Innocent question: Wasn't Pensacola "the cradle of aviation", where the 9/11 attackers (most of whom were Saudis) learned to fly planes into big buildings? Yet more of them are being allowed into the Paranoid States of America to learn the same things... for the same purpose??? Just askin'....

UPDATE ADDED 7/12/19: Late yesterday, Fox News reported that six (count `em, 6) Saudi nationals were detained for questioning Friday near the naval air station which was the site of the shootings. The FBI, which is leading the investigation into the shooting declined to reveal the identity of the shooter in the early stages of the investigation, but an unnamed US official told Fox News the gunman was an aviation student from Saudi Arabia named Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani. Ah yes, another "Mohammed" but of course his religion -- Muslims used to be called "Mohammedans" -- has nothing to do with his motives.

As the picture shows, the late Mohammed was a student in a US Navy training program for foreign military personnel. That program is aimed at "immersing international students in our US Navy training and culture" to help "build partnership capacity for both the present and for the years ahead," Commander Bill Gibson, the officer in charge, said in 2017. "These relationships are truly a win-win for everyone involved." Well, maybe not for those who were killed by Mohammed yesterday.

Saudi sisters' suspicious deaths -- MEA CULPA

I am glad, now, that when I wrote "Saudi sisters' suspicious 'suicide'" (WWW 31/10/18) I didn't use the old joke ending "Worst case of suicide I ever saw." It turns out -- and this is my apology to the family of Tala and Rotana Farea -- that their deaths were not affairs of "honour" after all. New York City police are now saying that the girl, found dead on the banks of the Hudson River on 24 October, preferred suicide over returning to Saudi Arabia. Let that sink in....

NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said sources in Virginia, where the Farea sisters had previously been living, informed investigators that the two women had been in the United States for two to three years and would "rather inflict harm on themselves and commit suicide than return to Saudi Arabia.... Everything that we’ve seen thus far is pointing to something other than a crime taking place," he said at a presser this afternoon, "but we're not ruling anything out."

Chief Shea went on to say that detectives believe the women may have applied for asylum in the USA after alleging that they were victims of abuse. A witness told police he saw the women in a park on West 158th Street in Upper Manhattan on the morning of October 24th, while he was out exercising. They were sitting about 30 feet apart with their heads in their hands and appeared to be praying, the witness said. They were seen floating along the Hudson River that afternoon.

The sisters, whose bodies were loosely bound together with duct tape, were found lying on rocks near the river, fully clothed in black jackets with fur trim and black leggings. There were no obvious signs of trauma, and detectives believe the women were alive when they entered the water. Their bodies are believed to have washed ashore with the tide and stayed when it went out, said Chief Shea. The investigation continues, and the medical examiner's office will ultimately determine the cause of the girls' deaths.

Saudi sisters' suspicious "suicide"

Amidst all the fuss about pipe bombs and the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, the lamestream meeja seem to have pretty much ignored the strange case of Tala Farea and Rotana Farea, two sisters whose fully-clothed bodies were found on the bank of the Hudson River in New York on October 24th.

The girls, aged 16 and 22 respectively, had been bound together, face-to-face, with the handyman's secret weapon -- duct tape. The medical examiner's office is investigating the cause of death. The absence of any obvious signs of physical trauma cast doubt on the coppers' original theory that they jumped into the river from the George Washington Bridge in a suicide pact.

The Farea sisters moved to the USA from Saudi Arabia with their mother in 2015, settling in Fairfax VA, about 225 miles from where their bodies were found. Rotana was enrolled at George Mason University, but left in the spring. Police said the sisters left the family home and were placed in a shelter after an earlier disappearance, in December of 2017. They were reported missing again on August 24th.

New York police said their mother told detectives the day before the bodies were discovered, she received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian Embassy, ordering the family to leave the USA because her daughters had applied for political asylum. The Saudi Consul General said embassy officials in Washington had contacted the family and "extended its support and aid in this trying time." It said the sisters were students "accompanying their brother in Washington."

The cops sent a detective to Virginia to learn more about the sisters. Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said they were particularly interested in finding out what happened since they were reported missing and what led them to New York City. "We are looking at all clues in their past life," Shea said.

Walt suggests that the police consider the girls' ethnicity and religion, and the sad fate of other Muslim girls who have come to western countries with their parents, and then been killed for wanting to adopt western customs, like wearing western clothes and (horrors!) dating. Three cases, reported here on WWW, come to mind.

In 2009 there was the murder, in Ontario, Canada, of Aqsa Parvez, aged 16, whose father and brother killed her because she dared to change out of Islamic garments into western clothes when she went to school. See "Honour killings, family values and 'accommodation'", WWW 23/7/09.

There was an echo from Britain in 2012, when a jury found the Pakistani parents of 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed guilty of her murder. According her sister, her mother and father suffocated the girl with a plastic bag for "being too western". See "Parents kill rebellious teen to preserve family honour", WWW 3/8/12.

That same year saw the horrific Shafia case, in which three sisters and their mother were locked in a car which was pushed into a canal near Kingston ON by the girls' father, his second wife and their brother, all of whom were convicted of murder and are (suprisingly) still guests of Her Majesty in Canadian prisons. See "GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY in Shafia honour killings", WWW 29/1/12.

There's also [That's enough Islamic honour killings. We're running out of space! Ed.] OK then, let's just leave it at my suggestion that the police have a word with the Farea sisters' brother. Perhaps he can explain how it's possible for two people to duct-tape themselves together, face-to-face, while allowing sufficient freedom of movement to jump in a river. Stay tuned...