Magic Statistics

Several groups of Muslim Canadians are calling on police to investigate a lecture given last week at Campbell Baptist Church, Windsor, Ontario.  They allege that the lecture, the first in a series entitled “The Deadly Threat of Islam”, was hate speech.  The Windsor Star reports:

Controversy filled a west Windsor church where the lecture of a purported former Muslim terrorist warned that Islam is a religion of war being brought to Canadian soil.

In a speech at Campbell Baptist Church on Thursday night [11 January], 49-year-old Zachariah Anani said that Islamic doctrine teaches nothing less than the "ambushing, seizing and slaying" of non-believers — especially Jews and Christians.

"Violence keeps going on," said Anani, a Lebanese-born convert to Christianity who came to Windsor in 1997.

The lecture was well-attended—over 120 showed up—and many came prepared to disagree.

"You're inciting hatred by the title of tonight's topic," argued Gary Roberts while waving a hand with emotion.
. . .
A group of seven male Muslims who attended the meeting shook their heads at Anani's speech. At the start of the event, the men declined to stand for the church's hymn as a sign of protest.

Five Canadian Muslim groups soon joined to call for a police investigation.

The Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN), Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), Windsor Islamic Association, Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and Al Hijra Mosque and School, are asking the Windsor Police in Ontario to investigate the lecture series, “The Deadly Threat of Islam,” as a possible forum for hate speech.

They have also contacted provincial Attorney General Michael Bryant, formally requesting a hate-crime investigation.

The public outcry proved too much for Donald McKay, pastor of Campbell Baptist Church, who now says he would use less provocative language in pamphlets promoting the lecture.

"(The pamphlets) absolutely could have been worded differently," he said. "We're not interested … in causing unnecessary polarization. I did not think this would have the type of media backlash that it has."
. . .
"We're not trying to be provocative unnecessarily," he said. "We make a clear distinction between doctrine and people. Orthodox Islamic doctrine does promote violence. We believe that. The world has shown … many individuals, because they follow verses in Qur'an that promote violence, have themselves engaged in acts of violence."

He added: "We do not believe that all Muslims are violent. If that has been suggested, we have been misquoted or taken out of context."

I wasn’t at the lecture, so I don’t know if what Mr Anani said qualifies as hate speech.  But I do know that, in view of what Muslims are doing to Christians in Iraq, Egypt, West Bank and Gaza, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc.—not to mention that Muslims often mistreat Jews—his claim cannot be dismissed out of hand.  One could argue that appealing for hate crime prosecution is an attempt to shut down expression of plausible but unpopular opinion.

Mr Anani is giving the second lecture in the series tonight at the church.

h/t: Persecuted Church Weblog

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The Rt Rev John Bryson Chane, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, sees himself as a facilitator of inter-faith dialogue with religious leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Last September, he co-hosted the American visit of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.  Then, last month, Bp Chane and other American clerics visited Iran at Khatami’s invitation.  On Christmas Day, Chane appeared on a US morning news-talk show to speak about his trip.

Chane shared with the national television audience that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all have “holy books and texts” that “are very similar,” and “they all focus on the issues of peace and tranquility and brotherhood.” He also waxed eloquent: “We share far more in common than we do that divides us. And that which divides us, we can disagree with.”

“We” can have disagreements about religion with Iran’s leaders, but Iranians cannot.  Just before Christmas, fourteen Iranians who converted from Islam to Christianity were detained and their Bibles and other religious materials confiscated.  (All except the pastor were released a few weeks later.  No word on whether their Bibles were returned, but I’d say it’s doubtful.)

The Anglican Church of St Simon the Zealot in Shiraz is being led by a lay preacher because the government will not permit him to travel abroad for seminary training.   The church’s former rector was executed on suspicion of performing baptisms.

If President Ahmadinejad had his druthers, all Iranian Muslims who embrace Christ would be put to death.

In his own report on last month's visit to Iran, Bp Chane asserts that he and the mullahs “engaged in intense mutual scrutiny” and “candid conversations”, yet there is no mention of persecution of Christians.  The bishop says he held a supposedly forceful dialogue with Iran’s theocrats but apparently never raised harassment and maltreatment of Christians—including fellow Anglicans.  Hmmmm. What’s wrong with this picture?

h/t: Pearcey Report

Previous related posts:

• Iran’s Christmas hypocrisy
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Snow fell on Malibu for the first time in twenty years. In some areas of southern California, hail left ice on streets, causing traffic havoc and forcing highway closures.

The wintry mix brought troubles to Interstate 5, where authorities shut down the highway after heavy snow and ice caused big-rigs to jackknife and block traffic over the 4,144-foot Tejon Pass between the Los Angeles Basin and the San Joaquin Valley.
. . .
Officers on Wednesday escorted motorists through the treacherous path, known as the Grapevine, but then shut down the highway indefinitely, CHP Officer Patrick Kimball said.

The cold set in late last week, bringing night after night of freezing overnight temperature to many parts of the state and causing extensive agricultural damage.

Photo downloaded from KNX1070 News Radio, where over a dozen pictures of snow in Malibu are posted.

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• Global warming bypasses my part of the globe
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