A petition being circulated by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq
This is a issue between political Islam and freedom of speech, but it is secondary to the killing of Van Gogh who was murdered by Islamic people in Netherlands because of his short film about the real situation for women under Islamic rule.
Now political Islamic forces and Arabic nationalist governments in the Middle East are provoking the religious feeling of people in Arab countries, Pakistan, and abroad. They are expanding this crisis, so they can reach their goals of preventing criticism or expression about the Islamic religion and Islamic and sharia-law rules.
People who love and demand freedom and equality in Europe gained their freedom of speech after many ideological and political revolutions, against the prolonged backlash of religious groups. Today political Islam through terror and economic boycotts is trying to destroy this facet of life in Europe’s secular society. For that reason any pushing back of this freedom of speech in the Muhammad caricature case is not against the Danish magazine or right-wing Danish government, it’s pushing back the freedom of speech itself in Europe and the entire world, leaving them kneeling in front of political Islam and sharia-law.
The Danish government’s position is racist when it describes this issue as belonging to the differences between European and Middle East culture. This government, by using the tool of “multiculturalism” legitimates every crime against freedom of speech which is done by Islamic forces, not just in the Middle East but also towards Denmark and European citizens.
There is no doubt that defending freedom of speech is in the hand of freedom lovers and nobody else. So we should have a strong position for defending the freedom of speech and not let anyone else's definition – such as a clash between west and east, “multiculture” and respect of people’s “values” take us the wrong way. We should not allow these Islamist attacks to cower anyone who criticises reactionary Islam. If we can't defend the freedom of speech in Europe, we will hand over the rights of millions of people in the Middle East to execution, terror and oppression. Victory of freedom of speech in this case will be the victory of all humanity and freedom lovers in the entire world; failure or withdrawal of freedom of speech will push back any voice of freedom in the world in the face of reactionary forces.
We call on all freedom lovers, parties and unions to raise their voices to defend freedom of speech and to add their signatures to this petition.
