NO, HE'S NOT MR. BEAN, JUST A KILLER OF FREE SPEECH
LONDON'S MUSLIM MAYOR INTRODUCES
THE THOUGHT POLICE
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
In FrontPage today I show how Sadiq Khan’s new initiative against “hate speech” demonstrates how the Left serves the Islamic supremacist agenda:
London’s new Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, is allocating over two million dollars (£1,730,726) to an “online hate crime hub” enabling police to track and arrest “trolls” who “target…individuals and communities.” There can be no doubt, given the nature of the British political establishment today, which “trolls” these new Thought Police will be going after, and which “communities” will be protected from “hate speech.” “Islamophobia,” which David Horowitz and I termed “the thought crime of the totalitarian future,” is now going to bring down upon the hapless “trolls” the wrath of London’s Metropolitan police force — and this totalitarian new initiative shows yet again how easily the Leftist and Islamic supremacist agendas coincide and aid each other.“The Metropolitan police service,” said a police spokesman, “is committed to working with our partners, including the mayor, to tackle all types of hate crime including offences committed online.” Given the fact that Khan, in a 2009 interview, dismissed moderate Muslims as “Uncle Toms” and has numerous questionable ties to Islamic supremacists, it is unlikely that he will be particularly concerned about “hate speech” by jihad preachers (several of whom were just recently welcomed into a Britain that has banned foes of jihad, including me).And the “partners” of the London police are likely to include Tell Mama UK, which says on its website: “we work with Central Government to raise the issues of anti-Muslim hatred at a policy level and our work helps to shape and inform policy makers, whilst ensuring that an insight is brought into this area of work through the systematic recording and reporting of anti-Muslim hate incidents and crimes.” Tell Mama UK has previously been caught classifying as “anti-Muslim hate incidents and crimes” speech on Facebook and Twitter that it disliked. Now it will have the help of the London police to do that.“The purpose of this programme,” we’re told, “is to strengthen the police and community response to this growing crime type.” This “crime type” is only “growing” because Britain has discarded the principle of the freedom of speech, and is committing itself increasingly to the idea that “hate speech” is objectively identifiable, and should be restricted by government and law enforcement action. Section 127 of the Communications Act of 2003 criminalizes “using [a] public electronic communications network in order to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety,” and no groups are better at manifesting public annoyance than Islamic advocacy groups. A pastor in Northern Ireland, James McConnell, ran afoul of this law in 2014 when he dared to criticize Islam in a sermon; he was acquitted after an 18-month investigation and a trial, but the Metropolitan police will not want to be seen as wasting their new “hate speech” money; others will not be as fortunate as McConnell.Behind the push for “hate speech” laws is, of course, the increasingly authoritarian Left. Increasingly unwilling (and doubtless unable) to engage its foes in rational discussion and debate, the Left is resorting more and more to the Alinskyite tactic of responding to conservatives only with ridicule and attempts to rule conservative views out of the realm of acceptable discourse. That coincides perfectly with the ongoing initiative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to intimidate the West into criminalizing criticism of Islam.This is not the first time that a Sharia imperative and a Leftist one coincided during the relatively brief (so far) mayoral tenure of Sadiq Khan. The London Evening Standard reported on June 13 that “adverts which put Londoners under pressure over body image are to be banned from the Tube and bus network.” This was because “Sadiq Khan announced that Transport for London would no longer run ads which could cause body confidence issues, particularly among young people.”Said Khan: “As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies. Nobody should feel pressured, while they travel on the Tube or bus, into unrealistic expectations surrounding their bodies and I want to send a clear message to the advertising industry about this.”And so no more ads featuring women in bikinis on London buses. People often puzzle about how the hard Left and Islamic supremacists can make common cause, when they have such differing ideas of morality; Khan’s ad ban showed how. The Left’s concern with “body-shaming” and not putting people “under pressure over body image” meshed perfectly with the Sharia imperative to force women to cover themselves in order to remove occasions of temptation for men.What next? Will London women be forced to cover everything except their face and hands (as per Muhammad’s command) so as not to put others “under pressure over body image”? And if they are, will anyone who dares to complain about what is happening to their green and pleasant land be locked up for “hate speech” by London’s new Thought Police?Welcome to Sadiq Khan’s London. Shut up and put on your hijab.
