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More on Europe's Dwindling Freedoms

Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom and co-author of Silenced, a forthcoming book on contemporary blasphemy rules, has a short NRO article on the larger context of Geert Wilders and liberal suppression of free speech in the guise of Islamic hate crimes.

"Geert Wilders is the latest in a lengthening roster of Europeans who have been criminally prosecuted for criticizing Islam," Shea writes. Such prosecution "demonstrates the continued willingness of authorities in Europe's most liberal countries to regulate the content of speech on Islam in order to placate Muslim blasphemy demands."

This is an important trend I've touched upon several times, but which bears continual repeating. European liberals are confusing democratic liberty with egalitarian slavery - the result is not academic theory but public prosecution. When large groups make such mistakes about basic political priorities, historical tragedies often follow.

Also see Cliff May's post:

The decisions by Dutch prosecutors to dismiss the charges against parliamentarian Geert Wilders can be seen as a battle won in a war the West is losing - the war for freedom of speech, the freedom without which no other freedoms can be defended.

As I argue in my latest column, influential people are not just avoiding criticism of all things Islamic, they also are legitimizing vile practices -- e.g. gender apartheid -- where these practices are rooted in Islamic practice.

Women's rights groups are silent. Most elite journalists are at least complicit.

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