Free Speech vs Islam in America

The muslims of Dearborn don't like it, but that's too bad. Unless the local court finds a way to twist the Bill of Rights and withhold the right of Pastor Jones to demonstrate against the anti-freedom ideology that muslims support.

Detroit Suburb Fights Pastor's Mosque Rally

Authorities in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn are trying to head off a confrontation at a rally planned Friday to protest Islamic law by Quran-burning Christian pastor Terry Jones outside the biggest U.S. mosque.

But the bid to stop the Florida pastor has stirred concerns about violating his First Amendment rights.

Pastor Terry Jones plans a rally in Dearborn against Islamic law.

The Wayne County prosecutor is asking a state court to order Mr. Jones to pay a peace bond to guarantee the event won't be violent. "The greatest danger is the likelihood of a riot ensuing, complete with the discharge of firearms, unless this bond is granted," the prosecutor said in her complaint.

The city of Dearborn, meanwhile, has asked Mr. Jones to move his rally two to three miles away to one of its two designated "free speech zones," from the planned site near the Islamic Center of America. The city—home to Ford Motor Co. and one of the largest Arab-American communities in the U.S.—cited concerns about traffic and parking near the mosque, which is near two churches hosting Good Friday services.

The city of Dearborn was in the process of denying Mr. Jones's permit, said a spokeswoman, adding if he went ahead as planned, he could face arrest.

Mr. Jones, head of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., drew world attention last month when his congregation staged a "trial" of Islam's holy book that culminated in setting a copy of the Quran ablaze. News of the event incited riots in Afghanistan and an attack on a United Nations facility there that killed seven people.

Michigan's 19th District Court is expected to hear Wayne County's case Thursday afternoon. Mr. Jones said he plans to appear in court and said he would refuse to post a peace bond if so ordered, which could land him in county jail. Concerns about the public's security were unfounded, he said, repeating he had no plans to burn Qurans.

"We are going there totally in peace. We have no intentions of doing anything provocative," he said in an interview. "We will be speaking our minds, expressing our First Amendment rights."

Free-speech advocates criticized the prosecutor. "As reprehensible as his beliefs may be, this is an unconstitutional attempt to limit his unpopular speech," said Rana Elmir, a spokeswoman at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

Majed Moughni, an organizer of a counter-demonstration to take place in one of the free-speech zones, agreed. "We think he has the right for free speech," said Mr. Moughni, a local attorney who burned Mr. Jones in effigy last fall when he threatened to burn the Quran on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Jones said his event at the Islamic Center is aimed at protesting sharia, or Islamic law. He said he expects a handful of supporters to join him.

In response, Kassem Allie, executive administrator at the Islamic Center, said the mosque will hold an interfaith gathering involving the Archdiocese of Detroit and other Christian churches Thursday afternoon. Mr. Allie is encouraging congregants to avoid the mosque Friday and join a "Stop the Hate" rally being held elsewhere.

Although Mr. Jones said the public had nothing to fear, he is concerned about his own safety. He said he has received 400 death threats, including some from Dearborn residents. He said he and an assistant accompanying him plan to be armed.

"I have a .40-caliber semiautomatic that I carry with me at all times," said Mr. Jones. "If someone would try to attack us, shoot us, we would have no problem defending ourselves."

Exercise Your Right to Free Speech -- Burn a Quran

General Petraeus and President Obama, to name just two, should repeat 100 times: The Right of Freedom of Speech means Americans -- Americans -- have the right to burn a Quran without fear of government opposition.

Or so many of us thought. Have both the President and the General forgotten one of our most important rights? Seems they value the "feelings" of illiterate muslims over the Rights of Americans. Their comments are horrifyingly naive and horrifyingly good news for our enemies.

Petraeus Misfires on Quran Burning

Mobs murder more than 20 innocents in the name of God—and the commander of Afghan forces rebukes a publicity-hungry pastor in Florida

By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ

It must have come as a disappointment to the mullahs of Mazar-e-Sharif—who sent the faithful out on Friday with instructions to avenge the recent insult to the Quran—and to the mobs who consequently went forth to slaughter 12 people at U.N. headquarters, nine more in Kandahar the next day, and two more the next, that their bloody enterprise had counted for so little in the eyes of Western military leaders.

So it would appear at least from the response by Gen. David Petraeus, who delivered an impassioned rebuke of a publicity-hungry Florida pastor who had presided over the mock trial and burning of a Quran on March 20. This act was, the general declared in a video statement over the weekend, "hateful, extremely disrespectful, and enormously intolerant." It had endangered American troops. He wanted, he announced, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms.

No one listening could doubt it. The general would go on to say more, but nowhere in any of that condemnation was it possible to find a mention of the merciless savagery that had taken place in the name of devotion to God and the Quran. Mark Sedwill, the NATO senior civilian representative who joined Gen. Petraeus in the statement, did manage to find a moment to murmur in passing that, of course, condolences were due to "everyone who has been hurt in the demonstrations."

It's hard to conceive of a pronouncement richer in evasions of brutal reality than this one, with its references to people "hurt'' in "demonstrations." The participants in these "demonstrations"—a nice touch, that, suggestive of marchers, perhaps carrying placards—had in fact hunted down and killed, by shooting, stabbing and beating to death a total of 22 people by the end of the third day's expression of religious devotion.

In an interview Sunday in this newspaper, Gen. Petraeus reflected further on the problems caused by burning the Quran and how mobs could be influenced by those who might have an interest in hijacking passions—"in this case, perhaps, understandable passions."

To this the only sane response is no. They are not understandable, these passions that so invariably find voice in mass murder, the butchery of imagined enemies like the people hunted down in the U.N. office Friday, and of everyone else the mobs encountered who might fit the bill. We will not prevail over terrorism and the related bloodlust of this fundamentalist fanaticism as long as our leading representatives, the military included, are inclined to pronounce its motivations as "understandable."

It should be said that President Obama, to his credit, went on to declare, after denouncing the Quran burning, that to kill innocent people in response is "outrageous and an offense to human decency and dignity." It should be said, too, that it's a bleak commentary on the prevailing political atmosphere that the president's public recognition of the horrors committed by those rampaging soldiers of Islam should seem noteworthy.

Still, it was. And it came as a relief, after so much handwringing, all of it focused on the Florida pastor and the likelihood that he may have endangered American troops. (The same was said about the danger to American troops when Newsweek published a false report, in 2005, that American interrogators had flushed a Quran down the toilet—an event which set off days of rioting and bloodshed in Afghanistan and elsewhere.)

By making no mention of the perpetrators of the current massacres—while managing to suggest they were understandably driven to their action—Gen. Petraeus doubtless believed he was taking the appropriate politic path. It's a path that's unquestionably familiar—called appeasement—and one whose usual outcome is also familiar.

Displays of cringing deference to the forces loosed on the streets of Afghanistan over the weekend will not strengthen the American mission. They will stiffen the spines of the jihadists. Such displays count as victories, reassuring indicators that the threat of terrorism—mob terrorism, in this case—continues to work its wonders as a weapon of war. The sort that could send the commanding general of U.S forces in Afghanistan and a NATO official into swoons of apology while denouncing the pastor's act. For a moment there during their joint statement it seemed altogether possible that one or another of them might begin rending his garments.

That none of these emotional proclamations included any judgment, moral or otherwise, about the criminality of the zealots who had just taken so many lives, speaks volumes to those at war with us—all of it encouraging to them. Something to consider adding to the list of things that might endanger the lives of American troops.

Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.