As part of her national tour, on October 5, 2011, author, speaker, human rights activist, and blogger Nonie Darwish spoke at the George Mason University (GMU) Law School concerning human rights in the Muslim world and the problems stemming from the Muslim world’s use of Islamic law, often called “Sharia.”  Ms. Darwish is descended...
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It seems as though it is now understood and was even at the time, that the September 11th attacks marked the true demarcation line between the 20th and 21st centuries. The 20th century, filled though it was with both innovation and horror in equal measure, was nevertheless the “modern” century. And on that September...
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Several months into the brutal crackdown perpetrated by Bashar Assad’s regime, suppressing the Syrian people, during which human rights groups estimate as many as 1,600 people have been killed, the “Assad the Reformer” chorus  may have finally been silenced. U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford, and French Ambassador Eric Chevallier earned the wrath of the Syrian...
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A shocking memorandum by Syrian intelligence uncovered last week instructed plainclothes secret policemen, who have mixed with the protesters, to open fire upon their own military officers and security forces, “in order to further deceive the enemy.”  “In the event of protesters’ deaths,” security officials were instructed to say , “armed gangs and extremist...
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As I write these words, the Egyptian uprising is in its sixth day, going full blast and with no end in sight. The pressure cooker, under the iron fist of 30 years of President Hosni Mubarak’s repressive rule, had been simmering for some time. Last week, the pot boiled over. What started this wave...
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After several weeks of dominating the news, the preacher of a small Florida church, Terry Jones, has finally disappeared from the front pages, after promising that he would end his plans to hold a public burning of the Koran. The proposed stunt was sophomoric, childish, and roundly condemned by everyone. The image of books...
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I have been fortunate enough, on more than one occasion, to have met with one of the most revered dissidents in the struggle for human rights, former “prisoner of conscience” Natan Sharansky. He had mentioned to me that there were two essential things that had given him hope through those lonely, brutal years in...
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If there is anything that rivals the insidiousness of the Saudi regime, it is the blatant assault that the Saudis have made on our own precious first amendment rights, particularly our freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This is what is sometimes referred to as  “libel terrorism” or “libel tourism” . This...
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Legal Project Brooke Goldestein on the Litigation Jihad: The United Nations recently passed resolutions that would make “defaming” Islam a globally criminal act. The United Kingdom first refused entry to Geert Wilders, a sitting European Parliament member and Islamist critic, and now has issued a list banning 16 other individuals, which includes some banned...
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