[Bravo]

That wont upset anyone, will it?

[Symon]

[admin (no pm's please)]

Tricky, must admit I don't know enough about this issue.

You can regard him as an icon of the defense of freedom of speech,  but what has that got to do with the honors system which is anyhow a totally archaic concept anyway

You can also say that insulting the prophet of a major world religion, is not the most clever of moves anyway did the satanic verses really bring any enlightened debate about Islam? or was it simply viewed by almost every Muslim as a slap in the face for their religion?

Whilst the Islamlic world obviously is to be blamed for its reaction, there was a sense of the inevitable about that reaction and it resulted in Muslim communities closing in on themselves and feeling threatened and isolated. 

Imagine the reaction there might have been if instead of the Satanic verses Salmon had written "The Pope molests choir boys" !

Some times freedom of speech needs to be tempered with a sense of consequence of the use of that right. The world might be a slightely better place today if that book had never seen the light of day.

[Bravo]

To my mind there is no question whatsoever that the government knows this would offend pretty much every muslim nation on the planet, I would like to believe that they couldn't possibly be so stupid as to believe otherwise.

So, that begs the question of 'why?'

Why would our government want to enrage the muslim world?

[admin (no pm's please)]

The government does not (thank god) control book publishing!

I hate to defend the Thatcher regime, but it was duty bound to allow the book to be published and protect Salmon.

Freedom of speech must be defended, the question in my mind was the stupidity in publishing

[Bravo]

I'm not referring to the publishing of the book, I am referring to the knighthood.

[St0rm[TitE]]

let him have his knighthood. its cost us taxpayers x amount of millions to keep him alive so let him have his trophy.

more worrying to me is that this government is about to sign away even more of the UK to the EU, without the promised referendum.

[Bravo]

Its hitting the fan as we speak

[St0rm[TitE]]

read....

Iranian Terrorist Massoumeh Ebtekar Gets U.N. Award

As reported on NRO, the U.N. Environment Programme has given out its 2006 Champion of the Earth awards, which honor people "for their creativity, vision and leadership, and the potential of their work and ideas for replication across the globe." Among the winners was Massoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President of Iran and formerly head of its Department of the Environment. Her accomplishments also include a prominent role in the 1979 embassy crisis, during which Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held hostages for well over a year, until the glorious day Dhimmi Carter was dislodged from the White House.

Ebtekar became the mouthpiece of the Islamist kidnappers because she spoke fluent English with an American accent, having lived in the USA. As The Atlantic Monthly reports:

Known as "Mother Mary" and "Screaming Mary," she was especially disliked by many of the hostages, in part because her accent made her seem like a turncoat, a "Tokyo Rose," in part because of her endless propagandizing. She would saunter through the captured embassy with a camera crew in tow, urging the hostages to describe their ordeal in upbeat terms. "You have been treated well, haven't you?" was her constant refrain. During one such filming session, in the final days of captivity, Army Sergeant Regis Regan got so fed up with Ebtekar that he let loose with a stream of invective and was dragged into a hallway for a beating. Another former hostage, Michael Metrinko, one of the embassy's political officers, summed up his feelings about Ebtekar this way: "If she were on fire on the street, I wouldn't piss on her to put it out."

Ebtekar is on the record as being willing to shoot hostages herself, and as having no regrets about the embassy seizure.

In short, Massoumeh Ebtekar is exactly the sort of character that would be granted an award by the perverted fools who run the U.N. Unsurprisingly, she used her acceptance speech as an opportunity to propagandize on behalf of Iran's psychotic theocracy.