The Deadlier Virus: Western Censorship — This Time in Islam’s Name
CiydemImages/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

Telling the truth about COVID-19 can get you canceled. But criticizing Islam can get you convicted or your head cut off — in France, anyway.

It is there, after all, that some people must live under police protection because they apparently ran afoul of Sharia law dictates. Meanwhile, France’s authorities are also busy protecting Islam from criticism, with a Gallic politician becoming just the latest prominent person to be charged with a crime for warning about Islamization.

Locked Down Sharia “Criminals”

We’ve heard about people going into the Witness Protection Program for testifying against the mob. In France, though, offering a testimonial against Islam is all it may take. In fact, reports French website Valeurs Actuelles (VA), a third of its nation’s “close protections” involve those who’ve criticized the religion.

Individuals thus imperiled are dependent on the “Protection Service” (SDLP), which is attached to France’s National Police, and must live “outside of society,” wrote VA last week. Relating the reportage of their colleagues at The Point, VA tells us (all quotations are auto-translated from French and edited for grammar, clarity, and style)

that 35 men and women, “French or foreign,” residing in France, are under close protection organized by the SDLP. Among them are many journalists. This is the case, for example, with the former director of Charlie Hebdo, Philippe Val. The latter has been protected since 2006, classified Uclat 2 (which means a high risk), says The Point. At his home is a hidden armored room with a line and an active walkie-talkie. The journalist and writer, Zineb El Rhazoui, lives far from her relatives due to Islamist threats made against her on the Internet.

Charlie Hebdo is the French satirical newspaper whose headquarters were subject to a Muslim jihadist attack in 2015 that resulted in 11 dead and 11 injured; it was part of a headline-making, three-day series of incidents that saw 16 deaths and 22 wounded overall.

VA then related the plight of a teenager named Mila, who made news in 2020 at age 16 for calling Islam a “religion of hate” on Instagram. The site informs that “the young woman lives ‘bunkerized,’ a new life … in which Mila has ‘the impression of being dead while remaining of this world,’ she told The Point in January 2021.”

More examples: “The imam of Drancy, Hassen Chalghoumi, is forced to go out with a bulletproof vest and live away from his family,” VA continues. “He was the subject of an authentic fatwa by the Islamic State because he pleaded for a peaceful Islam, recalls The Point. Ever since the broadcast on M6 of the ‘Forbidden Zone’ (FZ) investigation into Islamism in several cities — including Marseille, Trappes and Roubaix — TV host Ophélie Meunier has also been under police protection due to threats issued against her. This is also the case with the Roubais jurist, Amine Elbahi, who testified in the FZ documentary with his face uncovered.”

If the Jihadists Don’t Get You, the State Will

Also being targeted with an iron muzzle for criticizing Islam is a French politician — but his tormentor is his government. As VA reported in a different article last week:

“I received the notification of the indictment when I returned home yesterday,” Jordan Bardella announced on Europe 1 [TV] this Wednesday, February 2nd. The interim president of the National Rally (RN) was indicted after remarks made in October 2021 about Trappes, in the Yvelines. He is accused comparing the community to an “Islamic Republic.” Speaking to journalist Sonia Mabrouk, Jordan Bardella said: “I deplore the fact that the French justice system is pursuing the same goal today as the Islamists, namely to silence those who expose reality and those who refuse to see countless neighbourhoods in France transformed.”

Note that the National Rally is the new name of the National Front, the party headed by France-first patriot Marine Le Pen.

Bardella also mentioned on Europe 1 that his indictment comes during a tense period, with the news of the 35 Frenchmen currently under protection for criticizing Islam.

Providing more background on Bardella’s “crime,” VA further tells us that in an October 2021 press release, the leader had “reacted to the re-election of the mayor of Trappes, Ali Rabeh, who ‘acts the stranglehold of Islamism on the city of Trappes,’ as Bardella put it.”

Mayor “Ali Rabeh had just been re-elected, after a first election, in March 2020, which had been annulled by the Council of State after offences committed during the election,” the site continues. “Bardella had likened this victory to the ‘constitution of Islamic Republics in miniature.’ He called in his communiqué for a ‘halt to this conquest of our territories.’”

So Bardella is being targeted, at least in part, for warning of Muslim-dominated “no-go zones.” It’s ironic that this is still seen as controversial because not only did The New York Times essentially originate the no-go-zone story in 2007, but ex-German chancellor Angela Merkel — the main enabler of Europe’s recent-years wave of Muslim migration — admitted in 2018 that these Sharia-oriented areas exist.

What’s more, the problem is so bad that in 2017, a French intellectual proposed the creation of a semi-autonomous Islamic state within France to avoid civil war with the Muslims. But, hey, see, hear, and speak no evil, mon ami.

As for Bardella, he’s hardly the first to speak up — and get hammered down. Prominent Europeans, including actors, politicians, and journalists, have long been charged with “hate speech” for criticizing Islam.

The deeper issue, and also one that absolutely “must not be discussed,” is that not all immigration is created equal. Immigration isn’t just a matter of importing economic entities who’ll perform jobs (maybe); it involves the absorption of real people who come with real biases, real passions, and real theologies/ideologies that won’t be discarded merely because their new land has better cheese and wine.

Demography is destiny, as is said, and thus is immigration policy literally a matter of what kind of land you’ll be tomorrow. Despite this, we discuss it with all the seriousness of video-game designers contemplating how many non-player characters (NPCs) to include in their next release. The difference is that we live inside our game and can’t switch it out just by pressing a button.