May 15th, 2004
(Oops. I just accidentally blew away the original of this post.)
The Council on American Islamic Relations, a leading US Islamic advocacy group, has issued a petition titled "Not In Our Name", intended to "demonstrate once and for all that Muslims in America and throughout the Islamic world reject violence committed in the name of Islam." The petition uses quotes from the Koran to show that Islam prohibits the killing of anyone in captivity, and says Islam should not "be held accountable for the un-Islamic and barbaric deeds of a minuscule minority."
We just found a white-spotted tick embedded into Goose's back. It can't have been there long; it probably dropped on her this evening when she was outside. Now we're going to have to monitor her closely for a week or so and watch out for a bullseye rash.
The US is taking Greenpeace to court with a completely unfounded charge of "sailor mongering", apparently in retribution for civil disobedience by Greenpeace in the boarding of a freighter, the APL Jade, carrying illegally-felled Amazon mahogany to Miami. The crime of "sailor mongering," a charge last filed 114 years ago, was the act of sending boatloads of prostitutes laden with liquor to board ships coming into harbor, with the intention of getting the sailors drunk stealing them away from the crew. A conviction in the US action, which is pretty much a SLAPP suit, would strike a blow against Brazilian efforts to halt illegal mahogany logging, which is more profitable than cocaine dealing. A single mahogany tree, harvested in the Amazon for $30, can bring in $120,000 when sold in New York as finished furniture.
( The rest of the skinny )As significant as the prosecution itself, are the implications, free speech campaigners say.
Not once since the Boston Tea Party have U.S. authorities criminally prosecuted a group for political expression.
"It's ominous," said attorney Maria Kayanan of law firm Podhurst Orseck, which worked with the American Civil Liberties Union on a "friend of court" brief to back a Greenpeace demand that the government reveal who ordered the prosecution.