Posted by Rough Rider on January 10, 2008, 6:09 am, in reply to "Re: Woman artist gets death threats over gay Muslim photos"
71.109.156.21
Sounds like Mexicans here but oh no, I am now sounding racist.
Couldn't we just sterilize them since they are neurologically unballanced?
--Previous Message--
: Too bad they are not showing the
: paintings. This is what you get in a
: free society when you allow fanatic
: Islamic animals live in your
: country. If they are scared and make
: changes because of these animals
: they let in then they deserve
: nothing more, they will become
: Islamic because they wont stop
: fukcing and have a dozen kids and in
: twenty years they will be the
: masses.
:
: --Previous Message--
: THE Dutch were debating the limits
: of
: freedom of expression last week
: after an artist who photographed gay
: men wearing masks of the prophet
: Muhammad was forced into hiding and
: her work removed from a museum
: exhibit.
:
: Speaking on the telephone from an
: unspecified location in the
: Netherlands last week, the artist,
: an Iranian exile who goes by the
: pseudonym of Sooreh Hera, said she
: had been threatened with
: “execution”. She accused the
: director of the municipal museum in
: The Hague of cowardice for caving in
: to Muslim extremists.
:
: Her story is a reminder of the
: tensions that have put the
: Netherlands and other European
: countries on the front line, sending
: dozens of people threatened by
: extremists into hiding since 2004,
: when a Dutch film-maker was murdered
: on the street and his collaborator
: driven into exile.
:
: This leaves Hera, 34, in no doubt
: that she is in real danger. “They
: said to me, ‘We’re going to burn you
: naked or put a bullet in your
: mouth’,” she said, referring to
: menacing e-mails.
:
: “They say, ‘Now you are locked in
: your home and you cannot go out any
: more’.”
:
: She said that by photographing gay
: Iranian exiles in masks of Muhammad,
: the founder of Islam, and Ali, his
: son-in-law, she had wanted to expose
: a “hypocritical” attitude towards
: homosexuality in countries such as
: Iran, where men can be hanged for
: homosexual conduct.
:
: “They condemn homosexuality but in
: countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia
: it is common for married men to
: maintain relations with other men,”
: said Hera. “Works of art can be
: provocative. It is not an artist’s
: job just to paint flowers. Art
: should shine a light on social
: issues.”
:
: The photographs were part of an
: extensive collection of images by
: Hera of mostly Dutch gay men.
: Another part of her exhibit was a
: video featuring hard rock music and
: images of Iranian clerics
: interspersed with pictures of naked
: men.
:
: Wim van Krimpen, director of the
: museum, initially praised Hera’s
: collection of photographs as
: “exceptional”. Last month, however,
: he announced that the masked men
: could not be included in the
: forthcoming exhibition because
: “certain people in our society might
: perceive it as offensive”.
:
: This was no understatement. When a
: Danish newspaper published cartoons
: of Muhammad in 2005 it unleashed
: what the prime minister referred to
: as the country’s biggest
: international crisis since the
: second world war as Muslims staged
: violent protests.
:
: “The museum director was very
: afraid,” said Hera. “He gave in to
: pressure from the Islamists. It is
: censorship.” In protest, she
: withdrew the rest of her photographs
: from the exhibition and Ranti Tjan,
: director of a museum in Gouda,
: agreed to put them on show. He
: received threats from extremists and
: was under police protection last
: week. Hera declined to discuss her
: own security arrangements.
:
: She said she would like to attend
: the opening of the show in Gouda if
: it went ahead, but that it might be
: too dangerous. “There are times when
: I am very afraid,” she admitted,
: “times when I feel like a prisoner.”
:
: The affair has highlighted deep
: divisions among Europeans over how
: to deal with the Islamic extrem-ism
: since the murder of Theo van Gogh
: over a film that criticised Islam’s
: treatment of women.
:
: A note attached to his body with a
: knife threatened other people,
: including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a
: Somali-born former Dutch politician
: and his collaborator. She fled to
: America, accusing the Dutch of
: “appeasement” of extremists. She has
: since returned to the Netherlands
: and is said to be working on a film
: about the repression of gays in
: Islamic societies.
:
: She may not get much support from
: the politicians, who seem determined
: to avoid confrontation even if some
: might accuse them of turning a blind
: eye to the erosion of artistic
: freedom. When Hera wrote to Ronald
: Plasterk, the culture minister,
: asking for his support he agreed to
: meet her but would not help to
: reinstate her photographs in the
: exhibition.
:
: Wouter Bos, the deputy prime
: minister, seemed to take a stand for
: freedom of speech, saying: “In a
: democracy, we do not recognise the
: right not to be insulted.” The left
: wing de Volkskrant newspaper, by
: contrast, praised the museum for its
: “great professionalism” in excising
: the images.
:
: For her part, Hera, who fled Iran
: seven years ago, says she has “no
: regrets”, particularly when she
: thinks about the young men and women
: being hanged there for offending the
: country’s code of sexuality. “I do
: it for them,” she said, “for the
: boys and girls with no freedom in
: Iran.”
:
:
:
: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3137510.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093
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