Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide
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Bouyeri was a second-generation immigrant raised in a Moroccan area of Amsterdam. By mid-2003, he had withdrawn from Dutch life at large, fallen under the influence of the radical Syrian preacher Abou Khaled, and become the leader of the “Hofstad network” of Muslim youths.11 At his public hearing in late January 2005, he came to court holding a Qur’an; he praised Allah and Muhammad and confessed to the murder. He told the court he had been “motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet.” This also, in his interpretation, forbade him from living “in this country, or in any country where free speech is allowed.” He told van Gogh’s mother, present in the court, “I can’t feel for you because I think you’re a non-believer.” He went on to say, “If I ever get free, I would do it again.” He also stated that “the story that I felt insulted as a Moroccan, or because he called me a goat f****r, that is all nonsense. I acted out of faith.” In July 2005, he was convicted of van Gogh’s murder—as well as the attempted murder of police officers and bystanders—and sentenced to life imprisonment.12
The murder shocked a country known for its tolerance. The Dutch prime minister called van Gogh “a champion of the freedom of speech.” Amsterdam’s mayor, Job Cohen, who had been harshly criticized in van Gogh’s final column, declared, “The freedom of speech is a foundation of our society and that foundation was tampered with today … Theo van Gogh picked fights with many people, myself included, but that is a right in this country.” On the night of the murder, 20,000 people turned out to demonstrate against the murder. On November 10, van Gogh’s funeral drew thousands more, many carrying pro-free speech banners.13
Some Dutch Muslim organizations, such as the Islam and Citizenship Foundation, sent delegations to the gathering to show their opposition to the murder. The European Arab League’s Dutch branch, which had denounced Submission, condemned the murder and noted, “shots and death threats are not the way to make people think differently.” UMMON, an umbrella group of Moroccan mosques, issued a statement in support of free speech and called for imams to include this message in their Friday sermons.14 However, Zahid Mukhtar, a spokesman of Norway’s Islamic Council, claimed that he could “understand” why some Muslims might become angry enough at van Gogh to kill him.15 When an artist in Rotterdam painted a street mural containing the words “thou shalt not kill” in Dutch, along with the date of van Gogh’s murder, a local mosque leader complained to police that the commandment was “racist.” The police, on orders of the mayor, sandblasted the mural. A television reporter who stood at the scene in protest was arrested, and police destroyed his film. During November, extremists of all types engaged in violence, and there were twenty attacks on churches, mosques, and Muslim schools.
As for the film Submission itself, in January 2005, a planned screening at a film festival in Rotterdam was canceled on the recommendation of the police after the producer received death threats. The producer acknowledged “yielding to terror,” explaining, “But I’m not a politician or an antiterrorist police officer; I’m a film producer.” In his view, van Gogh’s murderer had succeeded in his effort “to frighten the country.”16
Arts and Media
Among the arts, other targets of threats have included the plays of Voltaire and fifteenth-century Italian frescoes, as well as contemporary European works. Some were by artists of Muslim background. While Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, and others have also occasionally responded violently to controversial art, intimidation has been most widespread regarding perceived insults to Islam.17
In June 2001, an Italian Muslim group called for a fresco, The Last Judgment, painted by fifteenth-century artist Giovanni de Modena in the San Petronio basilica in Bologna, to be removed or destroyed because it depicted Muhammad in hell. The Union of Italian Muslims, headed by activist Adel Smith, sent letters to Bologna’s archbishop and even to the pope demanding its removal, declaring it to be “an even graver offence … than that caused by Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.” Smith even called for Italian schools in immigrant areas to stop teaching Dante, who, in his Inferno, had placed Muhammad in hell. Other Muslims rejected Smith’s views. Nabil Baioni of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Bologna commented, “I think this Smith represents only himself.”18 The fresco remains in place but has been subject to violent plots that have been thwarted by police.19
In 2005, Britain’s Tate Gallery refused to showcase a piece by artist John Latham, titled God Is Great, after Islamic scholars suggested that it was offensive because it used a Qur’an, along with the holy books of Judaism and Christianity, each partially embedded in a standing piece of glass. Gallery director Stephen Deuchar stated that, after the July 7 Tube bombings, the gallery worried that the sculpture “might be considered willfully provocative” and would invite some form of attack.20
When a French municipal cultural center in Saint-Genis-Pouilly scheduled a reading of Voltaire’s play Fanaticism, or Mahomet the Prophet, which is an attack on religious intolerance, some French Muslim groups demanded its cancellation. The show took place in December 2005 despite a minor riot in which a car was set on fire. The mayor defended free speech and thought the increasingly frequent controversies were due to the fact that “for a long time we have not confirmed our convictions, so lots of people think they can contest them.” The outcome in this case contrasted with another in Geneva in 1993, where a planned production of the same play was canceled following Muslim complaints.21
A September 2006 production of Mozart’s Idomeneo at the Berlin Deutsche Oper was initially canceled because of fear of violence by Muslim extremists. Director Hans Neuenfels had updated the show’s final scene, in which the title character refuses to sacrifice to the gods, to include the severed heads of Muhammad, Jesus, and Buddha, along with that of Poseidon. The revised staging drew audience protests at its December 2003 premiere but was only canceled after German security officials told the Oper’s general manager, Kirsten Harms, that there would be “an incalculable security risk to the public and employees” if the production were staged. When the director refused to alter or cut this scene, Harms canceled the show. After government officials and German Muslim representatives criticized this censorship, the opera was performed without disturbance. The production opened December 18 with a police presence, security gates with electronic scanners, and a memo to opera employees on what measures to take in event of bomb threats.22
At Berlin’s Galerie Nord in February 2008, violence was threatened over an art exhibition that included a poster depicting Islam’s most important shrine, the Ka’aba, and bearing the words “stupid stone.” The exhibition was temporarily closed until security measures could be put in place.23 Also in 2008, the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam planned a stage adaption of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. Its director and coauthor Uwe Laufenberg said, “It is time for the Muslim world to say exactly what it finds so provocative about this book,” and hoped his production would help shift attention to what was actually in the novel as opposed to a vague belief that it was offensive. While some Muslims expressed regret, the head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany said that “freedom of opinion and the arts is of a high value and most Muslims are against censorship,” but he also noted that “offences against what is sacred in a religion is not something we value.” Others were less temperate. A Turkish actor who had planned to take part in the play, Oktay Khan, quit after receiving death threats.24 In January 2010, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York quietly pulled various depictions of Muhammad from its Islamic collection.25
The publishing world is also suppressing Islam-related material. As mentioned, in 2009, Yale University Press, in consultation with Yale University, insisted on omitting all illustrations of Muhammad from its “definitive” scholarly book on the 2005–6 Danish cartoon crisis by Jytte Klausen. In addition to any reproduction of the Jyllands-Posten page featuring the cartoons, it censored Gustave Doré’s nineteenth-century illustration of the Muhammad in hell scene
from Dante’s Inferno and an Ottoman print of the prophet. The university press director, John Donatich, claimed that the requested recommendation from experts (including diplomats, scholars, and counterterrorism officials) to pull the drawings had been “overwhelming and unanimous.” A formal press statement highlighted the refusal of mainstream American media outlets to reprint the cartoons during the initial controversy and noted that “republication of the cartoons—not just the original printing of them in Denmark—has repeatedly resulted in violence around the world.” It cited UN officials Ibrahim Gambari and Joseph Verner Reed, as well as former U.S. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, as warning that inclusion of the cartoons would lead to violence. Gambari stated, “You can count on violence if any illustration of the Prophet is published.”
However, Muslim scholar Reza Aslan withdrew a statement of praise he had offered for the book upon learning of Yale’s decision, which he deemed “idiotic.” Notably, the decision, which author Klausen agreed to only reluctantly, seemed to rest on assumptions directly contradicting the thesis of her book, which argues that the cartoon crisis had its origins in conflicting political interests rather than in a spontaneous outpouring of popular outrage.26 In an interview with Klausen about this self-censorship, the British watchdog group Index on Censorship also self-censored illustrations of the cartoons, with an explanation that it did so out of fear for the safety of its employees and associates.27
In October 2009, the Droste Publishing Company in Germany canceled the publication of a mystery novel about Islamic honor killings. The company said it did not want to anger the Muslim population nor any other religious group in the future. Gabriele Brinkmann, the author of To Whom Honor Is Due, refused to remove passages that might be offensive to Muslims.28 In the same month, the city of Frankfurt canceled a Muhammad look-a-like contest at the Frankfurt Book Fair by the German satirical magazine Titanic. Some Muslims had complained and promised that the contest would incite bigger riots than the Danish cartoon.29
Several incidents involve works that do not specifically refer to Islam. When Terrence McNally portrayed Jesus Christ and his followers as homosexuals in his play, Corpus Christi, he probably anticipated outrage from Christians, of which there was—unsurprisingly—a great deal. But it is unlikely that he foresaw the death fatwa he received in October 1999 from a Muslim group, “The Shari’ah Court of the UK.” The court’s supporters handed out copies of the fatwa outside the London theater where the play had opened. It was signed by Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, who criticized the Church of England for not seeking to suppress the film, and even stated, “It is blasphemy for them not to take action.” Since Muslims consider Jesus a Messenger from God, he asserted that those who insult Allah and the messengers of God “must understand it is a crime.” The fatwa declared that McNally “will be arrested and there will be capital punishment.” The sheikh further asserted that McNally could escape the death sentence by converting to Islam, whereas, “if he simply repented he would still be killed—but his family would be cared for by the Islamic state.”30
In March 2006, in Paris, some Muslim youths threatened the owners of a café in their neighborhood with violence if they did not remove cartoons hung on the walls as part of an exhibition “Neither god nor god.” The cartoons mocked all religions and did not include any depictions of Muhammad. Nonetheless, some local boys between ten and twelve years old accused the café owners of being racists and tried to smash the pictures with sticks and iron rods. Subsequently, the café received a visit from a slightly older group, who, as one owner said, “warned us that if we didn’t take the cartoons down they would call in the Muslim Brothers who would burn the café down. They kept saying: ‘This is our home. You cannot act like this here.’” The owners refused to remove the cartoons, which they believed would have been “surrender,” but instead covered those that had drawn the youths’ ire with sheets of paper bearing the word “censored” so it would still be possible to view them by lifting the paper. They also lodged a complaint with the police.31
In October 2006, London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery removed erotically themed paintings by German surrealist Hans Bellmer the day before the opening of a new exhibition, reportedly in order “to not shock the population of the Whitechapel neighborhood, which is partly Muslim.”32
Threats consistently pursue those who do focus on Islam, sometimes even in a sympathetic manner. In December 2000, a theater director in Rotterdam, Gerrit Timmers, planned to stage a play on the life of Aisha, one of Muhammad’s wives. His Muslim actors declared that, although they would like to participate, they could not do so due to fear of retaliation by local Islamists: “We are enthusiastic about the play, but fear reigns.”33 In the United States, Random House at the last minute rejected the historical romance novel about Aisha, Jewel of Medina, by American writer Sherry Jones. They did so to protect “the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel.” The cancellation came after a Middle East Studies professor, consulted by the company, warned Muslims of the possible publication of an offensive novel and also warned Random House of a likely hostile reaction by Muslims. In September 2008, three men were arrested and subsequently sentenced for attempted arson of the home of Martin Rynja, whose British publishing company, Gibson Square, had agreed to carry the book.34
There are other examples in the United States of censorship by threat of violence. The comedy cartoon show South Park declined to show an image of the Muslim prophet dressed in a bear suit, though it had mocked figures from other religions. In response, Molly Norris, a cartoonist for the Seattle Weekly, suggested that to counter such intimidation maybe there should be an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” She withdrew the suggestion and implied that she had been joking; but after she had received many death threats, including some from Al-Qaeda, the FBI advised her that she should go into hiding. She has given up her job, moved, and changed her name. Seattle Weekly’s chief editor, Mark Fefer, wrote that her cartoons would no longer be in the paper “because there is no more Molly.”35 On October 3, 2010, about 800 newspapers in the United States refused to run the “Non Sequitur” cartoon drawn for that day run by regular daily cartoonist Wiley Miller, and instead substituted another cartoon by Wiley. The cartoon that they refused to run contained no depiction of Muhammad, but merely a bucolic scene with the caption, “Where’s Muhammad?” The Washington Post said that it did not run the cartoon because it might upset Muslim readers and seem a “deliberate provocation.”36 Meanwhile, on October 20, 2010, Zachary Chesser, a young convert to Islam, pleaded guilty in Federal Court to supporting Somali terrorists and threatening the creators of South Park and was subsequently sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.37
Several artists of Muslim background have also faced serious danger in the West. In January 2005, Rachid Ben Ali, a Dutch-Moroccan artist, was forced into hiding after his satirical work denouncing Islamist violence, exhibited by an Amsterdam art museum, drew death threats. His paintings, which depicted suicide bombers and “hate imams,” were featured in an exhibition that was opened with a powerful call by Ahmed Aboutaleb, a Muslim politician in the Netherlands, to defend free expression.38
Iranian artist Sooreh Hera (a pseudonym) was the target of a fatwa published in Iranian newspapers. She received a number of death threats and could not attend an art festival featuring her own work. Safety concerns arose after she displayed photographs depicting gay Iranian exiles wearing masks and lewdly mimicking Muhammad and his son-in-law, the caliph Ali. In 2008, two invitations for Hera to exhibit were withdrawn for political reasons. An Amsterdam art festival finally agreed to exhibit her work, but with the stipulation that the most controversial pictures be omitted. The sponsoring gallery’s director had to obtain police protection due to threats.39
These controversies demonstrate that not all Muslims endorse the suppression of productions they view as offensive by fiat or threat. Als
o, most protests have been peaceful. Nonetheless, intimidation from extremists is quashing artists’ appetite for criticizing Islam. In November 2007, British artist Grayson Perry, who had previously not hesitated to target Christianity in his work, stated, “The reason I haven’t gone all out attacking Islamism in my art is because I feel real fear that someone will slit my throat.” Tim Marlow, exhibitions director at a London art gallery, said Perry had hit upon “something that’s there but very few people have explicitly admitted. Institutions, museums and galleries are probably doing most of the censorship.” In July 2008, playwright Simon Gray charged that National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner, who had drawn ire from Christians by staging Jerry Springer: The Opera, was nonetheless afraid of staging any shows that could be deemed offensive to Muslims. The director of the movie 2012 also admitted that fear prevented him from showing the destruction of Muslim symbols along with St. Peter’s Basilica and other religious sites in a scene depicting the end of the world.40
Islam and Critical Commentary