Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who was suspended by Twitter for posting a screenshot of the Pensacola shooter showing his Islamic terrorist motivation, has accused Twitter of running defense for radical Islam.
Hegseth was locked out of his account after he posted the screenshot along with the words, “The coward posted it just hours before his terrorist attack. This is Islamist terror. No reason to ever mince words. Saudi Arabia must be held to account.”
Hegseth was informed that he would regain access to his account if he deleted the tweet, but has refused to do so.
“I simply posted the words of the terrorist who killed three Americans in a terrorist attack, yet I’m violating the Twitter policy on terrorism and therefore I am banned,” Hegseth told Tucker Carlson, adding that he doesn’t normally “play the veteran card,” but feels it makes him more keenly aware of the “motivations” of terrorists.
Hegseth added that without the right to speak freely, “we’re gonna get the false narrative of the PC folks from Silicon Valley every single day of the week. And they banned me, and if they’ll ban me, they’ll ban anybody.”
“It’s not the people who have a profile, it’s the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans who share stuff about radical Islam, which is taboo, who are blocked every single day. Silicon Valley is in bed with defending under the guise of defending against Islamophobia anyone who exposes the things that radical Islam is doing. That’s what I ran up against here,” said Hegseth.
The Fox News host added that there appears to be a double standard when it comes to criticism of Islam and Christianity.
“There’s literally no limit to the things you can say about Christianity or Christians and remain on the platform,” he said.
Twitter claims that posting terrorist manifestos is against its terms of service, although this wasn’t enforced when innumerable people posted the words of the Christchurch shooter, which were then used to smear conservative activist Candace Owens.
It appears though it’s perfectly fine to post terrorist manifestos, so long as they make conservatives look bad.
In response to a jihadist terror attack in Vienna last week, the government of Austria will pass a law making it illegal to spread “political Islam” in the country.
The European nation’s capital was shook when a lone gunman killed four people and injured 23 others during a rampage that began in the city’s historic quarter. The culprit, 20-year-old Kujtim Fejzullai, was an ISIS sympathizer.
In response, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced new measures that would make preaching “political Islam” a criminal offense.
“We will create a criminal offence called ‘political Islam’ in order to be able to take action against those who are not terrorists themselves, but who create the breeding ground for them,” Kurz tweeted.
Im Kampf gegen den politischen Islam werden wir einen Straftatbestand „Politischer Islam“ schaffen, um gegen diejenigen vorgehen zu können, die selbst keine Terroristen sind, aber den Nährboden für solche schaffen.
Another measure set to be voted on by Parliament next month would see individuals convicted of terror offences kept behind bars for life.
As we previously highlighted, despite facing a worst threat than Austria, the French government hasn’t taken similar measures.
However, President Macron has faced global protests from the Muslim world simply for re-affirming the pre-eminence of free speech and suggesting tighter border controls.
The Danish newspaper that provoked violent worldwide protests after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in 2005 has refused to do so again, with its editor-in-chief commenting, “Violence works.”
The decision follows the beheading of school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris for showing similar cartoons to pupils in his class and another attack yesterday in Nice during which three people were killed near a church, including a woman who was decapitated.
The culprit in Paris was a Chechen refugee who French authorities had given residency papers to back in March, while the jihadist in Nice was a boat migrant who arrived in Italy from Tunisia last month.
Now Jacob Nybroe, editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, says his newspaper will not accept ads being run by Danish political party the New Right, which includes cartoons of Mohammad, due to the risk of a violent backlash.
The cartoons are being run in collaboration with Charlie Hebdo to “show support for the victims of Islamic violence,” but Nybroe says his newspaper can play no part in it.
“Security for us is unfortunately not a theoretical, moral, or political consideration,” Nybroe said.
“I wish it was different, that we could express ourselves freely, as we do in all other matters. But violence works,” he added.
“Only in one circumstance do we show caution – that is, in fact, a censorship inflicted on us by threats: we do not show drawings of the Prophet Muhammad,” Nybroe explained.
After Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons to spark a debate about criticism of Islam, the move prompted global violent riots as well as numerous threats against newspaper staff.
The backlash was described by former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as “Denmark’s worst international crisis since World War II.”
Three other Danish newspapers said they would review the cartoons before deciding whether to publish them.