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The new Islamist attempt to assassinate Salman Rushdie reminded me that years ago, the Egyptian-German scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad told Rushdie, at a 30th-anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa ordering Rushdie’s assassination, “30 years ago, there was a Salman Rushdie in the world, today there is at least one Salman Rushdie in every Islamic country, not to mention those in Western countries.”
In 2012, Al-Qaeda published a list of critics of Islam as “most wanted” targets for assassination. Networks of Islamist websites today call for the assassination of extensive lists of infidels and “apostates” around the world. Some have already been killed, others silenced, and almost all live under police protection.
Carsten Juste, the editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten who published cartoons of Muhammad in 2005 apologized and left journalism.
Flemming Rose, the Jyllands Posten editor who commissioned the cartoons, has a bounty on his head from the Taliban and recently stated that the tragedy is that the jihadists are winning.
Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist, died in his bunker home, where Islamists repeatedly tried to assassinate him.
Molly Norris, a Seattle Post cartoonist, is in the FBI witness protection program.
Geert Wilders is guarded by a Dutch Army military unit and wears body armor in televised debates.
Stéphane Charbonnier, editor of the satirical Charlie Hebdo, was murdered among eight other colleagues.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali left the Netherlands and received asylum in the United States, where he is under permanent protection.
Lars Hedegaard, director of the International Free Press Society of Denmark, survived an Islamist attack on his home and lives under police protection.
Turkish writer Lale Gül is under protection for denouncing Koranic schools in the Netherlands.
French journalist Zineb El Rhazoui with a fatwa ordering her assassination lives under special police protection.
The current office of Charlie Hebdo is secret, and its editorial office is protected by 85 policemen.
Mina Ahadi of the Council of Former Muslims of Germany cannot go out on the street without escorts.
Syran Ates, the Turkish founder of a mosque in Germany, is protected by six policemen and receives thousands of threats.
Can Dündar, the Turkish journalist who expressed solidarity with Charlie Hebdo and was persecuted by the Turkish police, lives in Berlin under police protection.
The French-Algerian journalist Mohammed Sifaoui, whose murder is ordered on Islamist websites, lives under police protection.
Journalist Ophélie Meunier reporter for Zone Interdite, who reported on the Islamization of Roubaix in prime time alongside French politician Amine Elbahi, received threats of beheading.
Fatiha Agag-Boudjahlat, a teacher who called on Muslim students not to respect the minute of silence at the tribute to Samuel Paty, the high school teacher beheaded by an Islamist, was threatened with death and lives under police protection.
French Muslim Imam Hassen Chalghoumi is protected by the same program as the U.S. and Israeli ambassadors in Paris, and explained in a recent interview that he has not slept more than three nights in the same place and must wear a bulletproof vest during prayer.
Islamist fanaticism first imposed terror on the Islamic world, persecuting Christians and Muslims like Chalghoumi, and then imposed it on the West on its own soil. Whoever criticizes Islam in Germany today will be attacked without anyone being offended, explained journalist Jan Aleksander Karon.
Recently in the UK, Islamist demonstrators publicly shouted that they would behead a schoolteacher who now lives in a safe house. Each one of those who publicly threatened him should be in prison, and prosecuted for terrorism. If British they should be convicted and if foreign they should be deported after serving their sentences. Those behind the websites calling for the murders of infidels and apostates should fear the same fate as Qasem Soleimani. Since they don’t, they are winning.
Guillermo Rodríguez is a professor of Political Economy in the extension area of the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences at Universidad Monteávila, in Caracas. A researcher at the Juan de Mariana Center and author of several books // Guillermo es profesor de Economía Política en el área de extensión de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas de la Universidad Monteávila, en Caracas, investigador en el Centro Juan de Mariana y autor de varios libros