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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

[wvns] Outrage at "Islamofascist Awareness Week" protest flyer

George Washington University hosts "ISLAMO-FASCIST AWARENESS WEEK"


Anti-Muslim Posters Planted on Campus Stir Uproar
By Randy Hall
CNS News
October 10, 2007


(CNSNews.com) - Fliers posted across George Washington University in
Washington, D.C., on Monday with a message of hatred toward Muslims
was "a classic left-wing tactic" to malign the conservatives
sponsoring "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" on the campus later this
month, a national organizer of the event said Tuesday.

Printed across the top of each poster were the words "HATE MUSLIMS? SO
DO WE!!!" The flier also had a picture of an Arab with such "typical
Muslim" features as "lasers from eyes," "venom from mouth," a "suicide
vest," a "hidden AK-47" and a "peg-leg for smuggling children and heroin."

"To find out more, come to ISLAMO-FASCIST AWARENESS WEEK," the poster
stated before listing incorrect dates for the event.

The bottom of the flier indicated that it was "brought to you by
Students for Conservativo-Fascism Awareness" and recommended students
view "The Power of Nightmares," a BBC documentary that claims the
threat of radical Islam is not as serious as neoconservatives say.

George Washington University (GWU) police officers quickly took down
the posters, and university administrators began investigating who put
them up earlier in the day.

"There is no place for expressions of hatred on our campus," said GWU
President Steven Knapp in a statement released Monday night. "We do
not condone, and we will not tolerate the dissemination of fliers or
other documents that vilify any religious, ethnic or racial group."

In fact, students of different faiths will gather later in the week
for "the meal celebrated by Muslims to break fast during Ramadan,
considered the holiest month of the Islamic year," Knapp added. "This
event speaks to our university's commitment to global cultural
understanding and respect."

Sergio Gor, a senior from Los Angeles and the president of GWU's
chapter of the conservative Young America's Foundation, told the GW
Hatchet - the student newspaper on campus - that his group was not
responsible for the posters.

"Someone took our name and used it," he said. "It was hateful."

Gor also stressed that the incident will not prevent his group from
hosting Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week on campus the week of Oct.
22-26, when author David Horowitz will speak, the TV mini-series "The
Path to 9/11" will be shown, and a panel of people who have fled Iran
will discuss their escape from the brutal regime there.

More than 140 other college campuses will host the week-long event,
which was conceived by the Terrorism Awareness Project of the David
Horowitz Freedom Center in Los Angeles to "confront the two 'Big Lies'
of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and
that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than the
terrorist threat."

"Nothing could be more politically incorrect than to point this out,"
the Project's Web site states. "But nothing could be more important
for American students to hear."

Horowitz, who told Cybercast News Service on Tuesday that he will
"definitely" speak at GWU during Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, called
the flier incident "a classic left-wing tactic."

"The left wants to obliterate anybody who disagrees with it, and if
you do, you will be called a racist, a sexist, a homophobe or an
Islamophobe, so their campaign against our events has been to try and
tar us as anti-Muslim," the conservative writer and activist said.

"Our event is actually a defense of Muslims," Horowitz stated. "The
Islamofascists have killed 200,000 moderate Muslims in Algeria -
they're killing, slaughtering moderate Muslims in the Sudan and
Afghanistan," so left-wing opponents "cooked up this lame ad."

"These people are so full of hate for us that they couldn't decide
what they were doing," he said. "The typical Muslim, according to this
flier, has a peg-leg for hiding children and heroin. Now, that's
satire. But this is supposed to appear authentic. You can't do both at
the same time."

However, Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on
American Islamic Relations (CAIR), told Cybercast News Service that
the Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week "is a campaign of anti-Muslim smears
to promote Islamophobia and hostility toward the faith of Islam and
Muslims."

"Every person involved in this is well known as being in the 'Who's
Who' of Muslim-bashers and Islamophobes," he said, while "the Muslim
Student Association of the USA and Canada has a 'Peace, Not Prejudice'
campaign going on at the same time."

"On the one hand, you've got Muslims promoting peace and mutual
understanding, and then you've got these people promoting division,
mistrust and hostility," Hooper added.

Nevertheless, Jason Mattera, national spokesman for the Young
America's Foundation, defended the event as necessary in a post-9/11
world and criticized the poster incident as "very, very mean-spirited."

"University officials say, 'we're outraged there can be such
intolerance and hate-filled speech,' but it's the left that created
the hate language because no hatred exists" toward Muslims by
conservatives, Mattera told Cybercast News Service.

"So who's really creating an environment of hate?" he added.

While the university's investigation is still underway, Student
Association Executive Vice President Brand Kroeger told the GW Hatchet
that administrators should take serious action against any students
involved with creating or hanging the posters.

"I would support expulsion," Kroeger said. "These acts are completely
heinous."

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