| Ask A Drunk : One Thread |
The Azzam Publications web-sites azzam.com and qoqaz.net have been down since the week following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. The purpose of the article is to explain why and how this happened.
Why were the azzam.com and qoqaz.net sites shut down?
The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 created over 6000 casualties. The first of these casualties was put by President Bush, in his own words: "Today, our way of life, our freedom, was attacked." The American people lost their freedom of speech on 11 September 2001 and democracy was dealt a lethal blow. The FBI proceeded to shut down any web-site that did not agree with American Foreign Policy, under the pretext that they were supporting terrorism. This was done by putting psychological pressure and blackmailing the web hosting companies. They used these childish tactics because they knew that according to International Law, both of these sites had not broken any laws and therefore they could not cite any legal grounds for shutting down the sites officially.
Surely these web sites contain content that some people may consider extremist?
Extremism is a relative term. Just because you disagree with someone's point of view, it does not make him an extremist. We disagree with some things said by President Bush but for those reasons, we do not and will not call him an extremist. The American people, perhaps the least independent and free-thinking people in the World have been brainwashed into thinking that any opinion that disagrees with American hegemony is an extremist and terrorist opinion. The point in question is not extremist opinions but legal and illegal content. Our site contents are regularly checked by legal experts to verify that we are not breaking any international laws. If these experts have missed any illegal content and it is brought to our attention, we guarantee to remove this content, not because we agree with man-made 'international law', but in order to expose the hypocrisy of the hypocrites.
We give some examples of where we have stayed within international law ourselves and encouraged other Muslims to do the same:
Reactionary behaviour to crises in the Muslim World: We encouraged the Muslims not to react to crises affecting the Muslim world in places such as, e.g. Chechnya, Palestine, etc. by random illegal acts of violence, e.g. explosions, etc. Rather we said that the one who wants to act should act in the place of action, which is far away from a comfortable lifestyle in a Western country. Firearms training in the UK: We discouraged Muslims from attempting to train using live firearms in the UK when similar training could be done legally elsewhere. We also warned them to stay away of 'Muslim' personalities who were offering or encouraging this training. 11 September 2001: We did not condone the attacks of 11 September 2001. We refer to them in the same words of Mullah Muhammad Umar, "Acts of terror" and Usama bin Ladin "I have nothing to do with these terrorist attacks". We also offered condolences to the innocent victims of those attacks, and the truly innocent victims of those attacks are known to Allah Alone. We do not know what was inside the heart of every single person killed, whether it was good or bad, so we leave that to Allah to decide and raise the victims on the Day of Judgement according to their intentions. On the other hand, it is well known that some American White Nationalist organisations openly supported the attacks and declared publicly that since the attacks killed Jews and damaged the ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government) of the USA, they were worthy of being supported. Look at www.stormfront.org or www.natall.com as examples. On the other hand, you have Zionist Extremist web-sites maintained and hosted in America, such as http://freeman.io.com. Why were sites like this not shut down which may seem to some as publicly advocating extremist views? We are not saying that these sites should be shut down because that is against one of the basic tenets of a free society that you allow someone to express his opinion even though you dislike it. We ourselves disagree with the opinions held on these sites but consider there to be more benefit in allowing the sites to remain online rather than attempting to shut them down, for the following three reasons: a) If the attempt to shut down these sites is publicised, they will attract more attention and interest because people will want to know why they were shut down b) An individual from an opposing point of view can go to such a web-site and understand the reasoning behind why people hold those opinions, which perhaps we consider extreme. For example, white nationalists call the American Government ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government) because they feel that the rights of American citizens have been usurped by a hard core of Zionists within the US Administration, which place Israeli interests before American interests. c) It is impossible to shut down these sites entirely without actually shutting down the Internet. It just causes minor inconvenience for both the authorities and the webmasters, but the content remains online. In fact, such immature actions actually harden the resolve of the webmasters to ensure their content remains online and they work harder to guarantee that. They think that the proof of the truth of their content lies with the fact that attempts are being made to censor this content and so it makes them even more determined to keep it online. Reporting statements made by 'extremists': When we relate statements by individuals considered to be 'extremists' like Field Commander Khattab, Mullah Muhammad Umar or Usama bin Ladin, we are 'advocating terrorism'. When ABC News, Reuters and CNN relate such statements in full, translated, transcribed and explained, they are just 'relating news'. Why does exactly the same piece of news become 'advocating terrorism' when related by Muslims, yet it remains news when related by non-Muslims? Like it or not, someone like Field Commander Khattab is as much a party to the conflict in Chechnya as Vladimir Putin is. This is a fact that cannot be avoided or brushed under the carpet, no matter how much one hates Khattab or Putin. Why are newspapers then reporting that organisations like Azzam Publications are being investigated for terrorism and 'money laundering' activities?
The fact that articles are still being written and submitted and some attempts are being made to keep the sites online is the strongest proof yet that Azzam Publications is not breaking international law. Since we have not broken the law, we do not advocate breaking the law and will adjust our work if new laws are introduced which make our work 'illegal', we do not expect to be 'busted', 'raided' or 'arrested'. We know our limits and we remain within them. As for being investigated for 'money laundering', that's the first we've heard of it! No-one has asked us any questions about money laundering. Anyone who has emailed us during the last few years asking us to accept donations to 'pass on' to Mujahideen in various countries will know that every one of these requests has been declined because when we say we do not accept or 'pass on' donations, we mean it. Our postal box has been open to inspection by law enforcement authorities who can view the few £3 or $5 orders that we receive for our products, for the last few years. However, we will not be surprised if our postal box is closed down. In fact, we will consider it as a success if it is shut down because it will enable us to concentrate all our efforts in putting our products online.
What do you expect to happen to you in the future?
We expect 'cat and mouse' games to be played with our sites so we ask our viewers to be patient and to constantly check http://msanews.mynet.net/MSANEWS.htm for postings relating to our latest mirror site. We expect our postal address to be shut down by the slaves of American Intelligence agencies (British law enforcement authorities). This will give us more time to concentrate on providing our content online. Therefore we will endeavour to put all our books, audio and video material online. We also expect the availability of online material to increase our site traffic because people will be interested to know why these products were banned from sale. Finally we expect false copies to be made of our site in order to divert the public. All of these measures will just strengthen our position and interest in our material.
Do you think you will be closed down?
Allah has promised to preserve the Truth so He will preserve it with or without us. Therefore, all attempts to shut down our sites will be futile. If they shut down one site, we will just open another one. Since Allah has enabled our reputation to settle in the hearts of sincere Muslims, we don't think that we will have a problem generating traffic to our sites.
What do you say to the law enforcement authorities?
We say to them that you will never be able to completely eradicate our material so it is probably better if you do us both a favour and avoid yourself the hassle and inconvenience of trying to shut our sites down. We know our limits and have always stayed within the law. If there is a single word on our site that is against international law, we will remove it. Allowing our site to remain online gives you two benefits: (a) It enables you to track and understand the Muslim 'extremist' point of view and thus may aid you with intelligence in your War against Islam/Terrorism. (b) The more fuss you make about our site, the more following it will attract. By shutting down our sites you have already given our name a well-known brand. Now, even if we are without a site, we only have to post our material to various discussion lists around the World and the Muslims themselves will spread it. Therefore you may as well leave us alone! Finally, good luck to you in what you believe in. We may not agree with you but we respect your right to hold those opinions.
-- AlienKillet (akiens@yahoo.com), March 18, 2002
And you 'shpekt ush drunks to do what exakly? F'you think we're gonna sh'port any anti-drinking mushlim cause, ya gorranother think comin' buddy. Now buy me another beer, or shtop wastin' my time. An' you can forget shakin tha' stoopid c'lecting tin at me. Go an' talk to that nice Sally Army lady over there. I'm shure you two relijuss nutters have a lorrin common. Minwhile, I'll just carry on gerrin' quitely drunk an' readin' my copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khyyam, thank you.
-- Sue Denim (s.denim@aoffline.net), March 18, 2002.
the site is still online at:http://66.96.205.195/~azzam/afghan/home.php
-- San (he_mail@pakistans.com), March 20, 2002.
You think you got problems. Ever since September the 11th, I've had a never ending string of hate mail, e-mail and abusive phone calls. My phone has been tapped, I get lunatics e-mailing me for information on how to join my organistaion, and I get animal and human excrement left on my doorstep. That's not to mention the occasional brick, or cruise missile, that comes through the window.
Why me?
-- Alfonso 'Al' Coyeda (al.coyeda@emailwitheld.com), March 25, 2002.
Because, ‘Mister’ Coyeda, I have belatedly found out what you did to my daughter in 1997, and the War Against Terrorism has provided the ideal cover for my belated revenge. Yes, I know she was 25 and fully consenting, but that is entirely irrelevant! You obviously don’t understand the ordinary natural feelings of a father. Which, of course, is why I have been obliged to have your children taken into care, not to mention abducting my daughter and beating her to within an inch of her life. But the Coyedas have always been poor stock, ever since Rear-Admiral Algernon Coyeda barfed all over Nelson in 1801.
-- Rex (rex@waitrose.com), April 21, 2002.
Last I heard the bill of rihts is in the bin, with USA Morals
-- RABBANI (farooqrabbani@hotmail.com), May 17, 2002.
No, no, popular 70's teen band USA Morals are very much still going. Original lead singer David Shepples has recently rejoined the lineup, meaning the only founding member missing is the late Harry Kiwomya who died in 1998 in pantomime. The band are planning an arena tour of the US and UK next year, and Lenny Henry is rumoured to be writing a musical based on their music, o expect to be hearing lots of the old hits such as "Possess my Head with your Love", "One Big Happy Bunch of Lads" and "Rockulator" as USA Morals start their long overdue revival.
-- Lynskey (paul@daymaker.freeserve.co.uk), May 18, 2002.