Appeasement Watch: Index on Censorship watch justifies Theo van Gogh's murder

Harry's Place points to this outrageous editorial from Index on Censorship.

Blaming the victim for the crime, Index on Censorship Associate Editor Rohan Jayasekera writes -- that Van Gogh was a "free speech fundamentalist on a martyrdom operation" and calls on us to "applaud Theo van Gogh's death as the marvellous piece of theatre itwas."

The crescendo of this Index on Censorship editorial comment says: "Van Gogh's juvenile shock-horror art finally led him to build an exploitative working relationship with Somalia-born Dutch MP Ayann Hirsi Ali, whose terrible personal experience of abuse has driven her to a traumatizing loss of her Muslim faith.

"Together they made a furiously provocative film that featured actresses portraying battered Muslim women, naked under transparent Islamic-style shawls, their bodies marked with texts from the Koran that supposedly justify their repression. Van Gogh then roared his Muslim critics into silence with obscenities. An abuse of his right to free speech, it added injury to insult by effectively censorsing their moderate views as well."

Can it really get uglier than this?

On the other hand, there has been a deafening silence from normally loud "defenders" of free-speech.