by Ramzy Baroud
“Desecrating, then burning the Holy Quran in Sweden has, once again, raised a political storm of condemnation but also of justification, if not outright approval.
Such acts are protected by law, top Swedish and EU officials have declared.
But why are the rights of those who oppose Western agendas, colonialism, imperialism, Zionism and military interventions not equally protected by law?
The Palestine boycott movement, BDS, for example, is constantly fighting in Western societies and institutions for the right to use certain language or merely challenge, though non-violently, Israeli occupation and apartheid.
Iranian media offices were shut down in some Western countries, and various Western-operated satellites removed Iranian Press TV, Lebanon’s Al-Manar TV and other anti-Israel occupation media outlets from their line-ups.
Thousands of Palestinian activists have been banned or censored on Western social media platforms for daring to criticize Israeli war crimes in Palestine. The writer of this article is one of many others.
As soon as the Russia-Ukraine war began, western governments were asked to completely block Russia Today and other Russian media channels from operating in Western capitals, leading to the shutting down of offices, and social media channels, removal from YouTube, Google and other search engines and so on.
In February 2022, European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, said: “We will ban the Kremlin’s media machine in the EU.”
For some odd reason, all this censorship is, somehow, morally and legally defensible from the viewpoint of the West.“