3:23 p.m., Nov. 18, 2010----Amos Guiora, professor of law at the University of Utah and former Israeli military officer, discussed “Freedom from Religion: Managing Domestic Terrorism” on Wednesday, Nov. 17, in Mitchell Hall as part of the University of Delaware's National Agenda 2010 speaker series.

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Guiora began by conceding that his talk would be somewhat controversial, but he said he believed that “we as a society must have an honest and frank discussion about religious extremism even if makes you uncomfortable.”

Early in his talk, Guiora said that “religious extremism poses and presents the greatest single danger to civil democratic society,” and added, “It's important to note that I distinguish and delineate between religious extremism and religion.”

Two major obstacles that Guiora said he believes stand in the way of successfully stopping religious extremism are free speech, specifically when it comes to religious leaders instructing their followers to commit atrocities, and the inability of police to monitor houses of worship even when those buildings are known to be harboring religious extremists.

On the issue of free speech, Guiora pointed out an instance in which an official in Amsterdam had a fatwa issued against him by religious extremists because he suggested that Islam needed to come to grips with homosexuality.

“From that point on, he was going to have to split up his children in different houses and different beds,” Guiora said. “He's going to have to sleep in a different place every night because of the direct threat posed in the name of religious extremist incitement.”

Guiora also noted how there were doctors in America who were murdered by Christian extremists for performing abortions, noting one specific example in which he said a pastor incited the killing but was not interrogated by the police as part of the case.

Next focusing on an imam who radicalized second generation Somalis in Minneapolis, eventually causing 20-30 of them to go to Somalia to become suicide bombers, Guiora asked the question, “If law enforcement knew, and it did, that this imam in Minneapolis was directly inciting and radicalizing these second generation Somalis, how is it and why is it that local law enforcement did not monitor the relevant houses of worship?”

Guiora said he believes that “if we know there is a direct threat being posed by faith leaders in the context of extremism, then I have no idea why we can't monitor them. If we know that the faith leader is actively, consistently engaging in incitement, then I do not understand why we cannot begin the process, carefully and cautiously, to monitor that household.”

Guiora allowed that “there are a number of significant questions. 'Does that not impose limits on how that convent practices its faith?' The answer, of course, is yes, but as much as we can talk about the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, I remind all of us that there is another right, and that other right is the freedom to life.”

National Agenda 2010 is sponsored by the University's Center for Political Communication and moderated by Ralph Begleiter, center director. This was the final presentation of the semester.

Article by Adam Thomas
Photo by Duane Perry