Dutch Muslim Rapper: I Hate Jews More Than Nazis

Ismo's official video clip for the song 'Eenmans' (YouTube screenshot)

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL: Ismo’s hate-filled video a YouTube hit; man who complained about it gets death threats

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Dutch police are investigating a Muslim rapper who used hateful language against gays and Jews in one of his songs.

The rapper Ismo, whose real name is Ismael Houllich, included the text in his first single. The official video clip for the song titled “Eenmans” (or “One Man’s”) shows Ismo singing: “I hate those fucking Jews more than the Nazis,” “don’t shake hands with faggots” and “don’t believe in anything but the Koran.”

The clip, which was filmed in the southern border city of Breda, had received 125,000 viewers on YouTube before a 19-year-old homosexual resident of the city, Lars Hobma, filed a complaint with police against Ismo for alleged incitement to hatred, the news site of the Algemeen Dagblad daily reported Friday. » | JTA | Friday, May 02, 2014

HT: Robert Spencer @ Jihad Watch »

Rapper Najafi on the Fatwa: 'Fundamentalists Can't Take a Joke'

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Iranian rapper Shahin Najafi has been in hiding in Germany since a fatwa was pronounced against him three weeks ago. In an interview with SPIEGEL, he discusses the fear Iranian leaders have of young people and his conviction that change will come to his country sooner or later.

So this is what exile in exile looks like. Fleeing the threats of Iranian ayatollahs, Iranian rapper Shahin Najafi, 31, has taken refuge in a garden house near Cologne, surrounded by chirping birds and a fig tree. Although he's under police protection, the four fatwas that have by now been launched against him by leading religious clerics in Iran over the past few weeks seem incredibly far away. Najafi released a song in which he implored the 10th imam, Ali al-Hadi al-Naqi, to return to the Earth to sort out modern-day Iran's problems. Shiites venerate al-Naqi, who died 1,143 years ago and was a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. The song has been downloaded over 500,000 times in Iran alone, and has received over half a million views on YouTube.

The musician appeared to be in a good spirits. The interview was conducted in German, although Najafi often switched to Persian and his manager, a German-Iranian, translated for him whenever necessary. German author Günter Wallraff, who is supporting Najafi, was also there. Children's voices could be heard in the distance. » | Interview conducted by Georg Bönisch and Tobias Rapp | Translated from the German by Paul Cohen | Monday, May 28, 2012

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Disses and Death Threats: Rapper in Germany Fears for Life after Fatwa

SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Cologne-based rapper Najafi has drawn the wrath of Shiite Muslims after publishing a song that appeared to make fun of the 10th imam. Following a fatwa by an Iranian ayatollah, he has received death threats, and there is a $100,000 bounty on his head. Now he is under police protection but insists he will keep making music. By SPIEGEL Staff

It's every rapper's dream: You stick it to the world, not caring what people think or say about you. If they hate you, they should go ahead and diss you, the more the better. No one can tell you what to do. After all, isn't that what rap is all about?

That dream came true last week for an Iranian rapper living in exile in Cologne. But in the tough reality of life, the dream has turned into a nightmare for Shahin Najafi. Najafi rapped about a man who has been dead 1,143 years: the 10th imam, Ali al-Hadi al-Naqi. He implored the imam to return to modern-day Iran to sort out the regime there. Of course, to a certain extent he also poked fun at the imam -- the sort of thing a rapper does in a world that's becoming more and more difficult to provoke. Najafi also designed an image for YouTube: a dome of a mosque in the shape of a women's breast, with the nipple at the very top.

He wanted to be provocative. It was rap, after all. The song's message was hard-hitting and crass.

What he provoked, however, was not the usual outcry on the Internet, but a response from the Grand Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani in the Iranian city of Qom. It was a religious opinion, one that Persian newspapers have turned into headlines, albeit with a few weeks' delay. The ayatollah expressed himself in broad terms, not even mentioning Najafi by name. But anyone who wants to can easily interpret the ayatollah's opinion as a call to murder. And that is now Najafi's problem, because there are many who want to read it that way.

The Next Salman Rushdie

Hardly anything can become as emotionally charged in the cultural struggle between the enlightened and the orthodox as an apostasy fatwa practically asking for somebody's execution. Hardly anything is as capable of stimulating emotions and the masses. And, for this reason, hardly anything is more likely to be used as justification for a propaganda war where both sides are convinced they are right. The West wants to defend freedom of expression, while the radical religious culture wants to defend its faith. » | SPIEGEL Staff | Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Wilders Must Pay Rapper €3,000 in Fines for Using His Picture in Fitna
EXPATICA: AMSTERDAM - An Amsterdam court has ordered Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders to pay EUR 3,000 to the rapper Salah Edin for using his picture in his anti-Qur'an film Fitna. 



The picture was used by mistake to portray Mohammed Bouyeri, the Islamic extremist who killed film producer Theo van Gogh. 


The rapper bears a remarkable resemblance to Bouyeri. 


The final amount of damages Wilders will have to pay has not yet been determined; the EUR 3,000 is considered as an advance.
Wilders must pay EUR 5,000 to the photographer Ilja Meefout, who took the picture. [Source: Wilders must pay rapper EUR 3,000: The politician is fined for using rapper Salah Edin’s picture in his anti-Islam film] | April 18, 2008

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