Aribibi Ashoy's letter was the typical apologist's letter for terrible Eastern behaviour combined with anti-Western sentiment.

One quarter of the letter condemns an action taking place in a Muslim country, namely the shutting down of the Tribune, and the remaining three quarters is turned on the West condemning them for lacking freedom of speech themselves.

Well, the incidents chosen do not really reflect what Ashoy wanted to say. Ashoy was implying that the incidents given in his letter reflect a limitation on free speech in the West that is somehow not accorded to the Islamic faith as evidenced by the printing of those offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. But Ashoy did not tell us the whole picture of those incidents which have nothing to do with free speech at all.

Firstly the Cindy Sheehan arrest. Mrs Sheehan was not to address the US Senate but was to be sitting in the gallery of the Senate for the state of the union address. The mere fact that she was invited there in the first place says a lot about the state of freedom in the US. Yet the circumstances of her arrest were not made clear by Ashoy. She was prominently wearing a T-shirt with a political statement on it. This is in violation of Capitol Grounds Regulations Article XIX 158(a) that disallows "wearing tee shirts, buttons, or other similar articles of apparel that convey a message."

When she was asked to cover it, she ignored the usher. Then she verbally abused those who came to ask her to leave and was subsequently removed, arrested and charged with unlawful conduct with carries a maximum six months in jail, or a US$500 fine. She was detained for four hours then released, all charges were dropped and an apology given. Sheehan is now planning to sue. This hardly constitutes a crackdown on freedom of speech.

David Irving is hardly a serious-minded historian conducting an unbiased investigation into the Holocaust. He is a Nazi apologist who paints Hitler out to be almost an innocent man. He violates the rules of historical research ignoring vast amounts of evidence and making up much more. No modern historian thinks that he is credible or his research having merit. From his other statements and activities he is clearly anti-Jewish.

I won't use the other word to avoid the inevitable debate over the word Semite. In the verdict delivered in a defamation suit brought against Deborah Lipstadt by Irving in 1998, the trial judge, justice Charles Grey stated: "Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism."

Worse can be said of Ashoy's other apparent victim of free speech limitations - Ernst Zundel. Zundel is more than just a Holocaust denier. He is one of the more anti-Jewish racists known. A self-confessed white supremacist, Zundel is not being prosecuted for writing a book denying the Holocaust but for hate crimes.

Holocaust deniers, contrary to their claims, are indeed anti-Jewish. For they do not just try to correct perceived errors in the historiography of the events of the Second World War. They also try to frame their arguments to imply the use of guilt by Jews to get what they want, the global conspiracy of Jews to cover up history by creating the massive amount of evidence for the Holocaust and to control the world's media and Western governments.

Holocaust denial is for the most part based on racist foundations which can be easily seen if you look at the totality of the lives and works of the Holocaust deniers themselves. That is why Holocaust denial is illegal in some countries and not because of some insidious cover-up.

Finally, Arshoy mentions Abu Hamza al-Masri as the last victim of Western limitations of free speech. Let us all remember what al-Masri has said: "Killing of the kafir for any reason you can say it is OK, even if there is no reason for it." He was also reported to have said, "You must have a stand with your heart, with your tongue, with your money, with your hand, with your sword, with your Kalashnikov. Don't ask shall I do this - just do it."

And one final quote as if those two are not enough: "Make sure that the person who gave him the licence for that wine shop doesn't exist any more on the Earth. Finish him up. Give him dawa (inviting non-Muslims to accept the truth of Islam). If he doesn't respect dawa , kill him."

These are not the words of a man merely exercising his freedom of speech but one inciting violence and hatred. It is that for which he is sitting in a jail cell and not merely being silenced by a hypocritical Western government.

It is a shame that Ashoy uses these "heroes" as examples to highlight what he thinks are injustices in Western free speech rules. These people mentioned have violated laws intended to curb hatred and racism or maintain an lawful society while still offering opportunities for free expression. Now whether depicting the Prophet should be added to the list of limitations is another related debate but whatever the decision, it should be based not on fear of retaliation, intimidation and death but because it would be the right thing to do.

As long as Muslims around the world threaten violence to silence free speech, the louder the Western press will become. This issue of the cartoons would have been a non-starter if Muslims had protested in a more orderly fashion and then let the matter drop.