There is no such thing as a “No Go Zone” in any Western country. And this is a conspiracy theory that needs to stop in the so-called Skeptic Community. Skeptics are supposed to know better than to fall for specious abuses of evidence and fallacious conspiracy theory rationalizations and tricks with words. And yet a lot of Skeptics fall for this. Hook, line, and sinker. They even use the same irrational defenses of this conspiracy theory as all the other conspiracy theorists do whom they usually make fun of, like creationists, flat-earthers, and anti-vaxxers.

Wikipedia already has a good bibliography you can use to confirm my point. And it has a good list of examples of baseless claims of so-called “Muslim” or “Sharia” No Go Zones. I am of course setting aside real examples such as Israeli Defense Forces creating No Go Zones in conflict areas in the Palestinian region, or pro-Christian gangs like MS-13 creating No Go Zones in lawless third world regions of Central America, which are not what the conspiracy theorists mean. I am talking about the specific claim that there are neighborhoods within free Western nations controlled by Muslims that non-Muslims, even police, are effectively forbidden to enter. Usually it’s added that these neighborhoods are subject to Sharia Law. Classic examples of this nonsense are catalogued by Breitbart nutcase (or conman?) Raheem Kassam in No Go Zones.

Conspiracy Theorist Tactics 101

And lest the conspiracy nutters accuse me of being “afraid” to tell the truth about Islam for fear Muslims will kill me (and yep, Islamophobic nutters have said this to me), your theory is refuted by contact with reality: I have criticized Islam aplenty. Just look at this. Or this. Or this. Or this. Or this. My book Sense and Goodness without God includes Islam on over fifteen pages. I defended atheism and denounced God in a debate, live, in person, with a Muslim before an audience of a thousand Muslims. So much for that theory.

I focus on Christianity far more for far more practical reasons: not only because Islam isn’t what my Ph.D. is in, but also because Islam isn’t as dangerous to our rights and welfare in the West as Christianity is. I don’t have Arabic languages or a command of Medieval Arabic history and literature, so I can’t say much that is useful about either; and there is nothing philosophically distinctive about Muslim theology that isn’t already refuted by refuting any theology whatever, so I already have that covered. But more importantly, it is Christianity that poses the greatest danger to the West, and to the United States especially.

After all, Muslim fanatics don’t control our legislatures and school boards; Christians do. Abortion rights and stem cell research are not curtailed by Muslims here; but Christians. “School choice” is not a Muslim plot to destroy American secularism; it’s a Christian plot to do so. It’s not Muslim legislators voting to suppress nationalized medicine or gun violence research or trans or gay rights or pushing for more government surveillance or cornering hundreds of thousands of votes on “kill the gays” platforms; it’s Christians doing that, who can only get elected or even on the ballot due to Christian votes. The Family is real. And it isn’t Muslim. Christian Nationalism is a real thing. Muslim nationalism isn’t. It wasn’t the Muslim vote that gave us Trump; it was the white Christian vote. Muslims aren’t the ones trying to control our public schools; Christians are. John Hagee and his many clones aren’t manipulating millions of American voters and political policy in aid of Sharia law, but Christian Biblical law.

Even now, in the United States, the greatest domestic terrorist threat we face is from Christian nationalists, not Muslims. Indeed, since 9-11, almost all mass attacks here have been carried out by non-Muslims, and the deadliest attack on US soil was not perpetrated by Muslims, but a random gun nut. In the last ten years, the number of U.S. citizens killed on American soil by Muslim terrorists is barely above 70; twice as many toddlers have drowned in buckets.

But even more pertinently:

No atheist has ever been attacked by any Muslim in the Americas for criticizing Islam. Ever.

So anyone who is pissing their pants over Muslims and complaining that I should be too, should calm down, put on a diaper, and start giving much more of a shit about the Christian threat. Because it’s the one killing far more of us, by pushing for more war abroad and a lower quality of life at home. It’s the one that actually controls our armies and nuclear weapons, is writing and enforcing our laws, and actually threatening our human and civil rights.

By all means, criticize Islam and Muslim extremism. But don’t forget Christianity and Christian extremism is closer to home.

Now back to the point…

That’s Not a No Go Zone

Sometimes when pressed, advocates of the No Go Zone myth will cave and admit they just mean there are some neighborhoods so riddled with crime that people stay out of them who don’t live in them and sometimes police fear for their lives there. In other words “ghettos exist.”

But that’s not a No Go Zone. Not only because, in actual fact, police do go there. In fact, their fears cause them to go there in even greater numbers. They are some of the most heavily policed neighborhoods in any Western country. But also, there is no meaningful correlation between this being the case, and Islam or Sharia law. None of these neighborhoods are subject to Sharia law. And none of them are populated only by Muslims (refuting the claim that “non-Muslims aren’t allowed to go there”). Only poverty is the villain here. That people stay away from bad neighborhoods is true everywhere. It has little to do with Islam. It’s as bigoted to say “Muslims are responsible for this” as to say “black people are” or (as was the case in Hitler’s Germany before the War) “the Jews are” (lest you forget crime-ridden Jewish ghettos used to be a thing—and Jews weren’t the ones to blame for it).

So don’t let conspiracy theorists get away with this equivocation fallacy.

“Some impoverished ghettos people don’t like to visit still exist in the West, and a small number of them have a lot of Muslims” is true, but lends no support to the No Go Zone myth. It’s not a problem unique to Islam, has nothing to do with Sharia law, and doesn’t involve exclusion of non-Muslims, much less the municipal police and the law—even less state or federal authorities, e.g. in the U.S. there are no Muslim neighborhoods whose groceries and restaurants are not being regulated and inspected by the FDA or state health agencies, or whose banks aren’t being regulated and audited by the OCC, or where ICE doesn’t roust immigration violators or the FBI doesn’t prosecute kidnappings or cybercrimes or racketeering, or where there aren’t parole officers monitoring and violating parolees, or where building codes and permits aren’t enforced, or where the roads aren’t being regularly paved and maintained by non-Muslim state agencies, or where there are public schools run by Muslims (much less teaching Sharia law). And so on. Ditto every comparable form of policing and regulation in any other free Western nation.

So now that we’ve set aside the bullshit of not actual no go zones, let’s talk about the actual nonsense of No Go Zones…

Origins of the No Go Zone Myth

There is an entry on this at Snopes.com. They find these conspiracy theories first arose after 9-11, but really only in fringe conspiracy crank circles until Fox News started promoting it. Snopes correctly describes the myth as asserting:

A number of localities in the United States, France, and Britain are considered Muslim “no-go zones” (operating under Sharia Law) where local laws are not applicable.

We should add similar claims are made for other countries, like Germany, Sweden, even Australia. (I’ll get to some examples shortly; but Snopes already has an entry on the false claim about Sweden.)

This myth hit the mainstream when it was touted without challenge on Fox News by Steve Emerson, who declared (without evidence; and there has never been any to come):

These no go zones…[are] places where the governments like France, Britain, Sweden, Germany don’t exercise any sovereignty. So you basically have zones where Shariah courts were set up…[and] the police don’t go in.

This is the same guy who literally claimed “it’s not just no go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” Talk about total fucking tinfoil hat. He also claimed “there are actually Muslim religious police” in London “that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to…religious Muslim attire” (and we’ll see shortly what’s false about that). Reacting to this, even Prime Minister David Cameron openly called Emerson “a complete idiot.” I concur. Anyone who falls for that is, indeed, a complete idiot.

Emerson got so badly pwned for this that he retracted his claims and apologized. Though few who still buy the myth know that. Nor are they likely to hear of No Go Zone advocate Daniel Pipes likewise retracting his claims after literally visiting some of the supposed “zones” and finding his claims about them totally false. Others have run similar eyewitness falsifications, for example Dan Kaszeta checked every supposed “No Go Zone” in London and found every one false. Even Fox News itself officially retracted and apologized. On the network’s behalf, Julie Banderas admitted there’s “no credible information to support the assertion [that] there are specific areas in these countries that exclude individuals based solely on their religion” or “where non-Muslims…aren’t allowed in, and police supposedly won’t go.”

Similarly, the infamous Islamophobic nutcase Pete Hoekstra, President Trump’s appointed ambassador to to the Netherlands, once claimed (and then denied it and then retracted his denial) that:

The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned … And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands.

This is, of course, all bullshit. No politician has been “burned” in the Netherlands. And “car burning” is actually a fad in Scandinavia and Europe, most perpetrators of which aren’t Muslims, or are protesting poverty and abuse. None are linked to anything legitimately called a No Go Zone.

As Snopes concluded:

No areas of England, France, or the United States currently allow the laws of any religion to override their own laws. Areas designated as ZUS in France are not exempted from policing or French law, and are simply targeted for renewal initiatives. Likewise, residents of Dearborn and Hancock are not exempt from state or local law, regardless of the religion to which they adhere.

Nevertheless, Fox News continued pushing the myth, for instance even falsely claiming Angela Merkel admitted there were no-go zones in Germany. She actually just said there were crime ridden neighborhoods people didn’t like to visit or live in (as RT, the agency interviewing her, reported, “there are areas in Germany where people cannot feel safe”); not neighborhoods that had driven out all law enforcement and were living under Sharia law. Nor any that were exclusively Muslim. Nor any where non-Muslims couldn’t go—there is no evidence of any “Muslim only” population anywhere in Germany (or any free Western nation).

RT often skirts just this side of honesty in stoking the No Go Zone myth. A year earlier RT had tried pushing the equivocation fallacy of calling any bad neighborhood a “no go zone,” yet was honest enough to admit they didn’t mean that “literally.” Indeed they had to admit the actual myth was false:

But for all the lurid stories of Sharia patrols and men-only establishments, at first sight even the most notorious no-go zones are not scenes of post-apocalyptic breakdown adorned with ISIS flags, but often prosaic post-war brutalist inner-city housing blocks that have been abandoned by the native population, and have not yet been gentrified. The immediate dangers to visitors are not stray bullets or gangland enforcers, but the calorific options at plentiful local takeaways, and freely available hard drugs.

In other words, the real problem is poverty; not Islamic gangs enforcing Sharia law and forbidding entry to non-Muslims and even the authorities.

I don’t recommend white people go into certain neighborhoods of Richmond, California, having been attacked there myself—and denounced with racist slurs—specifically for being white. But does that mean Richmond has “no go zones”? Certainly not. I lived in Richmond for years, and even the worst neighborhoods I learned not to pass through were not lawless zones under gang control. The police were all over those neighborhoods; and it wasn’t Islamic Sharia Law being pushed there. Christian churches were on every corner. Not mosques. It was, instead, sixty years of racial resentment, caused by crushing poverty, drugs, crime, and a particular history of white people fucking over the locals. That’s not a No Go Zone. It’s just a shitty neighborhood.

Just like when RT reported on difficult neighborhoods in Sweden, they had to admit no Swedish authorities call any of them a “no go zone”; they only designate some neighborhoods as “especially vulnerable” economically and criminally and thus, as with France, an area requiring more resources and attention rather than less—and this includes areas not predominately Muslim. As RT coyly admits, the No Go Zone “label has been rejected by the Swedish police, who admit that while there are difficulties in certain neighborhoods, they are not ones in which they cannot effectively work.” Much less can’t even go. They simply have neighborhoods like Richmond’s Iron Triangle. This has nothing to do with Islamic control or Sharia Law.

Keeping the Viral Meme Alive

The No Go Zone myth often gets fueled by ginning up evidence of something entirely else. For example, when a small group of Muslim evangelists in Germany put on orange vests that said “Sharia Police” and started going around town peacefully advocating adherence to conservative moral codes, this was turned into a literal story of actual Sharia Police enforcing Sharia law in a No Go Zone. But really they were doing nothing different than Christians do when they do pretty much the same thing: go around town telling people to adopt conservative morals or suffer the spiritual consequences. That does not make my neighborhood a Jehovah’s Witness No Go Zone. Or a Mormon or Baptist one. So why would it make for a Muslim one?

Those Muslims were simply a fringe minority engaging in a peaceful exercise of freedom of speech and exercise of religion, in a neighborhood predominantly not even Muslim. No Sharia courts were involved; no one claimed or exercised any authority; no coercion occurred. It was, frankly, far less threatening than GOP-affiliated “Kill the Gays” pamphlet distributions or KKK rallies in the US today—yet no one calls neighborhoods they march through or distribute pamphlets in a “whites” or “straights” only “No Go Zone.” And for the record, those Muslim evangelists did not advocate killing gay people (or in fact anyone), nor marched to promote ethnic supremacy or segregation. So maybe you should be more concerned about the people who are doing those things in your country. Just a thought.

Even when some fanatics start engaging in harassment in pursuit of Muslim mores—directly akin to the harassment inflicted by Christian fanatics outside abortion clinics and against gay people in America—like this tiny fringe group in London (that Emerson was talking about), they get arrested and go to jail. The opposite of maintaining a No Go Zone. Whereas the American Christians who got Uganda to literally execute gay people, thus turning a whole nation into a “straights only” No Go Zone based on Christian Sharia law? They roam free with no accountability. Think about that. Contrast it to the fact that homosexuality is legal in many majority-Muslim counties (from Iraq to Turkey to Bahrain), and American Muslims increasingly support gay rights; while conservative Christians continue to oppose them.

In fact, apart from when Muslims keep halal which is no different than when Jews keep kosher, there is no discernible difference between American Muslim conservatives and American Christian conservatives in terms of social or moral values. Even Mormons are “against alcohol,” for example. As are, still, many Christian sects, who, unlike Muslims in this country, actually get laws passed forbidding people to buy or sell alcohol…creating, in effect, anti-tipler No Go Zones. And yet no one flips their lid over that (though they should). And yet most Muslims here do not oppose non-Muslim consumption of alcohol, and a great many Muslims, like Jack Mormons, openly drink. The inability to realize most Muslims are no different than (at worst) conservative Christians is a major contributor to Islamophobia and its readiness to believe fear-mongering myths. One should sooner be worried about Christian No Go Zones, given their conservative beliefs are the same and, in the United States for example, Christians actually control our laws, military, and law enforcement.

Another example is how the reality of religious mediation boards gets spun out into “Sharia law is being enforced in some neighborhoods.” Snopes has a great article on this, starting with the myth spread by Breitbart that Sharia law was being implemented in Texas, and then going into the entire well-established tradition in America of every religion having these kinds of arbitration boards. For example, whether you are excommunicated from the Catholic Church will be decided by the Church applying “Canon law” to the case; and you have to follow its rulings or be expelled. Can they kill you or jail or torture you or punish you in any other way than socially? No. Do their court’s rulings override civil and criminal authority in any way? No. Likewise Orthodox Jewish communities in the U.S. have Rabbinical councils that apply Mishnah and Torah law to willing members. But these “Rabbinical law” courts, just like “Canon law” courts, can never break public laws, and members can avoid their authority by simply leaving that religion or sect for another. Or giving up religion altogether. Islamic law mediation boards in America are no different than these. And as such have exactly nothing to do with “No Go Zones.”

There is a good article in The Atlantic about how these kinds of minor unrelated stories keep getting spun out into absurd myths of No Go Zones. And if you ever participated in that—spreading or ginning up innocuous stories in aid of Islamophobic conspiracy theories about Muslim No Go Zones—you are no Skeptic. You are not committed to rationalism or the scientific method. You let your irrational, bigoted fear cause you to not fact-check or think critically. And that should scare you. You are a puppet of your own irrationality and emotionism, your subconscious fear of and misdirected hatred for a whole class of people. Leading you to cultivate and spread false beliefs about reality that will do real harm to the world. And you should be doing something about that. Because left untreated, this is the road to supporting inequality, misery, injustice, tyranny, and violence. It’s exactly how the Nazis got a whole nation to turn on the Jews.

Another example of how myth gets spun out from something more mundane is the commonly repeated “quotation” of “Bernhard Witthaut, Chief Police Commissioner of Germany” (not really a title he has ever held, but he has been police commissioner of various regions within Germany), that usually goes like this (note the ellipsis…and that this is someone’s own translation from his actual spoken German):

Every police commissioner and interior minister will deny it. But of course we know where we can go with the police car….[O]ur colleagues can no longer feel safe there in twos, and have to fear becoming the victim of a crime themselves. We know that these areas exist. Even worse: in these areas, crimes no longer result in charges. They are left to themselves. Only in the worst cases do we in the police learn anything about it. The power of the state is completely out of the picture.

Of course, statements like this never come with any listing of any actual places this is supposed to be true of, so the claim can’t be investigated (and when it can, the claim always falls apart; as I noted above). But more importantly, this isn’t what he said.

The ginned up quotation usually gets picked up from one of the Gateston Institute’s conspiracy theory pages (like here). Gateston is well known as a right-wing, white supremacist, Islamophobic conspiracy mill that has been caught repeatedly lying or distorting the facts, particularly in defense of the No Go Zone myth. But their quotation actually comes from this interview by Der Westen. It’s actually an interview about Witthaut’s concern that Germany is under-funding the police and letting too much fall into the hands of private security firms and “vigilante justice” and the like. And note at the time of this interview, he was only the head of Germany’s police union; not “Chief Police Commissioner of Germany.” You might notice a head of the police union ginning up reasons to fund more police is kind of a biased starting point here. And that Gateston appears to be exaggerating his credentials and authority should make you even more suspicious.

In the course of that conversation, we find this exchange (my translation):

Der Westen: Is it the case that in built up urban areas—like in the Ruhr area—there are neighborhoods and blocks that are “No Go Zones,” which can no longer by secured by the police?

Witthaut: Every police chief and every interior minister will deny that. But of course we know where we are going with a patrol car and where we’ve taken the police van for the first time. The reason is that our men and women on the force are no longer able to feel safe just going [in the usual] two-officer units, as they might become a victim of a crime themselves. We know that these areas exist. Worse, in these areas crimes are no longer being reported. One takes care of everything “by oneself.” We, as the police, only learn about things in the worst cases. Since the state’s authority is entirely left out of it.

Der Westen: Is this only in neighborhoods where migrants represent the majority of the population?

Witthaut: Affected are primarily situations where many migrants live. Commanders must sometimes, for example, decide whether to send in female officers. Women are not taken seriously as authorities. The police as an institution must regain its authority. But not only there, also in German-born society. This will only work if political institutions have our back. We also want more young people with a migrant background to join the police force. They are the best ambassadors for the values we stand for.

Notice how in context what Witthaut said is entirely different than the disingenuously rendered quotation used by Gateston.

• Witthaut never says there are “No Go Zones,” but rather some “blocks” and “neighborhoods” where policing is difficult because of high crime.
• He says these are only “primarily” migrant dominated areas—meaning, some native German areas are just as rough.
• He never mentions Islam or Sharia law, and never says any of these areas are exclusively migrant, or that non-Muslims are being driven out of them.
• He actually says they are policing these areas, just sometimes not by foot patrols in twos (as no doubt nicer neighborhoods enjoy), but sending in patrol cars and vans, and sometimes deciding to send in men instead of women in particular cases.
• His claim that “no crimes” are being reported in such areas because everyone is avenging crimes themselves is obvious hyperbole. You won’t find this born out in any statistical or eyewitness evidence—we never hear from terrified residents of these supposed areas who can’t report a crime, and none of these areas show a “0” in crime rate stats.
• His solution is to actually recruit migrants into the police force. So he clearly is not afraid of them “taking over.”

In short, Witthaut is simply describing any bad neighborhood like the Iron Triangle in Richmond. He is describing rough crime areas suffering urban blight. He does not say these are only migrant areas, or that they are areas excluding non-migrants, or that Sharia law is being implemented in them, or that the German authorities have given up policing them. Even when he winges about people not reporting crimes but going for local vigilante justice instead, he’s talking about an everyday gangland crime ethic, where thugs go “bust a cap” in someone for some perceived crime rather than bring the police into it. That has little to do with Islam. It’s a problem every blighted neighborhood deals with, including those run by Christians (if you thought American inner city gangs were filled with atheists, you’re woefully out of touch with reality).

The “Australian Video”

If you call yourself a Skeptic. If you pride yourself in being a rational person who isn’t a dupe of myths and propaganda, but checks everything before believing it. If you value being an evidence-based reasoner at all, you should not be falling for this. I shouldn’t have to fact-check these falsehoods for you to expose how bigoted myths are being constructed on top of mundane realities. And once you see how this is happening, you shouldn’t be trusting people who spread these lies anymore. Now you know, every time you hear some supposed evidence of No Go Zones, it will turn out to be bullshit, backed in no honest evidence, and contradicting all real evidence available to you. And if you aren’t there yet, you can keep fact-checking them yourself now, until you realize it’s a waste of time to continue doing that because finally you know none will pan out.

This happened to me. I investigated claim after claim of No Go Zones. And they all turned out to be lies, bullshit, or bigotry-driven spin. So I’m done investigating them. They are all bullshit. And if anyone wants to really sell me on it having changed somewhere, you are going to have to meet a damn high bar of evidence now. As in, you need to do the work and show me actual evidence that it’s true; which means not giving me any baloney of the kind I just exposed. Do better.

I’ll give you an example of what I mean.

An atheist recently tried selling me really hard on the claim that a reporter produced video-recorded evidence of a No Go Zone in Sydney, Austalia. I told him these claims never check out as true. He insisted this one couldn’t be false; it was on video! So I watched the video. Holy balls. It shows nothing of the kind. And when I pointed that out to him, he seemed weirdly surprised, as if he hadn’t actually watched the video—or if he had, didn’t pay any attention to what it was actually showing. He had rested absolute confidence on this video as proof of No Go Zones. But hadn’t even examined what was in it. Please. Honestly. Don’t be that guy.

The video in question was produced by infamous right-wing racist and Islamophobe Lauren Southern, who has an international reputation for attempting to provoke racist and religious conflict. The video has already been brilliantly debunked by News.com Australia, which shows the neighborhood is a normal, multi-ethnic area with no Muslim dominance or control, and where no one was afraid to go or being asked to leave—and even catches Southern claiming there were no British pubs there, at which the reporter pointed one out across the street (it’s literally behind them in her own video, at t.s. 1:00, so she was looking straight at it!)…that’s just pwn gold.

But all you need really do is read the transcript of Southern’s own video to see how something else that’s happening is being “spun out” as evidence of those mythic No Go Zones. The pertinent incident starts at t.s. 1:22, which by the way takes place directly across from a Christian church plainly visible in the background of her conversation with a police officer. It’s the local Bulgarian Orthodox Church, so she was presumably walking to the smaller Lakamba Mosque right around the corner on Haldon (rather than the largest and most famous Lakemba Mosque on the outer edge of town). Which is confirmed in the conversation later.

There are, BTW, nine Christian churches in Lakemba, the neighborhood she was declaring subject to Sharia law…and only four mosques.

A Canterbury cop walking along the street (rank, inspector) calls her by name and she answers, and their conversation begins (and pay particular attention to the words I’ve put in bold):

Inspector: I’ve been informed that you’re intending to attend the Lakamba mosque, is that correct?

Southern: I actually have no intentions of attending, I was just planning on walking through the streets, and seeing how the culture was here.

Inspector: Yes?

Southern: Yeah.

Inspector: Are you satisfied with that?

Southern: Yep.

Inspector: So, where do you intend on walking to now? [clearly not believing her]

Southern: I was just gonna walk out and check how the mosque was.

Inspector: Check how the mosque was?

Southern: Yep. [pause] Would I not be allowed to attend if I wanted to?

Inspector: Well, I’ve got grave concerns, that you may cause an imminent breach of the peace down there. So I’m asking you not to attend.

[by “down there” he means at the mosque, just one block down and over from where they are standing]

Southern: Why would I cause a breach of the peace?

Inspector: Because it’s highly religious down there. And…

Southern: But would it be me causing the breach of the peace, or would it be the people there?

Inspector: Well, your presence may cause them to be, you know, be offensive, be objected to your attending there.

Southern: And so that would be them being offended by me?

Inspector: [turns to the camera operator] Can you turn…not interview me?

Up to this point he did not tell her to stop filming or interfere with the filming in any way, until she starts trolling him, then all he does is just ask that they stop. They drop camera but keep audio rolling. Of course her behavior is already offensive, attempting to blame the people she intends to harass for their reacting badly to her harassment. Bullying 101. And he’s no dummy. He reads that all over her.

We miss some of the conversation at this point. Audio cuts back in with him saying…

Inspector: The local community walk around here without any fear. I walk around here without any fear.

Southern: Right. But I’m a critic of Islam.

Inspector: Yes.

Southern: So I can’t be in this multi-culture because my culture is allowed to have free speech and criticizes Islam?

Inspector: I understand you have your own beliefs. And you are allowed to have your own beliefs. I have no issue with that. I’m asking you not to attend down there because I have a fear that you may cause an imminent breach of the peace. In doing so, you may commit an offense.

Southern: Am I allowed to walk through the area?

Inspector: I’m asking — no —I’m asking you not to go down to Haldon street… [the end of his sentence is inaudible as she talks over him]

Southern: You’re asking me. But do I have the legal right to walk down this area?

Inspector: [sighs in exasperation] At this point in time, no.

The video is edited to a cut here; what’s been removed is unknown. It seems like he had more to say but we aren’t allowed to hear what. The video cuts back in an unknown amount of time later, as the officer has given up on them and is walking away…

Southern: I know you’re walking away, but, I would like to do some interviews. Would I be allowed to do interviews?

Inspector: No. You are not welcome in there.

Southern: No, I’m not wel…no no no…just to do interviews on the street. Am I allowed to?

Inspector: No. No.

Southern: Why not?

Inspector: Because I’m asking you not to.

[he says something else inaudible because she talks over him; there also appears to be another audio cut here of undetermined length]

Southern: I just, would I be allowed to, would I, okay. No cameras. Nothing? Would I be allowed to talk to people and criticize Islam?

Inspector: No.

Southern: No?

Inspector: No.

Southern: Why?

Inspector: Because I’m telling you no. You’ll commit an offense. Why do you need to do it here? Why?

Southern: Because this is a highly Islamic area.

Inspector: My question is, what questions do you intend on asking?

Southern: Could I not talk to people and criticize Islam?

Inspector: What questions? Why do you wanna…I don’t…why do you want to criticize Islam? Like I said, if you are inside, I have fear that you are going to cause a breach of the peace.

Southern: No you fear your people will be offended by me.

Inspector: No, yeah.

Southern: Yes.

Inspector: Yes.

Southern: Yes. Thank you.

Inspector: And you’re committing a breach of the peace. I’ve given you that warning. And if you do that, you may be breaking the law. You understand that?

Southern: Yep. I understand it. I perfectly understand. As far as I’m concerned you have Sharia law here. As far as I’m concerned.

[the officer leaves them be]

Southern then goes on camera to give a childish speech about how because she can’t harass Muslims in front of their own mosque she doesn’t have free speech and therefore it’s Sharia law and a No Go Zone and Lakemba is “conquered territory” (an ironic thing for a Canadian to say of Australia; the fifty or so Aboriginals who live in Lakemba might want to school her on some things).

Imagine that an internationally renowned Christian-bashing atheist with a film crew threatened to attend a church service without permission of the pastor or congregation, or else harass church goers on the street outside the church entrance, and on account of that police asked them not to because that might cause trouble, and they answered it would be the Christians causing trouble. Those atheists would clearly be the assholes. And legally in the wrong, in every free country on earth. No one would claim the whole neighborhood was therefore a No Go Zone for atheists. Police asking atheists not to disrupt church services and harass churchgoers is their job. Likewise, when these police ask an internationally renowned anti-Muslim activist not to disrupt mosque services or attendees.

It’s not even Southern’s legal right to enter a private building without permission, or to interrupt people entering and leaving a place of worship with harassment of their faith. A mosque, like a church or a synagogue, is not the public square. It isn’t “the neighborhood.” Trespassing is a crime. Trespassing to harass religious people in their own holy space, doubly so. And coming up with the school yard bully tactic of “only” harassing them just outside their church door isn’t legal either. Free speech does not mean the right to harass. And the officer talking to her was very clear about this: he was worried not about her going about town or speaking on just any street in town, but entering the mosque or hovering outside it to harass people; and he never said she couldn’t do it; he said she may commit a crime if she does, therefore he’d rather she not. And notably he didn’t arrest her. Even when she stood on that Lakemba street a block away from the mosque and bashed Islam on camera—claiming, on camera, that she could not bash Islam on the street, on camera. The irony is surreal; the stupidity, profound.

After Southern got badly embarrassed by the media over this, on Twitter Southern claimed of her video:

You watched the officer deny me my right to criticise Islam. You watched them say I would be breaking the law if I spoke to anyone. Yet you reported that absolutely nothing happened. You are why no one trusts the media anymore.

Notice no one denied her right “to criticize Islam” or said she would be breaking the law if she “spoke to anyone.” They only told her not to harass religious observers at their own mosque. She wasn’t even asked to leave the neighborhood!

Since Southern published her video—no one took it away from her, despite a police officer right there watching her film—there is absolutely no sense in which her rights were being curtailed. Conservatives complain about being silenced, on videos published online of their own supposed silencing, and wonder why everyone is laughing at them. That’s the opposite of being silenced. “Nothing happened to me; therefore I’m being oppressed.” And they say liberals are the whiny snow flakes?

Indeed, the fact that Southern was warned not to harass people at their place of worship by a pair of white, and it seems fairly surely non-Muslim, police officers patrolling the neighborhood on foot (and alone, without tactical armor or machineguns even), already refutes any possible narrative that this is a No Go Zone. She even complains that local (and again we can be pretty sure non-Muslim) media had a whole team on her within ten minutes (t.s. 0:55; we even have their video of her). How is it possible for a whole unarmed camera crew to rapidly and without fear rush into a No Go Zone? And not suffer any consequences even. Hm. Inquiring minds beg to know. Meanwhile, her own camera team is never driven out either. And somehow they never got any footage of any Muslim harassing her or even talking to her. And she is never told to leave the neighborhood. Not even by the government’s own police officer, the only one she spoke to in the very neighborhood she insinuates police would not enter.

Every time a conservative refutes themselves with their own video, they’ve made themselves into a joke.

Why, then, was the atheist who told me this video proved No Go Zones exist so stupid as to fall for this? Only one answer is possible. Because of bias born of bigotry, to which those who deny their own biases will remain blind. He saw and heard what he wanted to see and hear. And totally failed to see and hear reality. The only question is, why was that what he wanted to see and hear? And wanted so badly, that he completely failed to see and hear what actually was going on right before him? He needs to do some serious soul searching to figure that out, and fix what is going horribly wrong in how he constructs beliefs. You do too, if you also fell for Southern’s schtick.

As Southern says (and her own video confirms), she went to “an area called Lakemba,” a little multi-ethnic neighborhood in Sydney. You can check out Lakemba yourself. It’s only a few thousand feet square. Google can show you what’s there, pictures and all. Among the most prominent features are the Holy Spirit Catholic College; the Greek Orthodox St. Basil’s Community senior center; a completely secular state-run public school; and of course the British-themed Lakemba Hotel, which is a bar and liquor store. So much for Sharia law! And though the Lakemba Hotel might be torn down for development in coming years, its replacement is still slated to include a liquor store, or “bottle store” as they say down under. And Lakemba has several other vendors of alcohol, including the neighborhood ALDI, and a Drinks Plus just a few blocks from every mosque in town. At the very center of Lakemba is the award winning Lebanese restaurant Al-Aseel…that offers a complete liquor menu. Just a block away from where Southern claimed to be oppressed by Sharia law.

The latest Australian census confirms Lakemba contains roughly 17,000 residents, and yet is only 60% Muslim (it is in fact the only district in Australia that is majority Muslim, which I guess is why Southern chose to pick on it). So clearly “non-Muslims” are not being “kept out” of it or scared away or subject to Sharia law or any such nonsense. Over 15% of Lakembans are Christian, 15% don’t identify with any religion, and the rest are Buddhist and Hindu. Dozens of Aboriginal people live there. The crime rate in Canterbury, the police municipality Lakemba is in, is actually quite low compared to the province as a whole, and has been dropping continuously for the last twenty years (down over 90% compared to 1998). Property values are high—and comparable to every section of Canterbury.

There has never been a riot there, despite Southern saying on her video she’d heard of “riots” in Lakemba (t.s. 0:20; otherwise, that there is some gang crime is something that can be said of nearly everywhere). She may be thinking of the Cronulla riots, which were ages ago (2005), and did not occur in Lakemba but did lead to a peace rally at Lakemba mosque that the police cordoned and used for intelligence gathering to eventually arrest over a hundred instigators of previous violence. The actual riots were stirred on the beach by racist surfers attacking perceived Muslims, and the surfer community was among those to apologize for the ensuing chaos, as did several Islamic communities who had members involved. Hardly anything to do with the No Go Zone myth.

This is how all these claims always turn out. Bigots insist there is evidence proving No Go Zones exists. We check the facts. It falls apart.

Maybe you should start to get a clue.

Conclusion

No evidence of No Go Zones ever survives scrutiny. That they exist at all in free Western countries is an Islamophobic myth every bit as scary and irrational as any “Jew bankers control the world” conspiracy-theory nutcase nonsense. There are rough neighborhoods. Some are the product of packing immigrants in ghettos. And in some of those scenarios the immigrants getting packed into those impoverished, crime ridden ghettos are Muslims. We did this to the Jews once. Remember? Blaming the Jews for it was pointing the finger in the wrong damned direction. Little has changed. Yesterday it was the Jews. Today it’s the Muslims. But rarely, like Lakemba, are any of these neighborhoods even a problem or all that bad—they aren’t ghettos, just places where Christians are now a minority; and even when they are dangerous ghettos, in no case are the hellholes of our own creation outside state control, where police and non-Muslims are forbidden to go, and Sharia law reigns. That’s just bullshit.