Staff Reports
Infidel Awareness Month just launched — and yes, it was timed to run from the September 11 memorial through October 7. The campaign is short, sharp, and built around a simple idea: hear the people who lived under and escaped Islamist rule. Among the videos and posts is a powerful testimony from Iranian‑born PhD student Sana Ebrahimi Ledene, who says the ideology she fled is now creeping into Western institutions. That alone makes this more than a stunt — it’s an argument for plain speech and tough questions.
What is Infidel Awareness Month?
Organizers describe it as a 27‑day series of testimony, interviews, and research about what they call “supremacist Islam” and the victims of jihadist violence. The roster reads like a who’s‑who of dissidents, journalists, and analysts who think the West needs to stop pretending hard questions are “inflammatory.” Founder Richard Landes and contributors put out daily material on their channels to press one point: if an ideology repeatedly declares you an enemy, you ignore it at your peril. Conservatives should like that clarity — it’s honest and it frames a debate most elites try to dodge.
Why ex‑Muslim testimony matters
Sana Ebrahimi Ledene’s account is direct and hard to ignore. She tells of being taught that martyrdom was the highest honor, that Jews and Christians were described as enemies, and that apostasy was traitorous. She now warns the same doctrinal currents are being injected into Western discourse and institutions. Former believers and escapees offer credibility that few other witnesses can match. They don’t need to win an argument about theology to warn about political movements that use religion as a tool of conquest — their lived experience is the point.
PR Newswire’s refusal and the bigger issue
Of course someone had to take offense. A major press‑distribution service reportedly declined to circulate the campaign release, saying the material “can reasonably be construed as being inflammatory and inciteful against a group of people.” Translation: uncomfortable truth equals censorship. That decision exposes a dangerous double standard. Platforms and services will throttle speech that challenges favored narratives while allowing other forms of public fury to flood the wires. If we let distribution companies decide which warnings are too “inflammatory” to reach the public, we do the censoring for them.
Say the name, then defend the country
Conservatives should welcome Infidel Awareness Month even if they don’t agree with every line. It gives voice to people who suffered under the ideology they now critique. It forces institutions to choose: tolerate honest debate or hide behind euphemism. If you care about free speech, about national survival, and about protecting Western law and liberty, you’ll listen — not silence — these witnesses. Better to name the threat and fight it in daylight than to pretend it doesn’t exist and hope for the best. After all, the safest country is the one that tells the truth about what endangers it.
