In a garish example of anti-democratic, anti-West, collective state hypocrisy, leaders from the BRICS bloc -- representing Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- meeting in South Africa over three days last week invited four Muslim states and two others to join the bloc, while keeping total silence over the racist and Islamist massacre by heavily armed Arab militias of black African civilians being carried out in West Darfur in Sudan over the preceding weeks.

"[A]trocities pile up in Darfur after 100 days of Sudan fighting", in which "Arab militias are accused of killing lawyers, human rights monitors, doctors and non-Arab tribal leaders". — Al Jazeera, July 24, 2023.

" [The city of Al-Geneina in West Darfur] has been ethnically cleansed." — Humanitarian worker, Sky News, broadcasting scenes of thousands of desperate Sudanese refugees displaced in neighbouring Chad, August 17, 2023.

The Africa Defense Forum disclosed on May 16 that Russia's Wagner group was supervising gold-mining in Darfur, and smuggling nearly $2 billion in gold out of the country.

Yet the "great and the good" -- China's President Xi Jinping, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, with Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing the congregation by video to endorse Russia's war in Ukraine -- made no mention of this genocidal massacre.

Instead, the BRICS leaders invited states with the world's longest history of enslaving black Africans to join them.

China's Xinhua news agency reported how Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi, who attended the BRICS conference, hailed it as a "commendable step that will facilitate worldwide development while upholding principles of justice."

Justice? Raisi was deputy prosecutor general in a four-member committee codenamed the "death commission" in Iran in 1988, which was responsible for the executions of thousands of political prisoners who were loyal to a banned opposition movement, "on orders issued by Raisi and his three colleagues."

Worse, although slavery continued legally in Iran until 1929, "It never went away". — iranwire.com, April 30, 2020.

The article showed a series of photos of black African slaves in Iran, such as this one from the 1880s. — Denise Hassanzade Ajiri, "The face of African slavery in Qajar Iran – in pictures," The Guardian, January 14, 2016.

The issue of the enslavement and oppression of black Africans -- continuing to this day in Darfur and elsewhere -- is an issue suppressed by BRICS.

I have been on the death lists of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS for a very long time....

In recent years, several fatwas have been issued against me by imams and mullahs, two of which have been repeated quite recently. Fatwas, religious death sentences consisting of concrete calls to Muslims worldwide and also in the Netherlands to kill me.

I now receive so many death threats, every day and about a thousand a year, that I no longer even report everything, because then I would no longer be able to do my work as a Member of Parliament.

They are often descriptions of how they want to kill me, often with explicit pictures, beheading videos, there are audio recordings of threats, including imams from mosques, and other disgustingly violent material. Many of those threats come from various Islamic countries, but especially from Pakistan.

And with a few exceptions of Pakistanis who came to the Netherlands to kill me, but luckily were arrested and also convicted, 99.99% of all people who threaten me from abroad have never been prosecuted.

Luckily one is prosecuted today. And I would like to thank the Public Prosecution Office for that.

I do hope that they will also prosecute the Pakistani mullah Jalali and the political leader Rizvi, who issued the aforementioned fatwas against me. Please don't forget them.

[T]oday your court is hearing the case against Khalid Latif, a well-known former cricketer from Pakistan, who in 2018 put a bounty of three million Pakistani rupees, then about 21 thousand euros [roughly $23,000], on my head as a reward for the one who murders me, and would post the video of that murder online as evidence. And if he had more money, he added, he would also give it to the one who kills me.

Khalid Latif thinks I should be killed because I (and I quote) would insult "the prophet of God" – he is referring to Muhammad – by organizing a cartoon contest [which did not take place].

But of course that is absolutely no reason to put a price on someone's head, let alone kill someone.

I wanted to make it clear that making drawings is allowed by anyone and we should never, ever bow down to people who choose violence, threats, murder and terror.

Because of all the fatwas, threats and calls to kill, I have been living in high security for almost nineteen years.

I have lived in a prison with my wife for months for my safety, lived in a barracks, lived in a police station, had to dress unrecognizably in public with mustaches and wigs. And to this day, my wife and I live in a government safe house.

I can't do the most basic things that every human being does every day without thinking about it.... Quickly get some air. Empty the mailbox. Driving. Walk around the block. Quickly run a message [errand] in the store.....

And frankly, you never get used to it. You learn to deal with it but you never get used to it. And that's tough. You should know that.

I am grateful to be protected. I also want to say that today.

Also a word of thanks to the great team of the police for threatened politicians, who are on hand day and night and sometimes go crazy because of the amount of threats I send them, but always remain friendly and helpful.

As best I can, I try not to be guided by the fear of being killed and the knowledge that it can happen any day, protected or not.

I will always fight against the intolerance and hatred of people who propagate violence such as the radical Muslims who threaten me. I see it as my duty to warn and protect the Netherlands against them and their ideology.

And I fervently hope that your court sends a signal that I am not an outlaw. That putting a price on someone's head does not go unpunished.

I hope you will convict Mr. Latif for what he has done. He broke the law and not just a little bit. And that you also send a strong signal to those who threaten me, but also threaten others: you will not get away with it. Free speech will not be silenced by your terror.

[W]ith a conviction you send a strong signal to all other threateners: we will not accept it. Inciting and provoking murder is noticed and condemned and is therefore not without consequences.

Mr. Latif, as long as I'm alive and breathing you won't stop me. Your call to kill me and pay money for it is despicable and will not silence me, on the contrary. I will continue to speak the truth and express my opinion, including when it comes to Islam and your prophet.

The freedom of thought and speech, it is the only freedom I have left, and you will never take it away from me. I will always carry on. Always.