In February, Lars Hedegaard narrowly escaped an assassination attempt.
The seventy-year-old Danish editor of the Swedish newspaper Dispatch International is an outspoken critic of Islam. He believes it is his criticisms of the faith that prompted what he speculates to have been a twenty-something year old immigrant from a Middle Eastern country to dress up like a mailman and attempt to shoot him dead at his front door. Fortunately for Hedegaard, his attacker was a terrible shot.
As the founder of the International Free Press Society, Hedegaard is a staunch opponent of political correctness and blasphemy laws. He envies the constitutional protections for free speech in the U.S., but warns the U.S. is not immune to the type of clampdown on free speech he sees in Europe.
“You cannot live in isolation here,” Hedegaard told The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas in an interview.
“What has come to us will come to you undoubtedly, unless you learn some lessons — the lessons being that you have to stand up absolutely for free speech.”
Recently, Thomas sat down with Hedegaard in Washington. Throughout the week, TheDC will feature segments of the interview, including Hedegaard’s reaction to the Sept. 11 Benghazi attack, his thoughts on immigration, why he believes totalitarianism often starts with the erosion of free speech rights and his view on the confusion and lack of leadership on behalf of liberty lovers.
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