Cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist are deeply offensive, but so is the violent reaction to the drawings from Islamic extremists, Canadian Muslims said Thursday.
“The protests in the Middle East have proven that the cartoonist was right,” said Tarek Fatah, a director of the Muslim Canadian Congress.
“It's falling straight into that trap of being depicted as a violent people and proving the point that, yes, we are.”
An astute observation.
Other reaction in Canada at the link below including from many of the major newspapers explaining why they will not publish them.
The caricatures were posted on a Canadian satirical website.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../BNStory/Front
The Washington Post with a lengthy look at the controversy and the issue of press freedom.
But critics argued that publishers should be more discerning in the battles they choose over freedom of expression. "This is the sort of thing that will feed into al Qaeda, alienating and angering a lot of educated young people," Najam Sethi, editor of Pakistan's Daily Times and Friday Times, said in a telephone interview from Lahore.
Sethi and others see a double standard at work. "People who question some of the facts of the Holocaust are ostracized; most publishers are so sensitive they won't even get into the argument," Sethi said. "A degree of censorship is imposed that is not articulated in this case."
International journalist organizations have condemned the threats of violence against the European journalists who published the cartoons.
"We defend unpopular speech around the world all the time," said Joel Simon, deputy director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. "We don't make judgments whether we agree or disagree" with the message. "Sometimes we sort of have to hold our nose, but they've got the right to say that, and we defend their right."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020202720.html
Cowperson