Posted on 02/07/2006 10:26:38 AM PST by summer
NEW YORK -- On Saturday, the Philadelphia Inquirer became one of the first major U.S. papers to carry a drawing featuring Muhammad -- with a lit bomb stuck in his turban -- that have sparked riots abroad. On Monday, more than two dozen Muslims offended by that decision picketed the newspaper.
"It's disrespectful to us as a people," Asim Abdur-Rashid, an imam with the Majlis Ash'Shura, an umbrella group for mosques in the Delaware Valley, told the Inquirer for a story today. "It's disrespectful to our prophet to imply that he's a prophet of violence."
The group may call for a boycott and a further protest on Friday if the newspaper does not apologize.
Amanda Bennett, The Inquirer's editor, and Carl Lavin, a deputy managing editor, talked with the protesters outside the building.
"Neither I nor the newspaper meant any disrespect to their religion or their prophet," Bennett said in her paper. "I told them I was actually really proud of them for exercising their right to freedom of speech."
But Bennett stood by the decision to publish the cartoon, saying it "is one of the things newspapers do to communicate directly with people" about issues important to all communities.
She told The New York Times, "There's been a whole history of newspapers publishing things that people would find controversial and offensive. My view is that we need to publish it for a good news reason, we need to publish in context and we need to explain to readers why we did it."
Few U.S. newspapers have reprinted the cartoon. The New York Times, in an editorial today, noted that it had not carried any of the cartoons and "much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words."
Some newspapers have carried links to the cartoon images on their Web sites, however.
In an e-mail to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau declared he would never use images of Muhammad. "Nor will I be using any imagery that mocks Jesus Christ....I may not agree with their reasons for dropping any particular strip, in fact, I usually don't, but I will defend their right and responsibility to delete material that they feel is inappropriate for their readership," he said.
"It's not censorship, it's editing. Just because a society has almost unlimited freedom of expression doesn't mean we should ever stop thinking about its consequences in the real world."
Poynter Institute faculty discussed the journalistic issues relating to the controversy in a roundtable (read the transcript or download the 21-minute podcast).
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
Absolutely. Monitor their phone calls and e-mail, too. Sorry, "moderates", but this is what you've brought on yourselves by not condemning and protesting against the Islamofascists. We non-Muslims are under no obligation to allow ourselves to be slaughtered or our country destroyed.
"VIII.39-42: Say to the Infidels: if they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven; but if they return to it, they have already before them the doom of the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's."
Lying is bad too.
" "It's disrespectful to us as a people,"
Your sacred and holy prophet was a fraud and HE'S DEAD.
You'll get my respect when you can act like a rational, civilized human being that is grateful for the country that harbors you and allows you to worship in peace.
Make no mistake: they'd have burnt it if they had enough thugs to get away with it. Their religion demands it.
Maybe start with this one here and foment some more screaming Muslims? How about a $50,000 challenge to Muslims to disprove charges against Mohammed portraying to be a rapist, etc..?
http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2006/02/50000-challenge-against-mohammed-and.html
Two things: 1) It's true.
2) It's our right to hold that opinion and to publish it. Deal with it.
The editors at the paper better apologize if they want to keep their heads attached to their necks, I mean these nice people belong to the religion of peace but lets not provoke them!
(Dripping sarcasm off)
Calvinists in Philadelphia need to stage Protest Warrior counterdemonstrations to the Muslim protests. (Frankly, patriotic Arminians and Catholics should join in, even if they do not hold Calvin in much esteem.)
I think this is fine, and a proper response. Its the whackjobs that got violent, now those folks probably just need killin..
This is why most newspapers in the US will chicken-out like the NY Times and publish an article about the cartoons, complete with local Muslim reaction, but fail to show them.
Over at the DUmp the rats have come to a brilliant conclusion and are all chittering the same thing, religion is bad no matter which one they're talking about.
Can't wait till they boycott the US and goods produced here!
You got that right!!
I am surprised that the (left leaning) Inquirer actually published them.. Hope springs eternal.
[applause] Well stated!
"Neither I nor the newspaper meant any disrespect to their religion or their prophet," Bennett said in her paper. "I told them I was actually really proud of them for exercising their right to freedom of speech."
What exactly would it take for people TO show disrespect for a bunch of suicidal murdering baby killers with a camel pirate prophet? Perhaps a nuclear bomb?
Oh wait, they are already threatening that.
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