Let me know if this group shows up.
Posted on 02/28/2006 5:38:54 PM PST by Dark Skies
A student group at the University of California, Irvine, was going ahead with plans Tuesday to show cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-laden turban during a panel on Islamic extremism despite outrage from Muslim students and the larger community.
After spending a week trying to cancel the event, the Muslim Student Union said it would protest outside the 424-seat auditorium where the panel was to convene Tuesday evening. The Council on American-Islamic Relations -- an invited guest -- planned a boycott.
The debate on the event follows incidents at other campuses, including Harvard University and the University of Illinois, where student newspapers published the Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet with a bomb in his turban.
Thousands of Muslims worldwide have protested, sometimes violently, against the drawings after they were first published in a Danish newspaper in September and then in other papers in Europe. The drawings are offensive to Muslims because Islamic tradition bans any depiction of Muhammad.
Osman Umarji, former president of the Muslim Student Union, equated the decision to display the prophet drawings to the debasement of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust.
"The agenda is to spread Islamophobia and create hysteria against Muslims similar to what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany," said Umarji, an electrical engineer who graduated from UC Irvine last spring. "Freedom of speech has its limits."
Organizers said unveiling the cartoons was part of a larger debate on Islamic extremism sponsored by the College Republicans and The United American Committee, a fledgling group not affiliated with UC Irvine.
Brock Hill, vice president of the College Republicans, said his group had a right to display the cartoons under the First Amendment and noted that the panel was to include a representative from the Free Muslims Coalition.
"We're not going against Islam whatsoever," he said. "This is about free speech and the free marketplace of ideas."
The panel also was to discuss anti-Semitic and anti-Western drawings that have appeared in Middle Eastern newspapers and discuss Islamic militancy on U.S. college campuses, said Jesse Petrilla, UAC founder and an event organizer
Petrilla, a 22-year-old student Glendale Community College, said he believes Muslims overseas are using the prophet drawings as an excuse to commit violence against Western nations.
"We're hoping to bring light to the subject and get people talking about it," he said. "People don't realize it's not just the cartoons -- there's motivation behind it that's rooted far deeper."
Administrators with UC Irvine met with the three groups Monday to try to find common ground, said Sally Peterson, dean of students.
"This is a student event and it's in their prerogative and free speech to do so," she said. "Our major concern is that we make sure the security is there."
To UC Irvine patriots...post 'em when you got 'em...
The young lady who was organizing this event was on Larry Elder yesterday. How did it turn out?
I am shocked a real American at an American University!
Occurs tonight! At 7 pm West Coast time. Stay tuned!
I wonder if Osman Umarji would object to the group showing the be-heading videos linked on Savage's site?
Oh, I thought you said OSCARS tonight. I was going to boycott them. :)
I had hoped to go but will not be able to due to a health problem.
Are all the cartoons available on FR? Where?
Get well soon! And hang tough!!!
The mohammed cartoons are available online (let me know if you need a link) but the UC Irvine show includes the islamic cartoons of the West and Israel.
ping
Look here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1573758/posts
2 cartoons. I thought there were nine.
Are we afraid to show them here at FR?
They are up at anncoulter.com and michelemalkin.com
"Islamophobia" is self-inflicted.
Let me know if this group shows up.
Search using Danish Cartoons, you will find the rest.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.