There is a saying that goes "I may disagree with what you said but I will defend to the death your freedom to say it".Freedom of expression means a person can say the most foul vile things and I may disagree with it, but I should not expect government to curtail or stop that person from saying what he or she wants.That is not governments job,that is the job of the individual who says those things. It's called personal responsibility.
If you start down the path of curtailing what someone says or writes where will it stop?

I disagree with Harry. Freedom of speech is not unlimited. Freedom of speech should exist so that people in positions of power are made accountable and so that new ideas are not stymied by dogma. Libel and slander laws already exist to protect ordinary people from defamation as well as laws prohibiting racist abuse. Islamophobia is racism and such cartoons are clearly Islamophobic - they aim not to criticise, but to demean, debase and humiliate. They acheive nothing more, and the tired old liberal slogan of freedom for freedom sake used to justify kicking Muslims has itself become shrill dogma. Think, act, and put an end to Islamophobic bigotry now.

both sides of the freedom of speech coin are presented above.

yes it would be better if islamophobic phoebes stopped their baiting. it would also be good if we stopped closing our greedy mouths around the bait and getting hooked so we can scream and wail in (self?) righteous agony.

slitting the throats of kuffar who dare to *blaspheme* may provide instant catharsis, but it is short-lived. i subscribe to the view that only by cleaning our own house first can we hope for a better future. for many, kafir-hunting is the easy alternative - a quick-fix way to worm one's way into jannat.

Do those who condemn the cartoon also condemn the Antisemitic cartoons in the Arab/Muslim press?

If someone makes a cartoon about Jesus then Chrsitians do not feel they are being threatened of insulted. Of course the odd Christian cleric will say its blasphemous but generally speaking the Western Judaeo-Christian ethic is to tolerate satire on their religions.

I think it is important to distinguish that Islam isn't a natural base religion in places like Nordic Countries, UK, France, Germany, Italy etc. You will get some to-and-fro argument about Spain I suppose but basically Spain is a Catholic country.

Therefore, the major population will tolerate and sustain any religious satire.

Under Islam you may have rules that there should be no depiction of Mohammed (although there are certainly many pictures and icons of Mohammed in the Arab/Muslim world - in Iran I believe from memory).

I feel that on balance we have a right to produce religious satire cartoons about Islamic prophets. After all, most of them are Jewish prophets anyway. Many Moses cartoons and jokes are published.

I think this is a political move to keep asserting the power of Islam. No-one would publish these cartoons in the Arab/Islamic World and so the laws of Islam are upheld.

I feel it is wrong to try an assert the influence of Islam over countries which are not Islamic.

The cartoons are deliberately provocative but that is art in the Western World. That is what art does.

I notice another phenomena. The number of places where I can see this cartoon over the Web suggests people are saying "Frankly we are all fed up with these threats".

Its as if they all decided if they published the cartoon then it would then face the court of public opinion.

Salaams all,

"By publishing this cartoon both the artist and newspaper have shown recklessness as their actions will create further mistrust, suspicion and hatred between communities. Do we allow such "expressions of freedom" even if they incite hatred? "

We have to keep things in perspective and write, email, telephone our Swedish brothers/sisters (not just muslims)to explain why we hurt when someone does something like this to provoke us by insulting the last prophet (pbuh).

Also I add that we have an opportunity to work with our Jewish brothers and sisters in jointly communicating our feelings - our jewish brothers have been attacked as well by this piece of paper...

the purpose of all this is to simply to incite Muslims and Jews against this newspaper (maybe they thought it would incite us against Christians? well no we Inshallah are not going to fall for that one...).

Brothers/sisters (muslims, jews, christians whoever)register your comments directly with the Swedish embassy both by email and phone.

I know Swedish people - like the Danish people they are so laid back, polite, kind and really fab people - and they do not deserve to be insulted and attacked because of the stupidity? or rather insensitivity of a couple of the best word would be idiots (Allah forgive me for using that word...)

When muslims use freedom of expression then they are arrested charged and imprisoned using by hook or crook we will get you laws.

it is the freedom of non muslims to insult islam and muslims but muslims do not have the freedom to use that freedom of expresiion.

whenever muslims use their freedom of expression they are labelled as moaners-whingers and told if you do not like it leave,so lets not patrionise with this freedom of speech mantra.

there is no complete freedom of speech,trying humiliating jews-black people-homosexauls-lesbians and people of diffrent genders and see how far you get.

at the moment if you wish to show your racist bigotry,then humiliating and insulting muslims is open season.

Mohammed Bouery, we love you!

Yakoub is correct


With Freedom of Speech there goes a duty of responsibility.

We must not allow this fine quality of Western society to be abused by those who wish to labour a point for the points sake and in so doing bring anguish and grievance to whole communities across the ethnic divide.

THe depiction of the prophet in this gross manner serves no purpose other then to create mischief and fan the flames of reciprocal intolerance.

It is essential that we ,as rational members of a multicultural society are able to make this distinction otherwise our indifference renders us as no different from the mischief makers.

Islam and Judaism have much in common .In Judaism it is an absolute profanity to depict an image of G-D or even to write his name in full.

This is equally true for Muslims.

The reason being that any depiction engraving ,sculpture etc is considered idolatry and is proscribed by our commandments.

Shlomo you mention the demonisation of Jews in cartoon and other visual form and which appear across the Arab world.

Regretfully I too have seen these images which appear to have been lifted straight from Der Sturmer Hitlers mouthpiece.

Nevertheless it is absolutely forbidden to use this as a reason to retaliate in the manner of Danish and Swedish press.

By doing so you do not hurt the disseminators of Antisemitism-they are beyond redemption- Instead you alienate many millions of people who harbour no such grudge.

Remember an eye for an eye leaves a blind nation!

Meh I also 'cheered for the FAILED glasgow and london bombings' too - did you not cheer for the 'failed' bombings?

People my brother Meh will do anything for power to too feel powerful over others both muslims and non-muslims, there are those who are manipulated by others to direct a level of hatred against a group of people - this happens both in muslim countries and non-muslim countries. It happened in Nazi Germany on wholesale - our Jewish brothers and sisters were picked out as a target and you know what happened next.

But - brother Meh, if anyone muslim or non-muslim has hurt you forgive them - and if you must blame either muslims or non-muslims for whatever - then blame me also - but do not blame a whole section of the human race for something that it is not even aware of.

Life is too important to be left in the hands of those who will manipulate your emotions for their own reasons.

In 20-40 years time Muslims will probably be nearer quarter of the Earths population - both Muslims and Non-Muslims need to find ways to empower and help each other.

Thanks

Rob, You said "When muslims use freedom of expression then they are arrested charged and imprisoned using by hook or crook we will get you laws"

Give us an example of this 'freedom of expression' you say that Muslims are locked up for.

Th eonly ones I know about were locked-up for inciting haterd and attacks on Jews & Christians, or over cartoon protests where people were threatened with beheadings and urged-on to do violence.

In these cases there was NO 'freedom' to express hatred and incitement.

Even Nick Grifin was tried twice over calling Islam "a wicked Religion" and the court decided this was not unlawful.

The Law is the Law and our justice system has a jury. Live with it. The SAME jury system that acquitted Muslims of the fertiliser plot.

"there is no complete freedom of speech,trying humiliating jews-black people-homosexauls-lesbians and people of diffrent genders and see how far you get."

And you found out how far you got!

Ya,
I agree freedom has limits but again it is not the job of the government to do so, It is the job of individual responsibitity.If we go down the path toward government limiting someones freedom just because we disagree with them or don't like what they say, where do we stop? and who gets to decide what is said and not said?

Thanks Brother Harry, I agree with you that government interference at every turn is something no one (hopefully) wants - but we are talking about individual and organisational resposibility when a section of the human family is being abused and vilified - to most of my muslim brothers/sisters we consider the last prophet (pbuh) as someone better then even our parents - so imagine if someone or an organisation started abusing your father? yes emotions are provoked in muslims by people for whatever reason - but remember so were they provoked in Europe in the 1930s against our Jewish brothers/sisters and look what that led to - incidently in the recent abuse against the last prophet (pbuh) Jews were also targeted.
Its simply about respect - for each other and the realisation that the other persons 'feelings' are being assaulted

Brother Shlomo
Happy birthday - I agree that every individual should be allowed to personally express themselves in public or private so long as it doesn't devalue others in the process - personally you will remain my brother whether your gay or straight muslim or not - but its my 'islamic' duty to protect you should others decide to hurt you for being someone they do not like - but remember labels are nothing whatever nation, religion, race your born into - whatever label others host on you or whatever label you identify yourself as - Allah(or god) knows best, in the same way my brother muslims are becoming an easy target for some - even non-muslim brothers and sisters would agree - i think even you know, and yes we as muslims need to act less emotional and more logical - it only takes an idiot somewhere to stir us up - but then again we respond because we hurt...

I am all up for freedom of expression but not for the freedom to verbally and physically abuse and attack an entire country, an entire race, an entire tribe or a religion.

It is one thing for Muslims to express upset over treatment of Mohammed, and worth noting also that this is a premeditated wind-up.

But it is quite another to take it to a diplomatic level and treat it as an international outrage. This is just a wind-up by a newspaper and anything more than letters to the editor and a boycott of that particular paper to make your feelings known is to my mind a crass overreaction.

Further, the encouragement of expressions of outrage are taken by fanatics as vindication of far more hardline behaviour, and by those who do not distinguish between Muslims as evidence of complicity in the obscene fatwas and violence that can accompany such protests.

At this time, certain depictions of Mohammed might be correctly viewed as Islamophobic and unacceptable, but the religious argument that all such depictions should be banned is equally unacceptable. So if you are asking for self-censorship you had better have a sensible approach, and while the tone of the above appeal is quite reasonable, letters to ambassadors are not.

MPACUK when are you going to do something about the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" being distributed in Muslim countries, along with other racist literature? Then you may get support about Muhammad cartoons.

Shalom - get your facts right - the "whole world" is not laughing at Daniel Pipes - people are listening.

Freedom of speech is paramount and should be upheld, most especially freedom to speak things which may not be comfortable to hear but are true. Freedom to promote lies, however, should not be tolerated. You confuse the two.

When Muslims protest violently about pictures they immediately become visible as foreigners.

Muslims living in the west may well be citizens of the West but when we hear their weird interpretations about freedom of speech (and about religion and politics)it reveals them as either grossly ignorant of our overall heritage and customs or it reveals them as disobeying the law by attacking quite legal behaviour such as drawing a bloke in religious history called Mohammed.

Unfortunately, many muslims have declared a war on themselves by failing to learn enough about other countries and cultures.

This helps to make some people throughout the world believe that Islam is merely a throwback or a cult and that all Muslims are religious bigots who cannot deal with the fact that the world is multiracial, it has many languages (not just Arabic), has many religions (not just Islam and that anyone may choose freely to belong to them).

There are many many cultures that have no real place for Islam today until it modernises, reforms and accepts our many different ways of living.

Unfortunately for muslims who largely come from poorly educated countries, freedom of speech in the west does indeed include the right to offend.

So in the west we believe that it is the ability to deal with criticism and comment that reveals the civilised person in all of us. Taking some kind of physical revenge for a cartoon you took too personally is a childish act, not just an illegal act.

In some countries we would say muslim intolerance and violence stems from primitive cultures, in the West there is NO excuse for such revolting retaliation and it humiliates muslims in our majority non-muslim eyes.


Cartoon-offended Muslims must grow up now and realise it is not them personally that is being insulted, it is their religion. Their religion may be the most important thing in their entire world to them but that is not the case for 75% of the world that is not muslim and does not believe in Islam.

A cartoon is a drawing, that is all - muslims should simply try to avoid being superstitious & silly about other people's culture of freedom of speech.

All things of the mind, including religion, are open season for debate, depiction and caricature. Nothing in the civilised world is intellectually off limits and if your religion discourages you or makes you fear debate about it then there is something very wrong with your belief system. You can change it now.

must be very insecure.

for people who think offending people and insulting their beleifs is part of freedom of speech and those who do not understand this are somehow less educated.

just proves that point that what we are seeing is patrionising behaviour from two faced liars,who say you should not feel offended if we insult you.

but you have no right to insult or offend jews-black people-homosexuals-lesbians and people of diffrent genders.

see we have freedom of speech,you are free to insult and slander muslims but be careful not to insult other groups as we have rules against that.

it is this type of patrionising hypocrisy that we cannot stand for.

finally i think people who insult and offend others to give their lives a meaning are truly a pathetic lot,that they have to scoop to these levels to give their lives any meaning.

shan: You make an interesting point.

###"for people who think offending people and insulting their beleifs is part of freedom of speech and those who do not understand this are somehow less educated.

just proves that point that what we are seeing is patrionising behaviour from two faced liars,who say you should not feel offended if we insult you.

but you have no right to insult or offend jews-black people-homosexuals-lesbians and people of diffrent genders.

see we have freedom of speech,you are free to insult and slander muslims but be careful not to insult other groups as we have rules against that.

it is this type of patrionising hypocrisy that we cannot stand for.

finally i think people who insult and offend others to give their lives a meaning are truly a pathetic lot,that they have to scoop to these levels to give their lives any meaning."###

You have to go by the rules of teh society and culture within which the cartoons were drawn. It is a long tradition in the Western Judaeo-Christian cultures that satire on religion is acceptable. Look at all the insulting caricatures of Jesus over the years or jokes about Moses and The Tablets.

Look at Spain and its yearly celebration of the Reconquista where the Moors were driven out. Thousands of villages would burn effigies of Mohammed (as well as effigies of Moorish soldiers).

The same Western Cultures today would not deliberately indulge in the Der Sturmer-like cartoons about Jews in the Nazi era - but Arab countries till create new ones and publish them.

The Sedish Cartoon 'insult' is not perceived as one by the cuture which created it - while there is much sympathy for the view that it would have been better not to publish.

Why can't we leave it that many Muslims are offended, Many non-Muslims aren't and some non-Muslims are offended.

MPAC UK posted that Zionists were against Free Speech. Aren't we seeing that some Muslims are against it too?

There is a difference between cartoons designed to transmit racial hate and cartoons that satirise religion.

As reprehensible an act as this is, to ignore it is rather easy and coherent. There are no accurate representations of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), so anyone that alleges to produce one is at best a liar. And therefore any representation is by definition not a representation at all. A caricature most have some root in reality, since there is not any actual accepted iconography then there can be no caricature. What if someone clearly drew a caricature of, let's say USA President GW Bush and labeled it as being a representation of the Queen of England? We would certainly know the difference!There is no corollary for distinguishing whether a caricture represents the Prophet (SAW) or not. Therefore we should dismiss this idocy out of hand. We should leave these people to their ultimate demise, which will be well fitting the reprehensible nature of their scandal.

shlomo there is no cultutre which says the holocaust should not be made fun of or denied.

there are laws which prevent people from doing such things in regrad to the holocaust.

if someone wishes to make fun of me or satirise me as a individual i do not mind because i can take actions if i am slandered or insulted.

but to slander or insult people who are no longer with us is despicable but to insult and slander a messenger of god who has 2 billion followers,who consider him the ultimate of humanity and manners is extreme provocation that people cannot take.

it is like someone insulting your dead father while you are listening,no one worth his salt will stand and take that while he is alive.

Didn't the famous Scottish philosopher John Locke, as opposed to a Continental Rousseau, say that

"Complete freedom is only for the newborn savage, all else (on the way to civilisation) is compromise."

Salaams all, people are people, people do good things and they do bad things - some use religion as an excuse others use politics. All sides have suffered. The past has has happened and no one can change that - what we should be concerned about is the present moment and what choices and decisions we make now how that will effect others. It would be good if we can all work with each other in some way to bring about just a little bit of peace and goodwill for each other. True power belongs to Allah, we have temporary power - the power of choice, let us face our creator with love and respect when he asks of us - and what did you do with the choices i gave u.

It is really a shame! Stop this bickering! I cannot understand as to why people who are the closest seem to try everything to keep distance from each other by bringing rediculous statements! Christianity, Islam and Judism have the same prophets. All the three religion traces back to Abraham (Ibrahim to Arabs, Avram to Jews[Correct me if I am wrong).Prophet Mohammed is the last prophet hence him not being mentioned in the bible or the Torat. No muslim will ever depict Jesus or Moses in a slandering way because they are prophets in Islam and will not only hurt the sentiments of Jews and Christians but also Muslims. One has to just listen to Fox news and some American newspapers to see why the muslims are angry. They have started the hate mongering and some countries in Europe are joining in. This is all a ploy. When you start slandering an entire religion and people for just one act, ie. September 11 then I really do not know what to say. Someone in Washington has a hidden agenda which is very disturbing. Iraq is being destroyed and now they are talking about Iran. The evil intentions are clear but it seems some people are really thick not to grasp as to what's going on. Wake up! We are all leaves of one tree and fruits of one arbor. We all share this planet and wars will end when all these hate mongers are given a one way ticket to Mars. Amen.

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