Sunday, February 05, 2006

Infidel Bloggers Alliance: The Infidel Bloggers Alliance Mohammed Cartoon Contest

Infidel Bloggers Alliance: The Infidel Bloggers Alliance Mohammed Cartoon Contest

Let's all show our support for our rights of Free Speech and Freedom of the Press. Draw a cartoon of Big Mo and enter it into the Infidel Bloggers Alliance Mohammed Cartoon Contest!

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Protests Over Muhammad Cartoon Grow - Yahoo! News

Protests Over Muhammad Cartoon Grow - Yahoo! News: "Protests Over Muhammad Cartoon Grow

By DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer Mon Jan 30, 1:26 PM ET

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The controversy over Danish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad escalated Monday as gunmen seized an EU office in Gaza and Muslims appealed for a trade boycott of Danish products. Denmark called for its citizens in the Middle East to exercise vigilance.
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Denmark-based Arla Foods, which has been the target of a widespread boycott in the Middle East, reported that two of its employees in Saudi Arabia were beaten by angry customers. Aid groups, meanwhile, pulled workers out of Gaza, citing the threat of hostilities.

The 12 drawings — published in a Danish paper in September and in a Norwegian paper this month — included an image of the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet, even respectful ones, out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.

Danish government officials have expressed regret over the furor but have refused to get involved, citing freedom of expression. The Jyllands-Posten newspaper has refused to apologize for publishing the drawings and has said it did not mean to insult Islam."

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The Sun Online - News: Hate demo over cartoon

The Sun Online - News: Hate demo over cartoon:


By PAUL THOMPSON
THEIR eyes are full of hate and their banners call for a new 7/7 terror attack.

This is the way a baying Muslim mob reacted to the row over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons on the streets of London yesterday.

More than 400 protesters — including small children — carried placards scrawled with messages of hate. A baby girl even had “I Love al-Qaeda” on her bonnet.

The parents of pretty Farisa Jihad, 20 months, proudly proclaimed she is the youngest member of the terror group.

She was brought to the protest by her father Abu, 38. Next to her was a huge poster exclaiming: “Whoever insults a prophet, kill him.”

Another placard nearby said: “Britain you will pay — 7/7 is on its way.”


Threat ... demonstrators warn of a 9/11 style response to newspaper cartoon insults


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Opinion: Democracy in a Cartoon - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Opinion: Democracy in a Cartoon - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "

By Ibn Warraq

Best-selling author and Muslim dissident Ibn Warraq argues that freedom of expression is our western heritage and we must defend it against attacks from totalitarian societies. If the west does not stand in solidarity with the Danish, he argues, then the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest.

Ibn Warraq: 'How can we expect immigrants to integrate into western society when they are at the same time being taught that the west is decadent, a den of iniquity, the source of all evil, racist, imperialist and to be despised?'
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AP
Ibn Warraq: 'How can we expect immigrants to integrate into western society when they are at the same time being taught that the west is decadent, a den of iniquity, the source of all evil, racist, imperialist and to be despised?'
The great British philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty, 'Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being 'pushed to an extreme'; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case.'

The cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten raise the most important question of our times: freedom of expression. Are we in the west going to cave into pressure from societies with a medieval mindset, or are we going to defend our most precious freedom -- freedom of expression, a freedom for which thousands of people sacrificed their lives?

A democracy cannot survive long without freedom of expression, the freedom to argue, to dissent, even to insult and offend. It is a freedom sorely lacking in the Islamic world, and without it Islam will remain unassailed in its dogmatic, fanatical, medieval fortress; ossified, totalitarian and intolerant. Without this fundamental freedom, Islam will continue to stifle thought, human rights, individuality; originality and truth.

Unless, we show some solidarity, unashamed, noisy, public solidarity with the Danish cartoonists, then the forces that are trying to impose on the Free West a totalitarian ideology will have won; the Islamization of Europe will have begun in earnest. Do not apologize.


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Opinion: Democracy in a Cartoon - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "

How cartoons fanned flames of Muslim rage

While I HATE the Guardian and regret giving them the hits, here's a pretty good background on the cartoon controversy.

How cartoons fanned flames of Muslim rage

Embassies burning. Riots and demonstrations across the globe. Journalists in hiding. Presidents and preachers joining the furious debate. But just how did a series of second-rate cartoons buried deep inside the pages of a small Danish newspaper produce such an incendiary dispute?

Jason Burke in Paris, Luke Harding in Berlin, Alex Duval Smith in Copenhagen and Peter Beaumont in Ramallah
Sunday February 5, 2006
The Observer

If the consequences are global, the source is almost farcically local. You reach number 3 Grondals Street by taking the number 9 bus to the outskirts of the Danish city of Aarhus and getting off by the red post box half way up the hill. The modest single-story yellow brick building is the head office of Jyllands-Posten, a national newspaper with a circulation of 150,000. It is where Flemming Rose, the arts editor, decided that publishing a page of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad would provoke a debate on multiculturalism and spice up a paper whose daily highlight for many readers is the diamond wedding listing on page 18.

This weekend, the fallout from that editorial whim six months ago has left half the globe reeling. A week of violent rhetoric and action, of statements by scores of heads of states, of commercial boycotts and diplomatic intervention, of strife and anguish and emotion, has exposed deep tensions and fissures at the heart of the modern world, tensions between the Islamic world and the West, between religion and secular society, between journalists and politicians, between different conceptions of the role of faith and a free press in society, tensions that look unlikely to disappear soon.

Jan Lund, the Jyllands-Posten's foreign editor, said there was little discussion when the decision to run the cartoons was taken. 'I don't remember anyone raising any objections. The idea seemed good. The intention was to provoke a debate about the extent to which we self-censor in our coverage of Muslim issues.'.

Rose said the exercise had been inspired by a conversation with Danish comedian Frank Hvam, who said he did not dare make fun of the Koran. Rose added that children's writer Bent Blüdnikow, who had written a book about the Prophet Muhammad, had lamented the fact that all the illustrators he approached wanted to work anonymously.

Rose said that last autumn's Danish theatre season included three productions in which President George W Bush was either criticised or ridiculed, but not one featuring Osama bin Laden.

The result was 12 cartoons published on 30 September on page 3 of the second section of the paper. One showed the prophet with a bomb as a head, another with either horns or half a halo growing out of his head, a third showed a ragged line of suicide bombers arriving in heaven to be greeted by an anxious-looking prophet telling them: 'Stop stop, we ran out of virgins!'.

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