In Support of Muslims: Denmark Cartoons

I have seen greeting cards with a picture of Jesus on the front and the caption "Jesus loves you". Open the card and it says "Everyone else thnks you're an a$$hole". I don't see the Christians getting all bent of of shape and threatening to kill the world over it.

I have seen greeting cards with a picture of Jesus on the front and the caption "Jesus loves you". Open the card and it says "Everyone else thnks you're an a$$hole". I don't see the Christians getting all bent of of shape and threatening to kill the world over it.

Danish paper rejected Jesus cartoons

Gwladys Fouché
Monday February 6, 2006


Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have caused a storm of protest throughout the Islamic world, refused to run drawings lampooning Jesus Christ, it has emerged today.

The Danish daily turned down the cartoons of Christ three years ago, on the grounds that they could be offensive to readers and were not funny.

In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten.

Zieler received an email back from the paper's Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, which said: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them."

The illustrator said: "I see the cartoons as an innocent joke, of the type that my Christian grandfather would enjoy."

"I showed them to a few pastors and they thought they were funny."

But the Jyllands-Posten editor in question, Mr Kaiser, said that the case was "ridiculous to bring forward now. It has nothing to do with the Muhammad cartoons.

"In the Muhammad drawings case, we asked the illustrators to do it. I did not ask for these cartoons. That's the difference," he said.

"The illustrator thought his cartoons were funny. I did not think so. It would offend some readers, not much but some."

The decision smacks of "double-standards", said Ahmed Akkari, spokesman for the Danish-based European Committee for Prophet Honouring, the umbrella group that represents 27 Muslim organisations that are campaigning for a full apology from Jyllands-Posten.

"How can Jyllands-Posten distinguish the two cases? Surely they must understand," Mr Akkari added.

Meanwhile, the editor of a Malaysian newspaper resigned over the weekend after printing one of the Muhammad cartoons that have unleashed a storm of protest across the Islamic world.

Malaysia's Sunday Tribune, based in the remote state of Sarawak, on Borneo island, ran one of the Danish cartoons on Saturday. It is unclear which one of the 12 drawings was reprinted.

Printed on page 12 of the paper, the cartoon illustrated an article about the lack of impact of the controversy in Malaysia, a country with a majority Muslim population.

The newspaper apologised and expressed "profound regret over the unauthorised publication", in a front page statement on Sunday.

"Our internal inquiry revealed that the editor on duty, who was responsible for the same publication, had done it all alone by himself without authority in compliance with the prescribed procedures as required for such news," the statement said.

The editor, who has not been named, regretted his mistake, apologised and tendered his resignation, according to the statement.
guardian

I have seen greeting cards with a picture of Jesus on the front and the caption "Jesus loves you". Open the card and it says "Everyone else thnks you're an a$$hole". I don't see the Christians getting all bent of of shape and threatening to kill the world over it.

This ends the claim that this is a free-speech issue.

I said already, their reaction is less than favorable, Islam has not yet adapted to the modern world-- nonetheless, I believe it is the responsibility of modern cultures to negotiate them into the modern world.

I'm not saying this will be easy, but derogatory cartoons are simply inflaming the situaltion.

February 7, 2006

San Diego Muslims joined a growing refrain yesterday condemning the spreading violence over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in European media. But they remain troubled that some non-Muslims don't understand just how seriously the cartoons offended followers of the world's second-largest religion.

"You cannot attack the prophets of God without attacking God," said Sam Hamod, a San Marcos resident and former director of the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C. "It's an attack on who they are and what they are. It's a serious matter to Muslims."

That said, he added: "I don't condone the violence at all; I condemn it."

Imam Taha Hassane of the Islamic Center of San Diego, the county's largest mosque, said the cartoons and their brutal aftermath are "topic No. 1."

"What we are focusing on here and what we are promoting here is how to demonstrate peacefully and how to show our concern peacefully," Hassane said.

The Algerian-born cleric said Muslims in San Diego "understand why people reacted in the way they reacted. It's a very sensitive issue. It makes people very emotional. There are some red lines that nobody should cross."

Rosemary Johnston, a Roman Catholic laywoman and longtime leader in interfaith cooperation, was sympathetic. However, she said she was offended by both the cartoons and the responses.

"I would like to see local Islamic leaders organize a press conference," she said, similar to one held yesterday by national Muslim representatives in Washington, D.C.

"They need to speak with a louder voice because their voice is not being heard in the midst of the violence," Johnston said. "When they're silent, people think they agree with them."

Hassane said the Islamic Center of San Diego is organizing an open house Feb. 19 to discuss the importance of Muhammad, the revered seventh-century prophet to whom Muslims believe Allah revealed the religion. Hassane said he also plans to address the outrage and the aftermath during his sermon Friday.

"It's always an issue of education," he said. "It's an issue of spreading and conveying to people the right understanding here in the United States."

Omar Hasseine, president of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he believes in freedom of religion and freedom of speech. "But the freedom has to stop somewhere," he said. "It cannot offend others . . . My own reaction is everyone is picking on Islam and Muslims."

Likewise, Hanada Taha-Thomure, education chairwoman of the Muslim Community Center of Greater San Diego in Rancho Peñasquitos, said Western media largely ignored the offensive cartoons until the protests turned violent.

Taha-Thomure got a call yesterday from her mother in her native Lebanon. "She told me that we do not believe that the people who burned the embassy there, who did this, are Muslim. We believe they are outsiders who infiltrated the community."

Some acknowledged yesterday that the uproar will be a setback to the argument that Islam is a religion of peace. However, they also contend that the burden is shared by both sides.

While many Muslims argue that freedom of speech should not be a shield for those who ridicule religion, the British polemicist Christopher Hitchens noted that Western media have mocked all religious traditions.

"Islam makes very large claims for itself," Hitchens wrote in the online journal Slate. "In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet - who was only another male mammal - is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent."

Likewise, a conservative group that monitors Christian persecution noted "sad ironies" in the Muslim response.

"One is the fact that their reaction is an illustration of exactly what the cartoons are depicting," International Christian Concern said in a statement. "It is as if the protesters are saying, 'How dare you portray us as violent? We will kill you for that.' "

However, the cartoons touch deep emotions, especially among immigrants unsure of their acceptance in their new homelands. Hasseine, the CAIR representative and an Algerian immigrant, tells of a conversation he had years ago with a friend from Jamaica.

"I think things are a lot better for blacks in America today," Hasseine recalled telling his friend.

He said the Jamaican immigrant replied: "You know what, Omar? You have to be in my skin to really know what I feel."

"After 9/11," Hasseine said, "I remembered his words. After 9/11, I started walking in the skin of an Arab in this country."

Ammar Amonette, a spiritual leader at the Colorado Muslim Society, said the rioters allowed themselves to be manipulated, which fed into the notion that Muslims are violent.

"That didn't do our community any good at all," he said.

Rima Barakat, a local Muslim activist, said, "The cartoons were very offensive, but we have to rise above this and recognize we have challenges as Muslims that are greater than cartoons."

Among them, she said, are women's issues, extremism and terrorism.