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Free speech isn't a license to insult
Home News Tribune Online 02/19/06
Regarding the "Freedom at
stake in cartoon brouhaha" column of Feb. 8 by Michelle Malkin.
In reference to the Turkish ambassador asking the Danish prime minister
to apologize for the offending cartoons, she says "in a rare show of
European spine, (the prime minister) steadfastly refused to appease the
howlers."
Does Malkin have the spine to say the same about the Iranian
president who made the outrageous statement regarding the Holocaust and
refused to apologize? Or is she just interested in attacking Islam and
Muslims?
She calls those offending and tasteless cartoons "freedom of speech."
Just imagine the following cartoons were published in a French
newspaper:
The first cartoon shows Jesus Christ sexually molesting a child
while the child is crying and seeking help.
Reason: The growing number of priests that are sexually molesting
kids.
The second cartoon shows the Virgin Mary handing over a bomb to
Jesus Christ and instructing him to go out and blow up the infidels who
run the abortion clinics.
Reason: Christians who blew up abortion clinics in the United States.
Would she have called this filth "freedom of speech"? Would she have
carried a sign saying "Support France"?
When Chris Ofili of the "Sensation Exhibition" of contemporary
British art drew a portrait of the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant
dung, which was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, Muslims joined hands
with Catholics to demonstrate against this insult. And most recently
U.S. Muslims called NBC urging the network not to broadcast "The Book of
Daniel".
The violent reaction or threats by some nations as a result of such
offensive and uncivil caricatures is not justified. However, trying to
justify these cartoons that promote nothing but hate and hide under the
umbrella of "freedom of speech," when such disrespectful cartoons are
directed toward other people of faith, is mind-puzzling. Could you find
a better example to illustrate hypocrisy and immorality than this?
Hesham Mahmoud
RUTHERFORD
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