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Religion See other Religion Articles Title: Muslims picket The (Philadelphia) Inquirer They were offended that the newspaper reprinted the cartoon. The editor spoke with protesters. More than two dozen Muslims offended by The Inquirer's decision to reprint a caricature of Muhammad that has inflamed the sensibilities of their co-religionists across the world picketed the newspaper yesterday morning. The cartoon, originally published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September, depicts Islam's chief prophet with a lit bomb inscribed with Arabic letters stuck in his turban. It ran in Saturday's editions of The Inquirer with a story about the dilemma faced by the media over reprinting a cartoon that has led to wounded feelings, burnt flags and torched embassies worldwide. According to Islamic tradition, any pictures or images of Muhammad are considered sacrilegious. But the Danish cartoon is particularly insensitive, the local protesters contended, because it perpetuates a stereotype of Islam as a militant religion. "It's disrespectful to us as a people," said Asim Abdur-Rashid, an imam with the Majlis Ash'Shura, an umbrella group for mosques in the Delaware Valley. "It's disrespectful to our prophet to imply that he's a prophet of violence." Amanda Bennett, The Inquirer's editor, and Carl Lavin, a deputy managing editor, talked with the protesters outside the building. "Neither I nor the newspaper meant any disrespect to their religion or their prophet," Bennett said in an interview. "I told them I was actually really proud of them for exercising their right to freedom of speech." But Bennett stood by the decision to publish the cartoon, saying it "is one of the things newspapers do to communicate directly with people" about issues important to all communities. Most U.S. newspapers have decided not to reprint the cartoon. As a gesture of free-press solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, newspapers in Europe have run the caricature as well as 11 others pillorying the prophet. One image depicts Muhammad halting a line of suicide bombers at the gates of heaven with the cry, "Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins." The line refers to the belief by Islamic extremists that those who die in a holy war are rewarded with virgins in the afterlife. One demonstrator, 54-year-old Aneesha Uqdah of Philadelphia, argued that precedent exists for newspapers to withhold some information to prevent harm: "If a woman was a rape victim, you wouldn't publish her name," she said. The harm in this case, according to the pickets, is to the reputation of Islam at a time when Muslims in the United States already feel under siege. The demonstrators carried signs that read, "Freedom of Speech, Not Irresponsible Speech," "No to Hate," and "Islam = Nonviolence." Umar Abdur-Rahman, 28, a schoolteacher at Al-Aqsa Islamic Academy in Philadelphia, said the paper could have described the cartoon at the center of the controversy without reprinting it. "You can give that information in writing, keeping in mind that you're going to offend a large portion of your readers," he said. The Majlis Ash'Shura is calling for a boycott of The Inquirer until it issues a public apology to its Muslim readers. If the newspaper does not, the group says it will be back with more protesters mustered from Friday afternoon prayers, typically the most well-attended service of the week. *************************************** here's a video link re the muslim protestors around the world and mentions the Philadelphia Inquirer protest: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/guide?category=Top%20Videos&subcategory=&id=1588701#1588701
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#3. To: Zipporah (#0)
Thankyou! Finally an explanation why some Muslims are rioting over some cartoons. It made no sense to me, until I read this.
I posted a couple of times a link to the old Blasphemy Laws that Western Civilization once upheld; back when we cared.
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