Foxnews is reporting that famed Danish Mohammad cartoonist Kurt Westergaard is retiring. Westergaard says he hopes his retirement might help “lower the terror threat” against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper where he has been working for the past 27 years.
Pakistan has re-opened access to Facebook, but only after Facebook assured the Pakistani government that the offending material has been removed. “In response to our protest, Facebook has tendered their apology and informed us that all the sacrilegious material has been removed from the URL,” said Najibullah Malik, secretary of Pakistan’s information technology ministry, referring […]
The 19 Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonists who signed a statement condemning the alleged threats against South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have opened up the petition to others to sign as a show of support. Those wanting to sign the statement can go over to Cartoonists Rights Network International website and post […]
Lars Vilks, the Swedish artist who was assaulted two weeks ago during a lecture on free speech, has been reinvited to speak at the same University. “The department (of philosophy) has reached a wise decision. Lars Vilks must be allowed to hold his lecture,” Uppsala University vice-chancellor Anders Hallberg said in a statement Tuesday. “Violence […]
Salman Masood, blogging on the At War blog on The New York Times, writes about reasons why Pakistan was so quick to block access to Facebook and other social sites due to Everybody Draw Mohammad Day. The weak political government of President Asif Ali Zardari is under pressure from an assertive judiciary. Discontent among the […]
So far I haven’t seen reports of massive rioting or killings that was associated with the publishing of the original Danish Cartoons, but here is the aftermath of the Everybody Draw Mohammad Day as I can determine.» The Swedish government has closed their embassy in Pakistan “because of a threat” according to a report by […]
I didn’t think a syndicated strip would participate in the Everybody Draw Mohammad Day event, but I received an email pointing to yesterday’s Over the Hedge by T. Lewis and Michael Fry. I asked Michael if there was any hestitation to joining the event and he responded, “No. No second thoughts. I wrote two versions. […]
South African editorial cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro(Zapiro) joined in the Everybody Draw Mohammad Day, and before his cartoon could go to press, the Islamic theological body, the Jamiatul Ulama tried to stop the cartoon from being published by appealing to the Johannesburg High Cout. The offending cartoon depicts the prophet lying down on a therapist’s chair, saying: […]
The New York Times reports that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has also blocked YouTube, as well as “certain pages on the Flickr and Wikipedia sites.” “Earlier we were blocking the links,” he said of YouTube, “but when content increased we had to block the whole Web site.” The ban, which also included certain pages on […]
CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has issued a statement regarding the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” urging for tolerance on both sides. In the Quran, Islam’s revealed text, God states: “Invite (all) to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching, and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: […]
The Pakistani government (Pakistan Telecommunications Authority) has ordered all Pakistani ISPs to block traffic to Facebook until May 31 to prevent citizens seeing the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” pages after a group of Muslim lawyers petitioned The Lahore High Court.Protests in Pakistan have reportedly already begun:In the southern city of Karachi, 2,000 female students rallied […]
Tomorrow is the accidentily set date for everyone to draw the Prophet Mohammed. Open discussion – is anyone participating? What are your predictions about what will happen tomorrow? A non-event day, or will it go viral causing riots in the streets. Take a position now. Tomorrow we’ll see.
Vars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist who was head-butted at a university lecture last week and the target of an alleged murder plot hatched here in the U.S., has gone into hiding. Two men, ages 21 and 19, were arrested Sunday attempting to set his home on fire Friday night. Lars was not home at the […]
Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks was attacked yesterday at Sweden’s Uppsala University while giving a lecture to a classroom of 250 people on the topic of the limits of free speech. CNN international edition reports that soon after the lecture began five individuals started to protest, but were calmed by security. As Vilks continued into his […]
The New York Daily News is reporting suspicions that the weekend bombing attempt at New York Times is tied to threats against South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Police hunting the man who parked a crude but powerful car bomb in Times Square Saturday night are looking into a possible link to a […]