By now hopefully everyone has heard of the Denmark cartoon rage sweeping the Middle East and dragging Europe into suicide bomb threats, terrorists storming EU offices in Palestine, a boycott of Danish goods, etc. I posted upon a petition started to get the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten to apologize for publishing 12 cartoons depicting Mohammed. The petition said such drawings were not applicable to free speech. I sternly disagree.
There is a counter-petition which has started and is in support of Jyllands-Posten and the right of free speech (via Hyscience). I gladly signed the online petition and I urge all of our readers to do so too.
As I have written about countless times this week, the attacks upon the cartoons and Denmark’s right of free speech and free expression is an attack on Western civilization. Our freedoms are dear to us and many of our ancestors spilt blood in order to ensure we have what we consider basic rights.
It is not about Mohammed, Islam or anything else other than to say what we want when we want. It is a basic human right.
Those that oppose the cartoons and clamor that it is not a freedom of speech issue do not understand they cannot impose their will upon us in our own nations, no matter how much they think Denmark should change for them. It is our freedoms that are under attack in the Danish cartoon row; freedoms for which we all should at least sign an online petition in support of. So, go, sign the petition and leave a comment on this post if you wish with your comment line on the petition.
There is also a bit of a Photoshop contest regarding pictures of Mohammed at Retecool. I do not believe those that started this fight knew how many people would oppose their efforts at restricting our freedom. I hope those that do oppose the cartoons learn how to protest against something deemed offensive. In the West, we protest with humor and words. Many of those who oppose the Danish cartoons advocate doing so with suicide bombs and terrorist attacks.
Also I do have a request. If there is anyone out there who is a hacker or knows how to hack, please contact me. No, I don’t want anything hacked, but I have found very detailed instructions on how to hack into Danish servers in response to the cartoon fiasco. They are in Arabic, so if you know how to hack and can speak Arabic, great. I am working on getting some of it translated, but I don’t know what parts are more important than others due to me not knowing anything about hacking. Email me if you wish to remain anonymous.
Panther6170 - 
Tom Killebrew - 
Emm Bayoumi - 
lyndsey -
Insulting the Holy Prophet might be free speech for you. Not for the rest of the world. Remember YOU ARE NOT THE WORLD.
Learn to respect other people before it is too late for you people.
Comment by Muslim Unity — Friday, February 3, 2006 @ 4:27 pm UTC
Muslim Unity:
Shove your threat. In the *civilized* countries of the world, we have rights. Those rights include the right to free speech and the right to freedom of religion. You and your ilk will NEVER succeed in demanding that we show “respect” for a religion that folks like you demonstrate by your intolerance is not worthy of it.
Comment by Crusader — Friday, February 3, 2006 @ 6:14 pm UTC
Civilized? Yeah, right.. your behaviour is even worse than the animal kingdom.
Comment by Remmy — Sunday, February 5, 2006 @ 8:28 am UTC
its a fucking CARTOON!!!!
Dont blame denmark for the cartoon….if we did the same thing then we would just hang every muslim in the world for Bin Laden’s Atrocities.
Wake up you childish people. GOD is love…not bombs and hatred!!!!
Comment by Antony & his Big Johnson(mail mefuckemall@whogivesashitaboutthecartoon.cunt) — Sunday, February 5, 2006 @ 3:10 pm UTC
Nobody in Denmark NEEDS to apologize. It is a nice practice to say we are sorry when we do something that offends someone, but you can’t force ANYONE to apologize for something like this. Besides– there is a HUGE double standard here. Might I come to Iraq or Saudi Arabia and build a nice Catholic church? I would probably be killed. The Islamic faith needs to clean its reputation up– much of the world views them as intolerant, and facist. The cartoon was bad okay? Do we need to burn buildings though and kill ppl because of it? Grow the f*ck up.
Comment by Trip Prescott — Wednesday, February 8, 2006 @ 12:15 pm UTC
Remmy:
You’re just another Muslim jerk who thinks the rest of the world owes your made-up religion “respect”. Sorry, screw your religion–we have freedom of speech and freedom of the press here.
Comment by Crusader — Wednesday, February 8, 2006 @ 1:32 pm UTC
The basic idea of any type of freedom is to empower the people. But with this comes greater responsibility on how we use this freedom. By publishing such cartoons, the Danish media and their European cohorts have shown a lack of maturity on using their freedom and a complete insensitivity towards the Muslims beliefs. There is no justification for just a rash decision. (I sincerely hope it’s a rash act and not a carefully calculated move).
I cannot understand why the respective governments fail to take responsibility for their actions especially since they are supposed to be the elected representatives of the very people they try to dissociate themselves with. It just speaks of arrogance on their behalf and a complete lack of understanding of others faith.
I do not condone violence in any form and I think the best reaction would be economic measures rather than flag burning or gun waving. We all share the same planet and should work on developing a better understanding and mutual respect for each other.
We as Muslims should take time out to reflect on our deeds and stand steadfast on our convictions while trying to convey the message across that we have a zero-tolerance policy on matters of faith. ( For those who want to jump to point out the rigid mindset here let me remind you that in west there is a zero-tolerance policy on something as trivial as DUI.. faith would certainly make a better argument)
Comment by uaeboy — Saturday, February 18, 2006 @ 12:39 am UTC