Censorship

[asterroc]

Surprisingly, CNN is covering international news lately - the riots over cartoons of Mohammed. This issue pits the cultural sensitivities of Islam and their definition of capital crime (blasphemy), against the Western ideal of free speech. Most intersting I think are the non-violent reactions.

For example, "CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam." Are they being respectful, or self-censoring? Are they just doing it so their reporters in the Middle East don't get killed? And

A prominent Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
...
Hamshahri invited foreign cartoonists to enter the competition and said it wanted to see how open the West was to caricatures of the Holocaust.

"Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?" Hamshahri wrote, referring to the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, in a short article on its back page.

I'm really curious to see our reactions to this. I expect we'll (US people who care) be incensed and pissed off, but not to the point of violence. Non-violent protest and all that (thank you, Dr. King). I wonder how Israel will react though.

ETA: Some of the comments are hiliariously offensive! Don't read at work if you work for the ACLU or Anti-Defamation League. Hopefully this warning here nicely skirts the line of not-censorship, but sensitive-to-people's-feelings. Feel free to discuss why it really is censorship or is not sensitive, too. :-P

Comments

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

My point was it's better to compare a person to a PERSON, than a person to an EVENT. I don't know my Christian Bible well enough to suggest a militant prophet. Though I can think of a Saint or two, but that's only Catholics.

[marquiswildbill.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, but there are so many catholic saints, it's hard for a few mass murderers to have slipped in there somewhere. Not to mention the whole order of the knights templar who were absolved of any sin comitted while on crusade. "What happens on crusade, stays on crusade" "Crusading, the original Thailand"