Muhammad Cartoons

Normally when a website or publication is under attack over some sort of controversial article or image, it is copied around the world. This is partly so people can see what the fuss is about, and also partly to support free speech and make people realise that trying to force one single publisher to back down will be ineffective.

I had been surprised by the fact the controversial Muhammed cartoons which had sparked death threats, fiery protests and threats of trade and diplomatic embargoes had not appeared in basically every newspaper and most of the blogs around the world.

Last night I made the decision to publish one of them here. So as it happens has a French newspaper [UPDATE – whose editor has sadly now been sacked], and hopefully many more people will do this.

I do this not to offend people who believe these images are blasphemy. I respect that you find them offensive, and hope you will respect my right to view and publish them. Just as I (and I suspect 99% of the world’s population) don’t want the Church of Scientology deciding for me what I can view, I don’t want any other religion deciding for me either.

In case you do wish to take action against me, can I ask that any lawsuits or threats are sent to my legal representative the Hon David Parker, Attorney-General, Parliament Buildings Wellington. Mr Parker I am sure will defend my rights in these matters.

And if you wish to visit me to register your disapproval, then you should go to 260 Tinakori Road, Thorndon, Wellington 🙂

This is one of the images. I have to say that as insulting images go it is at the very low end of the scale. On a scale of 1 to 10 I would put this at around a 2/10 for offensiveness to a religion while the Southpark Bloody Mary episode would rank up at 8.5/10. Southpark has also had an episode where Catholic Cardinals debated how to cover up child abuse and declared they can’t stop abusing little boys because “If we can’t have sex with little boys and we are not allowed to have sex with women, then we’d have no sex at all”. That is a degree of offensiveness (and very good humour) far far beyond these cartoons.

The Whig’s cartoon is starting to get up to really offensive level in terms of such cartoons. I could understand the protests a bit more if that was what was published. But it wasn’t.

The rest of the 12 cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten can also be found online here or here. And as always Wikipedia has a good article on the controversy.