"This is not a cartoon war"

[bloom]

Anas Altikriti
Friday February 10, 2006
The Guardian

...The latest controversy has arisen out of a period in which the Muslim world has felt vilified and targeted beyond reason. Note that when angry Afghan protesters were demanding the expulsion of the Danish diplomatic mission from their country, they did so in front of the US military base in Kabul. While Britain and the US have generally shown restraint on the cartoon issue, they remain the target of considerable anger because they are seen as spearheading the "war on terror", which seems to have mutated into a war against Islam and its followers. France, which stood against war in Iraq, scuppered its good relations with the Muslim world when its secular fanatics insisted on banning the hijab in state schools. These cartoons come at the end of a long line of events in which there has been a striking absence of representation of the Muslim perspective and of our rights and freedoms.
It has been claimed that freedom of speech is absolute and beyond qualification. Indeed, the reproduction of the Danish cartoons across a number of European and non-European countries was claimed to be in support of such an unqualified right. But how much do we really exercise or tolerate such a notion?

Religion no more restricts freedom of speech than secularism promotes it. Is it so difficult to digest that Islam considers insulting the prophets of God a profound violation of what is sacred, just as Europe rightly regards denial of the Nazi Holocaust? Indeed, if freedom of speech were really the non-negotiable absolute in the west it is now claimed, then we would expect there to be uproar at legal bans on Holocaust denial or laws against incitement to racial hatred.

Those who claim to uphold freedom of speech by defending the right to reproduce insulting depictions of the prophet are in effect saying to Muslims that what they hold dear and sacred is far more worthy of protecting than what Muslims hold dear and sacred. The cartoons had more to do with incitement of hatred, racism and Islamophobia than with freedom of expression.

Tomorrow, Britain's Muslim groups will be joined by non-Muslims in Trafalgar Square to show unity against Islamophobia and incitement of all kinds - without the vile, fanatical and totally un-Islamic chants, placards and flag-burning we saw in last week's tiny and unrepresentative march. The rally will serve as an opportunity to denounce acts of abuse committed under the guise of freedom as well as acts and statements that propagate violence, destruction and hatred. The protest will send a message that Britain is leading the way in the west to creating a modern, multicultural, multiethnic and multifaith society that lives in peace and prosperity.

We will be calling for calm and the resumption of a serious, frank and constructive dialogue: one based on mutual respect and the exchange of ideas rather than the trading of insults....


Anas Altikriti, who will chair tomorrow's demonstration in London against Islamophobia and incitement, is a former president of the Muslim Association of Britain.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoonprotests/story/0,,1706813,00.html

[bloom]

1. An FYI - on who has died in the protests...

From what I can tell - it's just been protesters. (Although the way the soundbites are written - that is not always clear).

Summary:

7 protesters have been killed by police or security forces. 1 protester died leaping from a building. At least 22 protesters were injured by security shooting at them.

1 priest was killed by a high school boy (not part of a protest - but he said it was "revenge" )

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Details:

Four people were killed and at least 22 injured when security forces shot at protesters and used tear gas to try to disperse them. Mihtarlam, Afghanistan

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/07/news/islam.php

At least two more protesters were killed in Bagram, the main US air base in the country, as a crowd of 2,000 began throwing knives and stones at officers.

In Bossaso, a port city in northern Somalia, a teenage boy was trampled to death in a stampede after paramilitary police fired into the air to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators.

Authorities in Lebanon today confirmed that a demonstrator had been killed leaping from the third-floor of the blazing Danish Embassy in Beirut last night.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2027502,00.html


 Murder of priest 'religious revenge'

    February 08 2006 at 08:31AM

Ankara - Turkish security forces arrested a high school pupil on Tuesday for the killing of an Italian Roman Catholic priest, and Turkish television said the teenager had confessed to a crime which has shocked this Muslim nation.??The pupil had told the police he had been influenced by cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, NTV commercial television said. The report could not be immediately confirmed. ??The state Anatolian news agency said the pupil, 16, had been carrying a 9mm pistol when he had been captured in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, where Andrea Santoro, 61, was gunned down on Sunday while praying.
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=vn20060208033427794C349514

[johnnygirl]

2. Islamophobia

What the fuck is that? Fear of getting your head chopped off in a snuff flick for allah? These clowns have got to quit with the hyper sensitivity. What the fuck is this...the 5th century?
Guess I'm a Islamophobic, got no problem with that handle, until they get their shit together.
Guess I'm just a peacenik from the past, these guys need some weed.