quote:The second-year maths and physics student faces being sent down after publishing a cropped copy of the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad and offensive comments in last week’s edition of Clareification, a student flysheet distributed within Clare College.
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According to Cambridge’s Varsity magazine, the caption for Muhammad bore the president’s name and vice-versa. A further comment was added, indicating that one was a “violent paedophile” and the other “a prophet of God, a great leader and example to us all”. A separate article likened the reaction to the original cartoons with the outrage at last year’s speech by the Pope at Regensburg.
With such disproportionate ramifications for exercising free speech, what are the moral responsibilities of a journalist in this case? It's usually not the cartoonist or newspaper that bears the brunt of the attack; can an editor in good conscious publish the cartoon when another innocent might be harmed in retaliation? The more violent mobs that protested the cartoons rioted against Europe generally, at embassies of countries other than Denmark. Some even demanded an apology from the EU.
The similarities between this and a hostage situation are remarkable.
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Those violent mobs and denouncers were chanting hate towards Europe AND the US, even though we didn't have anything to do with it. We were pulled in by association.
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Yeah, and the fact is, the Jyllands-Posten is a private newspaper, as is most if not all of the papers which reprinted the cartoons. When you take a democratic nation to case for allowing something to be published within its borders, you do it with the knowledge that you're challenging one of democracy's key principles. It's a simple matter for a protest like this to devolve into an anti-West riot, as they often do.
Looking at the timeline though, the NYSun did publish two of the cartoons, and the US Ambassador did publicly back Denmark (after saying he's happy major American papers didn't reprint them). Also the vice secretary of foreign affairs and even Bush confirmed their support for Denmark.
On the other hand Clinton did denounce the actual cartoons as "totally outrageous cartoons against Islam." And a Dept of State rep said "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."
Frankly I'm surprised major US news outlets refrained from republishing them.
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And another important thing to remember about this issue: some of the most offensive cartoons that were circulated after the Jyllands-Posten affair were manufactured by Islamic extremists themselves as propaganda.
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quote:Frankly I'm surprised major US news outlets refrained from republishing them.
I attribute this more to a fear of getting into the middle of that kind of fight-socially conservative religious types-than in being concerned with the welfare of the public.
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