Charlie Hebdo Tragedy: A Look Back At The History Of Muhammad And Satire

[Ubiquitous]

(Yahoo!) The world was horrified Wednesday when terrorists murdered 12
people at the office of a newspaper that had caricatured the Prophet
Muhammad.

Charlie Hebdo, the French publication targeted in the attack, is not
alone in having received threats and even violence for drawing the
founder of Islam.

In the past decade alone, cartoonists for newspapers and the animated
series “South Park” have been involved in high-profile controversies
over their depictions of the prophet.

Jyllands-Posten

In 2005, Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten faced multiple threats of
violence after publishing 12 caricatures of Muhammad. Authorities in
Denmark foiled plans to attack the newspaper and murder cartoonist Kurt
Westergaard.

Flemming Rose, editor of the paper, was not surprised when — two years
later — three men were arrested on suspicion of plotting Westergaard’s
death.

“This is a global struggle for the right to free speech, which is going
on every day in different parts of the world where people are trying to
intimidate and silence those who are critical of religion, of
authoritarian regimes and movements trying to undermine free speech,”
Rose told Der Spiegel at the time.

After the attack in Paris Wednesday, Jyllands-Posten swiftly voiced its
support for the targeted paper.

“Charlie Hebdo was among the magazines that showed the most solidarity
with Jyllands-Posten when the Muhammad crisis was at its peak. We
haven’t forgotten that. Here at Jyllands-Posten, we feel strongly for
our colleagues in Paris,” the newspaper said in an editorial.

‘South Park’

The Jyllands-Posten incident inspired Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the
creators of “South Park,” to write their “Cartoon Wars Part II” episode
featuring the prophet the following year.

The animated series already included the prophet in a 2001 episode
called “Super Best Friends” without much backlash, if at all. In the
episode, Muhammad is shown teaming up with Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Krishna
and other major religious figures.

But after the Danish controversy, Comedy Central did not approve of
their use of Muhammad, reportedly worried about a potential public
safety issue.

Parker and Stone, displeased with the network’s reaction, incorporated
the channel’s censorship into the story.

In 2010, the plot of the show’s 200th and 201st episodes once again
focused on the prophet and was censored by Comedy Central.

A radical group called Revolution Muslim, in a post on their website,
warned Parker and Stone that they would “probably wind up like [Dutch
filmmaker] Theo Van Gogh,” who was killed in 2004 by a Muslim extremist,
if they depicted Muhammad again, BBC News reported.

‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’

To support “South Park” and the First Amendment, cartoonist Molly
Norris, who illustrated for Seattle Weekly, called for everyone to draw
a picture of Muhammad.

“Everybody Draw Mohammed Day,” sponsored by Citizens Against Citizens
Against Humor, started a Facebook page for tens of thousands of
supporters to post their images of the prophet.

The Facebook group drew significant attention and anger from radical
Muslims. FBI security specialists advised Norris to change her name and
go into hiding, Seattle Weekly announced.

“She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program —
except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab,” the
paper said. “It’s all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her
this summer, following her infamous ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’
cartoon.”

Wikipedia

In 2008, some Muslims protested the inclusion of Muhammad depictions on
the English-language edition of Wikipedia.

But the free online encyclopedia refused to remove medieval artistic
representations of the prophet and suggested that anyone who dislikes
the images can simply adjust their browser so they do not appear, the
Guardian reported.

Wikipedia’s editors released a statement acknowledging that some
cultural traditions within Islam prohibit illustrations of Muhammad but
that this is not universal.

“Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all
topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the
benefit of any particular group,” the statement reads.

“So long as they are relevant to the article and do not violate any of
Wikipedia’s existing policies, nor the law of the U.S. state of Florida
where Wikipedia’s servers are hosted, no content or images will be
removed because people find them objectionable or offensive.”

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Islam is a peaceful religion, just as long as the women are beaten, the
boys buggered and the infidels are killed.