Cartoon Follies, Continued

I don’t think we’ve written about the fact that in addition to the burning of the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria, the Danish embassy in Lebanon was also torched over the weekend. In the photo below, a Muslim cleric in Beirut urges on the crowd:
0602prob.jpg
The Scotsman reports that British authorities are looking into the possibility of criminal prosecution of some of the London protesters who carried signs advocating violence:

The Metropolitan Police said they were investigating “a number” of complaints from the public over placards carried by some Islamic protesters in London on Friday and Saturday.
Slogans included “Massacre those who insult Islam”; “Europe, your 9/11 will come” and – in an apparent reference to the four 7 July suicide bombers – “Europe you will pay, fantastic 4 are on their way”.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “Clearly some of these placards are incitement to violence, and indeed incitement to murder – an extremely serious offence which the police must deal with and deal with quickly. Whatever your view on these cartoons, we have a tradition of freedom of speech in this country which has to be protected.”

The paper also reports that a Catholic priest was murdered in Turkey over the weekend:

There was speculation last night that controversy over the drawings might have led extremists to shoot dead a 60-year-old Catholic priest, Andrea Santaro, in the Turkish port of Trabzon.

And, finally, the Scotsman also has a profoundly dumb comment from British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, which I hadn’t seen reported before:

If people looked at these cartoons and were to replace the images of the Holy Prophet with images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, they can see that, even in our culture, if they were directed at the Judeo-Christian traditions, there would be similar outrage.

Yeah, right. I can just imagine a bunch of Lutheran ministers inciting their congregations to burn down the Saudi embassy. In some other world, maybe; not this one.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses

Cartoon Follies, Continued

I don’t think we’ve written about the fact that in addition to the burning of the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria, the Danish embassy in Lebanon was also torched over the weekend. In the photo below, a Muslim cleric in Beirut urges on the crowd:
0602prob.jpg
The Scotsman reports that British authorities are looking into the possibility of criminal prosecution of some of the London protesters who carried signs advocating violence:

The Metropolitan Police said they were investigating “a number” of complaints from the public over placards carried by some Islamic protesters in London on Friday and Saturday.
Slogans included “Massacre those who insult Islam”; “Europe, your 9/11 will come” and – in an apparent reference to the four 7 July suicide bombers – “Europe you will pay, fantastic 4 are on their way”.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: “Clearly some of these placards are incitement to violence, and indeed incitement to murder – an extremely serious offence which the police must deal with and deal with quickly. Whatever your view on these cartoons, we have a tradition of freedom of speech in this country which has to be protected.”

The paper also reports that a Catholic priest was murdered in Turkey over the weekend:

There was speculation last night that controversy over the drawings might have led extremists to shoot dead a 60-year-old Catholic priest, Andrea Santaro, in the Turkish port of Trabzon.

And, finally, the Scotsman also has a profoundly dumb comment from British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, which I hadn’t seen reported before:

If people looked at these cartoons and were to replace the images of the Holy Prophet with images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, they can see that, even in our culture, if they were directed at the Judeo-Christian traditions, there would be similar outrage.

Yeah, right. I can just imagine a bunch of Lutheran ministers inciting their congregations to burn down the Saudi embassy. In some other world, maybe; not this one.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses