Muslim Cartoon Row – Maajid Nawaz

"A Liberal Democrat candidate who tweeted a cartoon featuring Jesus and Muhammad has received death threats and faces calls to be deselected from contesting the 2015 general election.

Maajid Nawaz, chosen for the London seat of Hampstead and Kilburn and founder of the anti-extremist think-tank Quilliam Foundation, has faced a petition against him, and told the BBC he was advised by police not to appear on TV to debate the issue.

Andrew Neil spoke to Mohammed Shafiq, a member of the Liberal Democrats Ethnic Minority group calling for deselection, and to Kenan Malik, who writes about multi-culturalism and free speech."

Keep Drawing Muhammad

America's Disappointing Reaction to South Park Censorship
THE TELEGRAPH: America's failure to rise up against the intimidation of cartoonist Molly Norris and South Park animators is a sad sign, says Alex Spillius.

South Park featured an episode where all the founders of the major world religions including Mohammed appeared as a group of crime fighters called the Super Best Friends. Cartoon: The Telegraph
The trouble with terror is that it can be terrifying. Just ask Molly Norris, a cartoonist from Seattle.

As far as we know, she hasn't been explicitly threatened by Islamic extremists, but evidently she feared she might be.

Her error was to post on her website an illustration with many different household objects with speech bubbles all claiming to be the likeness of Mohammed, including a tea cup, a domino and a box of pasta. It was part of a mock campaign to dedicate May 20 as "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!"

Ms Norris pinged her cartoon to a few bloggers and talked to local radio, saying she [sic] it was "a cartoonist's job to be non-PC."

Quite reasonably, the radio man asked her "are you sure you want to do this?"

Bold as you like, she replied: "Yeah, I want to water down the targets ..."

Ms Norris had launched her pretend promotion in response to the treatment by Comedy Central of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, the satirical animated show.

Its 200th anniversary episode featured a parade of celebrities and religious figures it had parodied over the years. Aware of the offence that depicting Mohammed could cause to Muslims, the show's characters debated how to represent the prophet, eventually deciding to hide him in a bear costume.

That prompted a New York-based website, RevolutionMuslim.com, to warn Parker and Stone that "what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh". >>> Alex Spillius in Washington | Saturday, May 01, 2010

Carla Thinks Obama and Michelle Are Beautiful…

…Ditto Sarah Brown!

THE TELEGRAPH: Carla Bruni website publishes Barack Obama and Sarah Brown drawings >>> Henry Samuel in Paris | Wednesday, October 07, 2009

THE TELEGRAPH: She's a fox, she can sing, she can draw (-ish): what's not to like about Carla Bruni? >>> James Delingpole | Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Arabs Charged Over Dutch Cartoon
BBC: An Arab organisation is to be put on trial in the Netherlands over its publication of a cartoon deemed offensive to Jews, prosecutors say.

The cartoon, published by the Arab European League (AEL) on its website, questions the Holocaust.

It said the decision to prosecute illustrated bias against Muslims.

It said the same standards were not applied to the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who made a film including cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Last month prosecutors said they would not put the far-right MP on trial for distributing the controversial Danish cartoons, which caused a storm of protest after their publication in 2005.

However, he is still being investigated separately for inciting hatred against Muslims by making statements comparing Islam to Nazism.

But Dutch prosecutors said the AEL cartoon was "discriminatory" and "offensive to Jews as a group... because it offends Jews on the basis of their race and/or religion".

The cartoon shows two men standing near a pile of bones at "Auswitch" (sic). One says "I don't think they're Jews".

The other replies: "We have to get to the six million somehow."

A spokeswoman for the prosecuting authority said the group could be fined up to 4,700 euros (£4,100), though in theory a prison sentence was also possible. >>> | Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Hitchens Schools a Muslim on Free Speech

Jewish Groups Slam 'Hideously Anti-Semitic' Cartoon on Gaza
The ant-Semitic cartoon, comparable to anti-Semitic cartoons which appeard in Nazi Germany, was syndicated by Pat Oliphant, and was published in newspapers across the US. Cartoon courtesy of Haaretz
HAARETZ: American Jewish groups have denounced a "hideously anti-Semitic" cartoon on Israel, comparing it to cartoons in the 1930s that led up to the Holocaust.

The syndicated cartoon by Pat Oliphant published Wednesday in newspapers across the country depicts a giant goose-stepping uniformed figure wheeling a fanged Star of David that menaces a small female figure labeled "Gaza."

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the group founded by a famed Nazi hunter which has more than 400,000 members in the United States, says the cartoon denigrates and demonizes Israel and mimics the Nazi propaganda. >>> By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press | Thursday, March 26, 2009

Disney Characters and Adolf
Images courtesy of The Telegraph
THE TELEGRAPH: The director of a Norwegian museum claimed yesterday to have discovered cartoons drawn by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.

William Hakvaag, the director of a war museum in northern Norway, said he found the drawings hidden in a painting signed "A. Hitler" that he bought at an auction in Germany.

He found coloured cartoons of the characters Bashful and Doc from the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which were signed A.H., and an unsigned sketch of Pinocchio as he appeared in the 1940 Disney film.

Hitler tried to make a living as an artist before his rise to power. While there was no independent confirmation yesterday that the drawings were the work of the Nazi leader, Hitler is known to have owned a copy of Snow White, the classic animated adaptation of a German fairy tale, and to have viewed it in his private cinema.

Mr Hakvaag, who said he had performed tests on the paintings which suggested that they dated from 1940, said: "I am 100 per cent sure that these are drawings by Hitler. If one wanted to make a forgery, one would never hide it in the back of a picture, where it might never be discovered."

The initials on the sketches, and the signature on the painting, matched other copies of Hitler's handwriting, he claimed.
"Hitler had a copy of Snow White," he said. "He thought this was one of the best movies ever made." Did Adolf Hitler draw Disney characters? >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Three Arrested for Plot to Kill Mohamed Cartoonist
THE INDEPENDENT: Three men were yesterday arrested in Denmark accused of plotting to murder a cartoonist, two years after a dozen cartoons lampooning Islamic fundamentalism sparked violent demonstrations around the world.

The target was said to be Kurt Westergaard, 73, a staff cartoonist on Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the cartoons. Westergaard's drawings depicted the Prophet Mohamed with a bomb-shaped turban and a burning fuse.

Two Tunisians and a Danish man were arrested before dawn in Aarhus, Denmark's second city and the home of the newspaper. It also has a large community of Arabs and Turks.

Police said they arrested the men while the plot to kill Westergaard was still in the planning stage. The chief of the Security and Intelligence Service, Jakob Scharf, said the arrests came after a long period of surveillance. They were intended, he said "to prevent a terror-related assassination of one of the cartoonists behind the cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed".

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister, said: "Unfortunately... there are in Denmark groups of extremists that do not acknowledge and respect the principles on which Danish democracy is built. In Denmark, we have freedom not only to think and talk, but also to draw." Three arrested for plot to kill Mohamed cartoonist >>> By Peter Popham

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Al-Qa’eda’s Reward for Swedish Cartoonist
BBC: The purported head of al-Qaeda in Iraq has offered a reward for the murder of a Swedish cartoonist over his drawing depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The $100,000 (£49,310) reward would be raised by 50% if Lars Vilks was "slaughtered like a lamb" said the audio message aired on the internet.

The speaker, said to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, threatened a new offensive during the holy month of Ramadan.

Last month's cartoon showed Prophet Muhammad's head on a dog's body. Bounty set over Prophet cartoon (more) »

Mark Alexander

Fall-Out Over the Depiction of Prophet Muhammad as a Dog

Cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a dog’s body

THE LOCAL: Leading figures in Sweden's media industry have backed newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, which has been criticised by Iran for publishing a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. The paper itself has meanwhile defended its decision to publish.

PeO Wärring, deputy chairman of the Swedish Newspaper Publishers' Association (TU), said that regardless of what people thought of the cartoons it was important that they could be published and debated.

"The strength of freedom of expression lies in the fact that it tolerates - and protects - not only comfortable, harmless and uncontroversial opinions, but also those that are tasteless, controversial, upsetting and offensive," he said in a statement.

The cartoon in question, by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, depicted Muhammad's head on the body of a dog. Vilks had found it hard to find a gallery willing to display his work, and Nerikes Allehanda published the cartoon alongside an editorial on freedom of expression.

A Swedish diplomat was summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Monday to receive a protest from the Iranian government about the cartoon. Paper defends Muhammad dog cartoon (more)

Mark Alexander