Freedom of speech (#73; Topic F)

Demonstrations by members of the Islamic faith for blasphemous representation of prophet Muhammad (#68) became worse by the day, spreading to cities in Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan, Indonesia, etc., as well as becoming more violent. Today's Wall Street Journal has a front-page interview of that Danish newspaper's cultural editor. The rationale he gave for inviting cartoonists to submit work for publication was that "he was alarmed by ... a rise in self-censorship relating to Islamic issues;" he wanted to test the limit of freedom of speech. It is strange to read that while he claimed that he "didn't know more beforehand" about Islamic prohibition against depicting the prophet, one of the cartoons' reference to virgins suggested that he knew much more. I had no knowledge of the latter, but I was aware of the Islamic disinclination to depict human likeliness -- even chess pieces are presented abstractly. As to freedom of speech, I read in Wednesday's Washington Post that, the night before, when President Bush was delivering his State of the Union speech, a woman was yanked from the gallery -- and arrested -- for wearing a T-shirt showing the number of soldiers killed in Iraq; to quell the commotion, the capitol police also removed another woman, the wife of a congressman, for wearing a T-shirt that offers a friendly greeting. So, go figure.
Posted at 10:34 pm, Tuesday, February 7, 2006