http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/1043738/south-park-cuts-image-of-mohamm...



The latest episode of satirical cartoon show "South Park" has been censored after a radical Muslim group threatened the show's creators for their depiction of the Prophet Mohammed.

A spokesman for the Comedy Central television channel confirmed to AFP that the network had added a series of audio bleeps to the episode broadcast late Wednesday, which effectively removed all references to Prophet Mohammed.

"I can confirm that Comedy Central added additional audio bleeps after the cut of the episode was delivered by the producers," the spokesman said.

Comedy Central would not confirm that the changes were linked to statements made by the New York-based Revolution Muslim group earlier this week.

The extremist group said South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker risked the same fate as slain Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered by a Muslim extremist in Amsterdam in 2004.

Revolution Muslim posted the address of Stone and Parker's Los Angeles production offices, but denied they were encouraging violence.

"We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show," the group said.

A spokesman for the group denied the statement was an incitement.

"Revolution Muslim only wants those offended to be able to voice their opposition by letters to the show's creators," a spokesman told CNN.

The Muslim group's statement followed the April 14 episode of "South Park," where the Prophet Mohammed appeared wearing a bear mascot costume in order to avoid his image being shown.

"South Park," which follows the surreal and often profane adventures of four schoolchildren in a fictitious Colorado town, has regularly lampooned religions during its 13 years on the air.

Atlantic Online blogger Andrew Sullivan accused Comedy Central of "wussing out" by censoring Wednesday's episode.

"'South Park' has long had Jesus and Satan, they have ridiculed Mormonism, eviscerated Scientology, mocked Catholicism and showed the Buddha actually doing lines of coke," Sullivan noted.

"None of the adherents of these other faiths have threatened to kill Matt and Trey, but, of course, some Sunni Islamists did so. So what does Comedy Central do? They wussed out even further."

Cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed in Scandinavian media outlets in recent years have led to violence and plots to murder those responsible.

In 2005, Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published 12 drawings focused on Islam, several of which were seen as linking the religion and the Prophet Mohammed to modern terrorism and suicide bombings.

The cartoons led to angry protests by Muslims worldwide, leaving dozens of people dead and causing major damage to Danish embassies and other facilities.

Yeah, cowards.

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No Abu, it's because none of them are part of a broad, deliberate, and partially effective effort at destroying freedom of speech. They are all from the lunatic fringe, it's just that the ones coming from Islam are from an organised lunatic fringe. There is a very good (and fair) reason why they get more coverage.

Also, there are very few examples of people getting killed over such trivial things as drawing a cartoon.

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It is not a specific case, but a persistent pattern of behaviour. If the journalists thought that Muslims were going to come to their senses tomorrow and feel silly about it, it would recieve as little attention as the other ones.

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It is not death threats alone that make it interesting. What makes it interesting is the attack on freedom of speech. It would recieve attention, regardless of the mechanism used. For example, the Australian government is getting an enourmous amount of attention because of the potential undermining of freedom of speech with their internet filter. They didn't even have to kill anyone.

It's the same with throwing acid in the face of immodestly clad women across the middle east. If it was just an angry ex husband taking revenge, it would be regarded as just another crime - as you have often tried to portray it. It gets media attention, not because of Islam per se, but because it is part of a broad, deliberate, and in this case very effective effort to deny women the right to dress as they please. And because people like you try to justify, divert etc.

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For a lunatic fringe, they are organised. None of those other groups you mentioned are actively trying to stop the global media from exercising the right to free speech. None of them have killed journalists or cartoonists. The closest thing I can think of is the scientologists, who harass and send lawyers after their enemies, but even they would not stoop to murdering a cartoonist. But they do cop a heap of flak for what they get up to, and they deserve it, just like the muslims who support the dismantling of freedom of speech deserve all the criticism they get. The extent of the threat and the extent of the crimes that have actually been committed are commensurate with the level of media attention they are getting.

BTW Abu, do you support the media's right to publish cartoons of the prophet muhammed?

fd,

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Definitely not!

But I don't support responding with death threats. Muslims need to continue their boycotts as they did with Denmark, and go a step further, and lobby their governments to make the boycotts official across the entire Muslim world. Let us see how those countries would rush to defend the freedom to slander and denigrate after that.

Jaemi,

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Yeh it's shocking kids should have to grow up with this kind of an environment. It's happening a lot here too nowadays as many high profile suicide cases have recently exposed.

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100% in accordance with my thoughts.

I've got no problem with freedom of press, this isn't freedom of press though, it's freedom to slander, denigrate and offend people. That I do have a problem with.

I just looked at the cartoons from the 2005 controversy, and it seems like the author's intention was to poke fun Danish peoples' perceptions of the prophet, rather than offend. I still find it a bit distasteful, but I don't think it should be banned, because I have seen distasteful depictions of Jesus or Dawkins, and to be so sensitive to one particular religion, wouldn't that be discriminatory?

abu_rashid wrote on Apr 26^th, 2010 at 10:08pm:



Yes fancy the thought of "slandering" a group who call for the death of a teacher who allowed a primary school class to call their teddy bear mohammed, which also happens to be a pretty popular name in certain cultures I hear.

When will muslims get it, calling for death, and often acting on such calls, as retribution for people who do not agree with your religious prejudices is the opposite of religious freedom.
Islam offers, and allows, NO religious freedom.

What right do they use to claim for themselves exclusively, that which they deny all others, universally?