Opinions of Muslims
Some Muslims were angered by the publication of what they considered offensive images. This anger has been expressed in both violent and peaceful public protests and newspaper articles in Arabic and Islamic countries. Although the artists have denied representing Mohammed as a terrorist, many Muslims felt that "a bomb in a turban, with a lit fuse and the Islamic creed written on the bomb" suggested a connection between Muhammad and terrorism.
Some Muslims, mainly in Europe, have supported the republication of the images so that individual Muslims can make up their own minds and welcomed the debate on the issues that that cartoons have raised.
It has also been pointed out that cartoons in the Arab and Islamic press "demonizing" Jews and Israelis are common.
Louay M. Safi, scholar and Muslim American leaders argued that the cartoons were an exercise in hate, rather than free, speech. Dr. Safi accused Jyllands-Poten editors of hiding behind free speech to promote anti-Muslim feelings and demonize the small but growing Danish Muslim community. He distinguished between free speech that aims at engaging an important issue, and hate speech whose goal is to marginalize and intimidate, and argued that Jyllands-Posten was evidently guilty of the latter.
Read more about this topic: Opinions On The Jyllands-Posten Muhammad Cartoons Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words opinions of and/or opinions:
“The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!”
—Thomas Merton (1915–1968)