• French Muslim leaders respond to Muhammad cartoons: Don't protest because extremists will hijack it
    21 replies, posted
[url]http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/21/us-protests-france-idUSBRE88K0A320120921[/url] [quote=Reuters]France banned protests on Friday against cartoons published by a satirical weekly denigrating Islam's Prophet Mohammad as part of a security clamp-down while prayers took place across the Muslim world. The country's Muslim population, drawn largely from ex-colonies in North and West Africa, shrugged off the controversy as imams in mosques denounced the pictures but urged their followers to remain calm. The drawings have stoked a furor over an anti-Islam film made in California that has provoked sometimes violent protests in several Muslim countries, including attacks on U.S. and other Western embassies, the killing of the U.S. envoy to Libya and a suicide bombing in Afghanistan. Interior Minister Manuel Valls said prefects had orders to prohibit any protest and to crack down if the ban was challenged. "There will be strictly no exceptions. Demonstrations will be banned and broken up," he told a news conference in the southern port city of Marseille. The main body representing Muslims in France appealed for calm as the weekly Charlie Hebdo put a new print run of the cartoons featuring a naked Prophet Mohammad on the news stands. [B]Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the French Muslim Council, described both the film and the cartoons as "acts of aggression" but urged French Muslims not to protest in the streets.[/B] [B]"I repeat the council's call not to protest. Any protest could be hijacked and counterproductive," he told radio RFI.[/B] An estimated 8,000 Muslims gathered peacefully for Friday prayers at a temporary prayer hall in northern Paris set up in a former fire department depot. So many turned out that hundreds had to pray in the rain in the adjacent parking lot. "This demonstrates that the vast majority of the Muslim community is not made up of extremists," said Abderahmane Dahmane, spokesman for the local association that runs the prayer hall, one of the largest in the Paris region. [B]"The majority will not play the game of the hotheads."[/B] At prayers in the northeast Paris suburb of La Courneuve, delivery driver Hakim Ardjou, 42, also rejected violence. [B]"We just want our message to be heard: this sort of insult is a disgrace, but we will keep calm."[/B] PUBLIC APPROVES PROTEST BAN French embassies, schools and cultural centers in some 20 Muslim countries were closed on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, in a precaution ordered by the French government. French media showed footage of an embassy protected by soldiers and barbed wire in former French colony Tunisia, where the Islamist-led government has also banned protests over the cartoons. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said there had been anti-French demonstrations in Afghanistan, Egypt and Indonesia, but there were no incidents against French nationals. "In a certain number of countries, the measures (closures) will be kept in place as a precaution on Saturday and Sunday," Fabius told journalists. Police were on alert in the French capital after protests planned by some Muslim groups were banned. Charlie Hebdo, an anti-establishment weekly whose Paris offices are under police protection, defied critics to rush out another run of the publication that sold out on Wednesday. It says the cartoons are designed simply to poke fun at the uproar over the film and on Friday hit back at critics accusing it of deliberately stirring controversy to sell newspapers. "If Charlie Hebdo wanted to make a quick buck, it would not produce Charlie Hebdo," it said on its Twitter feed. The publication has a print run of around 70,000 but its Mohammad cartoons have made front-page news in a country which has both the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe - an estimated five million Muslims and 600,000 Jews. President Francois Hollande's government has sought to balance a cherished tradition of freedom of expression with security concerns, denouncing Charlie Hebdo as irresponsible. "When you are free, in a country like ours, you always have to measure the impact of your words," French European Affairs Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said. A survey by TNS Sofres for i-Tele news channel showed 58 percent thought freedom of expression was a fundamental right, and that "freedom to caricature" was part of that. Yet an even higher 71 percent of the roughly 1,000 people interviewed on Thursday approved of the ban on protests against the cartoons. France has a proud tradition of street protest.[/quote]
Good for them, keeping a calm head.
I find it very nice how, while calling for people's reason he still goes out of his way to state that everyone should be offended by a pack of stupid cartoons. Still, clever and appropriate move on their part.
[QUOTE=gudman;37750402]I find it very nice how, while calling for people's reason he still goes out of his way to state that everyone should be offended by a pack of stupid cartoons. Still, clever and appropriate move on their part.[/QUOTE] Well it seems to me that the comics are indeed drawn to provoke a reaction.
[QUOTE=Swebonny;37750440]Well it seems to me that the comics are indeed drawn to provoke a reaction.[/QUOTE] Even if it was the case, there's no point in calling every Muslim to be offended by such action. For example, there's quite a lot of Muslims in Russia (they're second biggest of all Russian religions), and Russian Muslim leaders appealed to people to ignore stupid films and cartoons. Hence no protests, no violence.
I dont understand why folk can't just agree to not draw/show Mohammad. Yeah, it's weird and overly serious... yeah, we don't really understand the big deal... and yeah, we [I]can[/I] draw it 'cause we're super free etc etc etc But for me, it's a matter of polite respect. Surely we should just take the moral high ground here and stop drawing this shit, all these cartoons and films do is add to the tension. We really gain nothing out of except some cheap laughs. Is that worth people getting murdered over?
[QUOTE=gudman;37750494]Even if it was the case, there's no point in calling every Muslim to be offended by such action. For example, there's quite a lot of Muslims in Russia (they're second biggest of all Russian religions), and Russian Muslim leaders appealed to people to ignore stupid films and cartoons. Hence no protests, no violence.[/QUOTE] any protestors would have been arrested/shot anyway
[QUOTE=Scotchair;37750705]I dont understand why folk can't just agree to not draw/show Mohammad. Yeah, it's weird and overly serious... yeah, we don't really understand the big deal... and yeah, we [I]can[/I] draw it 'cause we're super free etc etc etc But for me, it's a matter of polite respect. Surely we should just take the moral high ground here and stop drawing this shit, all these cartoons and films do is add to the tension. We really gain nothing out of except some cheap laughs. Is that worth people getting murdered over?[/QUOTE] When extremists cease going apeshit about it, it will fade away. And what's worht people getting murdered over - go ask Islamists. Islam is no diffirent from Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and every other religion, and it's most bigoted followers need to understand it. The alternative is to cease making offensive jokes about religion at all. Islam is not getting special treatment, under no circumstances. [QUOTE=JerryK;37750784]any protestors would have been arrested/shot anyway[/QUOTE] No they won't. There have been no precedents of anyone getting arrested/shot during peaceful unarmed protests (if they don't threaten ruling regime, that is). Soviet regime is long gone, if you haven't noticed.
[QUOTE=Scotchair;37750705]I dont understand why folk can't just agree to not draw/show Mohammad. Yeah, it's weird and overly serious... yeah, we don't really understand the big deal... and yeah, we [I]can[/I] draw it 'cause we're super free etc etc etc But for me, it's a matter of polite respect. Surely we should just take the moral high ground here and stop drawing this shit, all these cartoons and films do is add to the tension. We really gain nothing out of except some cheap laughs. Is that worth people getting murdered over?[/QUOTE] same reason people open carry guns in the US "because they can"
[QUOTE=Scotchair;37750705]I dont understand why folk can't just agree to not draw/show Mohammad. Yeah, it's weird and overly serious... yeah, we don't really understand the big deal... and yeah, we [I]can[/I] draw it 'cause we're super free etc etc etc But for me, it's a matter of polite respect. Surely we should just take the moral high ground here and stop drawing this shit, all these cartoons and films do is add to the tension. We really gain nothing out of except some cheap laughs. Is that worth people getting murdered over?[/QUOTE] Like I said in the other thread, it's a satirical magazine. They draw and make fun of everything that happens. They don't make these drawings just "because they can" but because it's the fucking point of the magazine.
[QUOTE=JerryK;37750800]same reason people open carry guns in the US "because they can"[/QUOTE] Hold on there mate, I think you threw your common sense out along with that stale lasagne leftover that's been in the back of your fridge in a tupperwarebox for 7 years.
[QUOTE=Van-man;37751132]Hold on there mate, I think you threw your common sense out along with that stale lasagne leftover that's been in the back of your fridge in a tupperwarebox for 7 years.[/QUOTE] i don't like lasagna and what's your point exactly
Aaaand gun control thread
[QUOTE=JerryK;37750800]same reason people open carry guns in the US "because they can"[/QUOTE] why would you post this why
it's the same concept [editline]21st September 2012[/editline] they're both doing something only to incite a reaction
Hey guys, maybe if we ignore his post - everyone else won't notice it and this thread won't turn into 40 pages of you-know-what control shitstorm?
[QUOTE=JerryK;37751214]it's the same concept [editline]21st September 2012[/editline] they're both doing something only to incite a reaction[/QUOTE] Noo, what are you doing [editline]21st September 2012[/editline] I think it's great to see muslims not validating these provocateurs by throwing a fit. Just let people be stupid and immature, jesus.
[QUOTE=Scotchair;37750705]I dont understand why folk can't just agree to not draw/show Mohammad. Yeah, it's weird and overly serious... yeah, we don't really understand the big deal... and yeah, we [I]can[/I] draw it 'cause we're super free etc etc etc But for me, it's a matter of polite respect. Surely we should just take the moral high ground here and stop drawing this shit, all these cartoons and films do is add to the tension. We really gain nothing out of except some cheap laughs. Is that worth people getting murdered over?[/QUOTE] I am offended by pictures of jesus. Why the fuck do people keep drawing pictures of jesus just to make me mad???
[QUOTE=JerryK;37751214]it's the same concept [editline]21st September 2012[/editline] they're both doing something only to incite a reaction[/QUOTE] stop.
[QUOTE=JerryK;37751214]it's the same concept [editline]21st September 2012[/editline] they're both doing something only to incite a reaction[/QUOTE] Kinda like what you just did?
[QUOTE=JerryK;37751214]it's the same concept [editline]21st September 2012[/editline] they're both doing something only to incite a reaction[/QUOTE] what? No they're not
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