Iran Shuts Down Newspaper Over Cartoon
By NAZILA FATHI
Published: May 24, 2006
“TEHRAN, May 23 — The government shut down one of its official newspapers on Tuesday for publishing a cartoon that mocked Iran’s Azeri minority and led to riots in northwestern cities.”
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Freedom of speech issue here that I find completely abusrd.

“…Here’s how it worked: The episode centered around the Danish Mohammed cartoon controversy. In the episode, there was a harmless depiction of Mohammed purchasing a snack from a vendor. The image lasted for a couple of seconds and was completely uninteresting. There was also a depiction of Jesus—wildly offensive and awful. Guess which image Comedy Central refused to air?

Using diabolical double-backwards-reverse psychology, the South Park creators made the most pro-Christian pop-cultural point of the season by forcing the question: Why is it okay to offend every Christian on the planet earth—but we can’t even mention Mohammed in polite company?

Christianity has been around far longer than modern American pop culture (even including Madonna, who’s been around an awfully long time). For Christians, the eternal truths of Christ and his teachings are just that—eternal. The Billboard Top Ten, and the weekend box-office numbers in Variety are very, very important—but next week they’ll change.

Madonna, South Park, Da Vinci—it’s all very important. Not quite as important as the fact that the Iranians are about to drop an atomic bomb on Israel and kill all the Jews, but very, very important.

Meanwhile, it’s been 820 days and counting since the release of The Passion of the Christ, and the search continues for the one Jewish guy who got beat up because of that movie. If you were in the pack of crazed Catholics who saw The Passion then swarmed out of the mall theater to beat up that Jewish guy, contact me through this website. Somehow I missed that story.”
(full article linked to title)

Yah “Ustaz” – Shokran