OVO

Muhammed cat [LINK-ZUM]

Man: Boy, what is your name?
Boy: My name is Babu.
Man: It is customary to mention Mohammed before the name. What is your father’s name?
Boy: Mohammed Abu
Man: What’s this in your lap?
Boy: Mohammed cat

Gulf Times: "Police arrested a newspaper cartoonist for publication of a cartoon considered blasphemous by Islamic clerics in the Muslim country, officials said yesterday. The interim government was also considering banning the daily Prothom Alo (The First Ray) and put on trial the newspaper’s cartoonist Arifur Rahman arrested on Tuesday from his home in north Dhaka under emergency laws."

Islam Online: "The head of clerics of Dhaka's main mosques filed complaints against the cartoonist who was arrested from his residence last Tuesday and handed over to the Tejgaon police station. Rahman violated Section 54 code of criminal procedure and under such emergency laws; the government has the authority to detain people without charge if they are deemed to threaten national security."

BBC: "Street clashes have broken out in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, as Islamic activists protested over the publication of an 'offensive' cartoon. Witnesses say that hundreds joined the protest, even though such demonstrations are officially banned under the country's state of emergency. [...] Witnesses say the violence began after Friday prayers, when protesters tried to break through barricades put up to prevent them reaching the Prothom Alo offices. The demonstrators demanded the execution of the paper's editor, Matiur Rahman, and burned effigies of him and his Bengali-language daily."

[This is the way the entire world used to be. The hold of superstition was so strong that any perceived transgression was dealt with by the State and by violence. The advance of the secular has made occurrences such as this seem bizarre and foolish to most people today. It is mainly the Muslim world that is holding on to that old time religion. It is not inevitable that the Muslim world will move forward to join the rest of us, nor impossible that we will move backwards to join them. Fortunately there are light-bringing organizations such as Secular Islam and documents such as A Secular Muslim Manifesto to aid the former and forestall the later. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: comics, islam, theocracy

ovoyeur

rss

archives
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008