Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Nobel winner criticizes paper for cartoon
Offering award for drawing prophet is at root of trouble, Iranian writer says in Tucson.
MITRA TAJ
Tucson Citizen
Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi of Iran defended freedom of speech yesterday in Tucson while criticizing the intentions of a Danish newspaper that sparked riots by calling for and printing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Her comments on freedoms and responsibilities of the press, made in a speech at the University of Arizona, struck a chord on campus, where Ebadi is teaching a course.
The Arizona Daily Wildcat student newspaper had just published an editorial cartoon making fun of international reaction to September's package of cartoons about the prophet. Depicting Muhammad at all is offensive to many Muslims.
The ensuing riots have escalated into a "global crisis," the prime minister of Denmark said today.
The uproar also sparked retaliation by an Iranian newspaper, which said that in the same spirit, it was putting out a call for cartoons about the Holocaust.
The audience that came to hear Ebadi, a human rights lawyer who in 2003 became the first Muslim woman to win the international prize, was more inclined to engage in dialogue than to react violently.
The Wildcat cartoon depicts Jesus telling Muhammad, "You really needa learn how to take a joke."
Standing before the caricatures of Jesus and Muhammad are exaggerated depictions of Moses, Buddha and the pagan god Triton.
Ebadi, whose talk was translated into English, said she was in Denmark when the cartoon was first published.
"I was asked about the cartoon," she said. "I replied that I respect freedom of speech and nothing can prevent the creativity of an artist. But that was not the problem in Denmark.
"What happened in Denmark is that they said they would have a competition and give awards to the people who drew the Prophet Muhammad."
A Danish editor said he put out a call for editorial cartoonists to draw Muhammad as they saw him. The editor said he feared the press was self-censoring out of fear of offending radical Islamists.
Twelve images were published as a package, one depicting Muhammad with a lit fuse coming out of his turban.
"It's one thing for an artist to sit down and creatively create an image," Ebadi said. "It's another thing for one publication to hand out awards based on a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad."
NEXT PAGE» 1,
2,
3
