OVO

Wikipedia: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day:

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day was a 2010 protest in support of free speech, specifically in opposition to those who threaten violence against artists who draw representations of Muhammad. It began as a protest against censorship of an American television show, South Park, “201″ by its distributor, Comedy Central, in response to death threats against some of those responsible for the segment. Observance of the day began with a drawing posted on the Internet on April 20, 2010, accompanied by text suggesting that “everybody” create a drawing representing Muhammad, on May 20, 2010, as a protest against efforts to limit freedom of speech.

U.S. cartoonist Molly Norris of Seattle, Washington, created the artwork in reaction to Internet death threats that had been made against cartoonists Trey Parker and Matt Stone for depicting Muhammad in an episode of South Park. Depictions of Muhammad are explicitly forbidden by a few hadith (Islamic texts), though not by the Qur’an. Postings on RevolutionMuslim.com (under the pen name Abu Talha al-Amrikee; later identified as Zachary Adam Chesser) had said that Parker and Stone could wind up like Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was knifed and throat-cut to death by a Muslim extremist, who afterwards pinned a letter to his body with a knife. The individuals running the website later attempted to deny that the postings were actual threats, although they were widely perceived as such.

Norris said that if people draw pictures of Muhammad, Islamic terrorists would not be able to murder them all, and threats to do so would become unrealistic. Within a week, Norris’ idea became popular on Facebook, was supported by numerous bloggers, and generated coverage on the blog websites of major U.S. newspapers.

[...] On July 11, 2010 it was reported that Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki had put Molly Norris on a hitlist. In an English-language Al Qaeda magazine named “Inspire,” Al-Awlaki wrote “The medicine prescribed by the Messenger of Allah is the execution of those involved.” and was quoted as saying “The large number of participants makes it easier for us because there are more targets to choose from in addition to the difficulty of the government offering all of them special protection [...] But even then our campaign should not be limited to only those who are active participants.” FBI officials have reportedly notified Norris warning her they consider it a “very serious threat.” Norris has since changed her name and gone into hiding under advice from the FBI.

You can’t find a comic nerd walking this green earth who is ignorant of and holding no opinion regarding Dr. Frederic Wertham, or the law team of Disney Inc., or the de-emphasis of politics and drug use in film adaptations of Alan Moore’s work. But this comic nerd is significantly more agitated about the fate of Molly Norris. For a cartoon far more tame than the one I drew and posted at the head of this post, she has lost her name, home, livelihood, friends, family and art.  Seattle Weekly: “She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program — except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab.” Score one for Islam, the new comics code authority.

Robert Spencer: The Jihad Against a Seattle Cartoonist

Molly Norris’s cause should be taken up by all free people – not least the President of the United States. Obama could have explained that human beings control their own reactions to things. If Muslims chose yet again to riot and murder because of Terry Jones or Molly Norris, that would be a choice they would be making out of an unlimited array of other choices. Instead, Western authorities have fallen into the Islamic supremacists’ trap and are starting to behave in just the way they want them to: thinking that they must not do certain things, because if they do, there will be violence from Muslims. Yet that violence is in every case solely the responsibility of the perpetrator, not of anyone else.

Obama could have said that the idea that Molly Norris would have to give up her career and live in hiding because of cartoons is unconscionable. He could have told the Islamic world that cartoons depicting Muhammad did not harm Muslims, and that the willingness of some Muslims to commit murder over such depictions was the only thing that made people care to draw Muhammad in the first place.

Obama could also have said that to threaten people with death because of cartoons was destructive to free speech and hence to free societies — and as such, it was something that the U.S. would do everything it could to resist. He could have announced that Molly Norris and others who were threatened for exercising their freedom of speech would be given full round-the-clock protection — and that if violent protests and riots over cartoons broke out in areas where American troops were deployed, those troops would put down those riots and protect the innocent to the fullest possible extent.

Whatever Obama does, I’m on the side of free speech. How about you?