Petitions Urge Denmark's Resistance Against Muslim Censorship
by Chad Groening
February 22, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A conservative group is calling on Americans to sign a petition to encourage the nation of Denmark to stand firm against the Islamic rage over the publication of cartoons satirically depicting Islam's prophet Muhammed in a Danish newspaper. The petition can be found on the websites ConservativePetitions.com and ChristianPetitions.com. Rusty Weller, the editorial director for the two sites, says the overreaction by many in the Muslim community to the Muhammed caricatures is really an attack on free speech.
"Our research shows that the Muslims are trying to do something more than just complain about the cartoons," Weller notes. "They are trying to get one European country to cave in to their demands not to print anything they deem objectionable about Islam, the Quran, Muhammed or Allah."
That one country, Denmark, finds itself at the center of this campaign because it was the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that first published the offending cartoons last September. Since then, several or all of the cartoons have been reprinted in publications in more than 50 other countries, where their appearance has sparked outrage, criticism, charges of cultural insensitivity and racism, and in some cases even violent protests leading to dozens of deaths.
Outraged Muslims are targeting Denmark because of these cartoons, and Weller insists, "they're not going to stop their protests until legislation is passed that gags the press in that country." But even then, he is convinced, the Islamists will not be satisfied.
If the Muslim protesters succeed in censoring the Danes, the petition websites' director says the radical Islamist drive will not end there. Using that victory as a precedent, he contends, "they plan to silence the media in the rest of Europe, further distancing the people there from the truth about Islam and distancing us -- America -- from Europe, further impeding the war against terror."
Free speech must be defended, Weller insists, and he is encouraging people of faith and lovers of freedom to sign the petition aimed at urging Denmark to resist the Islamists' attempts at censorship. The editorial director for ChristianPetitions.com and ConservativePetitions.com says the petition supporting free expression and freedom of the press will be sent to the Danish Embassy in Washington, DC, and to the Danish Consulate in Los Angeles, California.
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
