Posted on 03/01/2006 6:07:38 AM PST by NewLand
Muhammad Cartoons Rile Calif. College
Wednesday, March 1, 2006 7:54 AM EST
The Associated Press
By GILLIAN FLACCUS
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — A student panel discussion that included a display of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons descended into chaos, with one speaker calling Islam an "evil religion" and audience members nearly coming to blows.
Organizers of Tuesday night's forum at the University of California, Irvine said they showed the cartoons as part of a larger debate on Islamic extremism.
But several hundred protesters, including members of the Muslim Student Union, argued the event was the equivalent of hate speech disguised as freedom of expression.
Although there were numerous heated exchanges, no violence was reported.
The panel, which included one Muslim speaker, was sponsored by the College Republicans and the United American Committee, a group that says it promotes awareness of internal threats facing America.
During the discussion in a nearly packed 424-seat campus auditorium, six cartoons were displayed: three depicting Muhammad and three anti-Semitic cartoons.
The discussion got off to a contentious start with the Council on American-Islamic Relations — an invited guest — boycotting the event and calling the United American Committee a "fringe group."
Tensions quickly escalated when the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder of the conservative Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, said that Islam was an "evil religion" and that all Muslims hate America.
People repeatedly interrupted the talk and, at one point, campus police removed two men, one of them a Muslim, after they nearly came to blows.
Later, panelists were cheered when they referred to Muslims as fascists and accused mainstream Muslim-American civil rights groups of being "cheerleaders for terror."
"I put out a call to Muslims in America: Put out a fatwa on (Osama) bin Laden, put out a fatwa on (Abu Musab) al-Zarqawi," said panelist Lee Kaplan, a UAC spokesman. "Support America in the war on terror."
Thousands of Muslims worldwide have protested, sometimes violently, after the cartoons were published in a Danish newspaper and in other European newspapers. Islam widely holds that representations of Muhammad are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.
Osman Umarji, former president of the Muslim Student Union, equated the decision by the student panel to display the prophet drawings to the debasement of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust.
"The agenda is to spread Islamophobia and create hysteria against Muslims similar to what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany," said Umarji, an electrical engineer who graduated from Irvine last spring. "Freedom of speech has its limits."
Brock Hill, vice president of the College Republicans, said his group had a First Amendment right to display the cartoons.
"We're not going against Islam whatsoever," he said. "This is about free speech and the free marketplace of ideas."
Mohamed Eldessouky, 20, a criminology student who attended the discussion, said he was disappointed because he felt the panel and the audience were biased against Islam.
"I entered it with an open mind, but I thought it was totally biased. I thought the panelists would be more balanced. I think it did more harm than good," he said.
Lauren Chramosta, 18, a freshman, said she didn't know much about Islam and attended hoping to learn more.
"It was helpful to listen to different views," she said. "But I think (the Muslim panelist) was shut down so many times that he didn't get a fair shake."
I sure hope we arent holding any Muslims in America against their will. If they feel so strongly that pictures of Mohammed shouldnt be shown , I think they should go to a country that upholds their beliefs.
America---Love it or leave it.
Sounds like they're starting to test the waters here, now. It isn't rioting in the streets cause they know they'd never get away with it yet, but they've learned our laws and know how to use PC against us.
Courtesy of our 'friends'...the Dems.
"hate speech disguised as freedom of expression."
Aha! Hate speech IS free expression, A-hole. They don't even understand the most basic aspects of our society. Probably allowed to vote, too.
Wait a second - the mulsim president of Iran said the Holocaust was a hoax...whom to believe?
You're absolutely right....and the leftist fools don't even realize who they are supporting!!
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
I understand and accept "the prophet Mohammed" as to distinguish him from the other exploding Mo's out there, but I guess we should be thankful that they don't write (pbuh) afterwards.
It's not entirely unusual for sensible people to be "biased" against those who want to kill them.
Islam "is" evil, but it is not a religion.
Islam'll do that to ya...
See guys don't write us off in CA just yet :-)
Hate speech is also protected under the 1st amendment that liberals supposedly cherish so much.
Those two faced retards once again reveal that they are simply hypocrites. They can dish it out when they bash rednecks, christians, and Karl Rove, but they can't take it.
"Freedom of speech has its limits."
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