Or, as Kathy Shaidle puts it, “Publish stuff we don’t like, and we’ll kill you.”
“Top Syrian cleric says media can cause war,” from AFP (thanks to Five Feet of Fury):
STRASBOURG (AFP) – Syria’s top Sunni Muslim cleric urged the media Tuesday to use caution when reporting on religion, saying that the choice and timing of a report can cause a war.
“A simple piece of information can spark a war. If a man dies because of information that you have made public, his death will be on your conscience,” Shiekh Ahmed Badreddin Hassun told reporters at the European Parliament.
His remarks came in response to questions about the 2005 crisis when satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed first published in Denmark caused an uproar in the Muslim world, resulting in protests and several deaths.
The Grand Mufti expressed regret over what he said was the “instrumentalisation of this dossier, which arose from a simple, isolated case.”
He doesn’t seem to have said anything about the three cartoons that were much more incendiary than the ones that were actually printed in the paper, and which were added into this dossier by Islamic clerics. Instead, it’s all the media’s fault:
“Some television stations chose Friday, one hour before prayers” to broadcast the story, he said, adding that “there are media who want to create a conflict” between the West and the Muslim world….