Double standards abound: people who would insist on their right to pelt Lars Vilks with eggs decide that he is not free to speak. Thugs like these attempt to act as censors through violence, intimidation, and disruption, and that censorship must be recognized for what it is, and resisted in all of its forms.
“Prophet Mohammad cartoonist attacked during lecture,” from Dawn, February 22 (thanks to Zulu):
STOCKHOLM: The Swedish artist who created a blasphemous sketch of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) has been pelted with eggs by a group of people during a university lecture on the limits of the freedom of expression.
Ordinarily, we’d say “Whose prophet?” But this is, after all, a Pakistani paper, hence the honorifics. One could wind up in the slammer for blasphemy for not showing due diligence there.
According to a police statement, Lars Vilks was unharmed in the attack that occurred at Karlstad University in southwestern Sweden late Tuesday evening.
No one has yet been arrested for the assault, but police say they are investigating the incident.
The 65-year old artist has faced a string of threats over his 2007 sketch, which rekindled a debate over free speech and Islam that had raged a year earlier after a Danish newspaper printed 12 cartoons of Mohammad (PBUH).
As of the time of this posting, the first comment below the article at Dawn reads:
“It should be a lesson for those trying to become famous by making blasphemous remakrs [sic] or creating controversy on religious matters.”
So… egg jihad?