What do Comedy Central and Yale University Press have in common? In the Islamist war against free speech, both have been on the front lines. And both have surrendered.
Last week, Comedy Central censored any depiction or even mention of the Prophet Mohammed from an episode of the adult cartoon series South Park. This capitulation followed a “warning” from a group calling itself “Revolution Muslim” that those responsible would “probably wind up like Theo van Gogh” — the Dutch filmmaker murdered by a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim for producing Submission, a documentary about the plight of women in Islamic societies.
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Also censored by Comedy Central was a speech about intimidation and fear. Though the speech made no mention of Mohammed, the executives at Comedy Central evidently decided it might offend or anger someone — perhaps Islamists who make it their business to intimidate and frighten. Kind of comedic when you think about it, no?
Similarly, Yale University Press last year published The Cartoons that Shook the World, a book on the controversy and violence — as many as 200 people were killed — incited by Islamists in response to the appearance of twelve satirical caricatures of Mohammed in Danish newspapers in 2005. The publishers decided not to include the caricatures in the book about the caricatures. John Donatich, director of Yale University Press, candidly told the New York Times that he didn’t want to end up with “blood on my hands.”
As you might expect, when it comes to caving in to Islamist pressure, Europeans have been the trend-setters. All the way back in 1989, Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the murder — by any Muslim willing and able — of British author Salman Rushdie, whose novel
