The madness won't end

70,000 - yes, seventy thousand - Pakistani protestors torched American fast-food outlets and attacked the British, French and Indian embassies in protest marches against you-know-what:

Two people, including an eight-year-old boy, have died during a second day of violent protests across Pakistan over depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in European newspapers.

Dozens of demonstrators were injured in clashes with police in Peshawar, the restive capital of North West Frontier Province near the border with Afghanistan, when a crowd of 70,000 marauded through the streets, burning three cinemas, scores of cars and a KFC outlet.
[...]
In Tank, a town 230km (142 miles) from Peshawar on the fringes of of South Waziristan, the tribal region which borders Afghanistan and is thought to be a base for al-Qaeda and Taleban forces, protesters burnt down around 30 shops selling CDs and DVDs and opened fire on police.

Violence has swept across Pakistan this week after several peaceful demonstrations were held to protest the Muhammad cartoons in recent weeks.

Two protesters were killed in Lahore yesterday, where a mob burnt down a KFC, a McDonalds and a Pizza Hut, and a crowd of 1,000 students attacked the British, French and Indian embassies in Islamabad, throwing petrol bombs. Hundreds were arrested.

Pakistani officials have blamed the increasingly volatile nature of the protests on Islamist militants, who are determined to take advantage of the international controversy over the Muhammad images to destabilise the regime of President Pervez Musharraf.

No British newspaper has pubished the offending cartoons of death, and only two American papers of any consequence - the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Sun - have done so, but that won't protect Britons or Americans in Pakistan now. Why should we assume Islamic radicals would take care not to harm Canadians (whose flag is red and white, just like the Danish flag, in case you haven't noticed) had a small Calgary magazine chosen not to show its readers an essential element of this story?

How bad has this madness gotten? The voice of reason belongs to Larry Freaking Flynt:

Freedom of speech is only important if you’re gonna offend someone; if you’re not gonna offend someone, you don’t need free speech.

Australia's SBS television uncovered more photos from Abu Ghraib and promptly put them on television. They were also immediately published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Oddly, even though they will undoubtedly inflame Muslim sentiment all over the world, neither media outlet believed it was sufficient to merely describe the photos in plain English.

Posted by damian at February 15, 2006 07:38 AM | TrackBack