Muhammad cartoon row: student atheist society claims victory

[muriel_volestrangler]

A university atheist society which sparked a global debate over the publication of a cartoon depicting Jesus and Muhammad on a webpage has declared a victory for freedom of speech after its student union backed away from a demand that the cartoon be removed.

The University College London's Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society garnered high-profile support from the secularist Richard Dawkins after it refused the student union's request to remove an image of Jesus and Muhammad sharing a pint from a Facebook page advertising a social event.

A spokesman for University College London's student union said the request to remove the cartoon remained in place, but that decisions regarding advertising for events remained at the discretion of individual societies. "Society presidents take responsibility for their own publicity, and it is not vetted by UCLU prior to distribution," the union said. "They are provided with equality training prior to running a society, to help them understand the balance between freedom of expression and cultural sensitivity."

But the atheist society took the move as a climbdown and thanked the thousands of secularists who signed a petition in its support.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/13/muhammad-cartoon-student-atheist-society

UCL was founded in the 19th century as a secular alternative to Oxford and Cambridge, where all dons, had, at that time, to be unmarried Anglicans.

[TigerToMany]

1. Good news.

I would say this is encouraging news. Criticizing organized religion is not wrong, as long as it is done in the spirit of satire, or the desire to educate or inform.

Just for the record, I think that while we should deplore racially-motivated crimes against non-whites who happen to be Muslim, we must also protect the freedom to criticize religions in general and the reactionary elements within religions in particular. Hate crimes occur against African-Americans, many of whom happen to be Christian. It does not mean that we shouldn't criticize Christianity. Likewise, we shouldn't place a taboo on criticizing Islam.