Cartoon consequences

The brouhaha over the publication of the cartoons depicting Mohammed has now gone beyond words and pictures to physical attacks on embassies, as the BBC reports.

For a summary of other opinion see here. At the time of posting this site contained a link to the cartoons, which were first published in Denmark on 30 September last year.

The Australian media has been more circumspect in its reporting, perhaps in response to actions like this , a plea today from a senior Islamic cleric to the local media not to publish the cartoons.

Yesterday The Australian published an editorial "Democracies must not give way on freedom of speech", an assertively forthright defence of freedom of speech which included the statement "the right to offend within the law is fundamental to free speech". I totally agree with this, and would like to see more debate about the issues though I wonder whether The Australian will, given the escalation over the last few days, publish the cartoons as so many other media outlets have done. As they are so widely available on the internet I wonder whether much is to be gained from further publication in the print media, but I would like to see the discussion continue even though I cannot see any immediate resolution of Muslim grievances.