Stop "Everybody Draw Mohammad Day 2011"!

After Comedy Central cut a portion of a South Park episode following a death threat from a Muslim group, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris wanted to counter the fear. She declared May 20th "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

Norris told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross that cartoonists are meant to challenge the lines of political correctness. "That's a cartoonist's job, to be non-PC."
Producers of South Park said that Comedy Central removed a speech about intimidation and fear from their show after a Muslim group warned that they could be killed for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

The group said it wasn't threatening South Park producers Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but it included a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker killed by a Muslim in 2004, and said the producers could meet the same fate. The website posted the addresses of Comedy Central's New York office and the California production studio where South Park is made.

"As a cartoonist I just felt so much passion about what had happened I wanted to kind of counter Comedy Central's message they sent about feeling afraid," Norris said.

Norris asked other artists to submit drawings of any religious figure to be posted as part of Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor (CACAH) on May 20th.

This was the background of Everybody Draw Muhammad Day 2010. Now they are again trying to organize the same event this year. Last year when I made a petition on the very same site, Norris sent me mail which is given below.

Hi Ali,

I regret doing that radio show on April 25, before my cartoon went viral (the article you quote). My ego took me there and I let myself get side-swiped. I never did commit to making a place where people could send drawings; others have built facebook pages and I can’t do anything about it.

I never "declared" a Draw Mohammed day. My cartoon (of a poster backed by a fictional group) was specifically about Comedy Central’s censorship of South Park due to Revolution Muslim’s threat. I felt strongly that Comedy Central overreacted and sent a message of fear, leading America down a slippery slope toward censorship for artists. My ‘concept’ behind the original cartoon was about more people than just Matt Parker and Trey Stone (of South Park) drawing Mohammed so that the pool of targets would be watered down for Revolution Muslim’s aim.

My cartoon was the beginning and end of what I had to say about censorship. The one-off cartoon does NOT work well as a long-term plan (evidenced by the vitriol on the EDMD fb pages). I wish you would change the description of your petition to represent the present facts: strangers took my cartoon seriously and started fb pages.

Thanks, Molly Norris
http://www.mollynorris.com/

These are the links of there Facebook fanpage and Blogger's Blog.

http://www.darkbrowsing.com/browse.php?u=Oi8vd3d3LmZhY2Vib29rLmNvbS9EcmF3TW9oYW1tZWQ%3D&b=0

http://everyonedrawmohammed.blogspot.com/