Cartoons of Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH)

I don’t usually use my blog for writing purposes it’s more of a tool for me to show my photographic talent (or the lack there of) to some of my friends in the online community. But the recent row over the publishing of cartoons impersonating Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) has compelled me to write a few words about this extremely insulting act of various publications of EU member states.

The list of European countries in which it is a crime to deny the holocaust is surprisingly long:

• Austria
• Belgium
• Czech Republic
• France
• Germany
• Israel
• Lithuania
• Poland
• Slovakia
• Switzerland

Now, regardless of how silly it is to deny the holocaust, to make it a crime to voice that opinion flies in the face of the claims that these countries have true freedom of expression.
It also makes me wonder as to why is there a legislation against imagery that hurts the feelings of all those barely 15 million Jews in the world? Since, when they publish something that offends the 1 billion Muslims of the world, it’s conveniently cited as 'freedom of expression and that of their press'.
If editors of newspapers truly believe their oft-repeated claim that Islam is a peaceful religion whose good name is being hijacked by a few extremists, why depict the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) - the founder of this peaceful religion - specifically as the one with a bomb in the turban, a scimitar in his hand and a crazed expression on his face? Surely a more suitable candidate for such pictures would have been Bin Laden, Abu Musab Zarqawi or Al-Zwahiri.

Is the freedom to insult other people's faith just because you can something to be proud of? or does it really take a 'Holocaust' to gain respect?

In the end I can only hope that rationality prevails and the Europeans realize that by acting in this manner they are only playing into the hands of the Islamic extremists who will for ever use this disgusting chain of events as grounds for recruiting more people for their so called ‘holy’ war.