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Thursday, September 16, 2010

A victim of real Islamophobia

The term "Islamophobia" was never accurate because it was meant to convey the hatred of Islam, not the fear of Islam.

But now we have a real victim of Islamophobia, or perhaps more accurately Muslimophobia - a young woman who is forced to go into hiding to save her life from Muslim death threats.

In the United States.

From the Seattle Weekly News, via Jihad Watch:

You may have noticed that Molly Norris' comic is not in the paper this week. That's because there is no more Molly.

The gifted artist is alive and well, thankfully. But on the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, "going ghost": moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab. It's all because of the appalling fatwa issued against her this summer, following her infamous "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" cartoon.

Norris views the situation with her customary sense of the world's complexity, and absurdity. When FBI agents, on a recent visit, instructed her to always keep watch for anyone following her, she responded, "Well, at least it'll keep me from being so self-involved!" It was, she says, the first time the agents managed a smile. She likens the situation to cancer—it might basically be nothing, it might be urgent and serious, it might go away and never return, or it might pop up again when she least expects it.

We're hoping the religious bigots go into full and immediate remission, and we wish her the best.

Here is that horribly offensive cartoon that Molly drew:
Another nail in the coffin of freedom of speech, brought to you by radical Islam.