A group of violent Muslim protestors, angered by a video on YouTube that mocked the prophet Mohammed and Islam, attacked embassies in Yemen, Libya, and Egypt on Sept. 11.
Most well known of these attacks was in Libya, where U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and 17 others died in the attacks.
While the people of Islamic religions should be able to protest negative connotations about their beliefs, killing only enforces theses negative beliefs further.
By attacking these embassies, the only thing that protestors have shown about their religion is that when criticized, they resort to violence and killing.
If Muslim extremists want people to stop attacking their religion, they should stop acting in ways that invite others criticize it so easily. The actions these extremists take include killing for religious reasons and holding signs that read, “Behead those who insult Islam.”
Following this YouTube video, there have been protests in Islamic countries against American freedom of speech.
These extremists do not define the religion of Islam as a whole anymore than the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attackers. But these attacks create an association with Islam and violence.
These protestors need to understand that a YouTube video does not represent the beliefs of the United States, its government, or its people. Freedom of speech in America allows citizens to say anything, even if it conflicts with government policy.
Such rights do not exist in most Muslim countries, where the government must first authorize public speech. But this does not give the people an open invitation to assault and kill American emissaries.
Muslims call their religion the religion of peace. But when extremists use their religion, and insults against their religion, as an excuse to kill, this is certainly not the case.
Editor’s Note: Upon further review, information from the source thereligionofpeace.com was removed because of credibility issues , and information from jewishvirtuallibrary.org has been removed because it is not pertinent to the story (October 22, 2012)
Shaan Mukhtar • Oct 16, 2012 at 10:51 pm
When I saw the anonymous opinion piece in The Californian titled “Muslim Protests Are Unjustified”, I understood what the writer was saying when he/she stated that Muslim extremists were wrong to respond violently to the YouTube video that offended them and their beliefs. Every single Muslim I know was disappointed at the way certain people in other countries reacted in anger. But I wish The Californian had ALSO mentioned the peaceful protests where people marched silently with red hearts that simply said that they loved their Prophet Muhammad (in Afghanistan). I wish our school paper had talked about the Libyans who had shown up with signs after Ambassador Stevens’ death saying they were “sorry” and that the protests in their country did not represent their religion or their prophet. Maybe the writer of this piece didn’t know about these incidents and I can understand that. But what I DIDN’T understand was why this writer was quoting from a website called http://www.thereligionofpeace.com. This website is an Islamophobic website! I visited it and the FIRST thing I saw was “Islam One Really Messed Up Religion”. REALLY?! The Californian editorial also talks about Islamic governments “assaulting” Jews. WHAT does that have to do with the protests against the video? And do we REALLY want to start talking about the “assaults” the Israeli government (Jews) is doing against the Palestinians (Muslims and Christians)? Anyway, the writer cited http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org for “facts”. I checked out this website and guess what? It admits that it’s an “American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise”! What is going on? What is the agenda here? I was very disappointed to read that “unsigned editorials reflect the majority view of the staff”. I think maybe we need to do a better job of educating our students about what’s going on in the Middle East so that we can have a more balanced view presented in our school newspaper.
Signed,
Shaan Mukhtar
Freshman