Loss of Privacy

Ramadan, which begins Thursday, is the month in which Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. It is intended to be a time of reflection and renewal, which is why Egypt has decided to censor some of its TV broadcasts.

The censorship committee for the Egyptian television has decided to delete numerous scenes they considered inappropriate from television dramas to be aired during the holy month of Ramadan. The committee considered that having inappropriate scenes is not right and should be removed to show respect for the holy month.

Scenes from the drama “Al Aar” (The Disgrace) have been removed especially one that have sexual connotations that give rise for sexual desire, in addition to scenes that talk about drugs and secret marriage.

The drama “Al Hajjah Zahra” also got its fair share of deletions, but the deletion was not of inappropriate scenes, rather it was of inappropriate intimate talk about the relationship between married couples.

Numerous other dramas experienced deletion like “Mamlakat al Jabal” (The Mountain Kingdom), “Azmat Sukar” (Sugar Crisis) and others.

These are some photos I’ve collected from last week’s Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

Taken from the Norman Rockwell painting:

Of course, poking fun at anything needs a yo dawg.

Over on reddit, there was an interesting discussion as to whether folks were okay with making fun of 9/11, since people were making fun of Islam and Mohammed. So, here’s a picture from that discussion.

There are also now talks from Muslims about Everybody Draw the Holocaust Day and Everybody Deny the Holocaust Day.  To each his own.  Free speech is vital to society.  Tacky, distasteful, or intelligent, we all need to protect free speech.

Apparently, he’s been hidden quite often this week and lots of people have been looking for him.

“No one has the right to not be offended.”  -Phillip Pullman

Don’t forget to join the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day on May 12th.

Original cartoon here.

At the Mohammed Image Archive, you can view all the “blasphemous” pictures of Mohammed you could possibly want.

While the debate rages, an important point has been overlooked: despite the Islamic prohibition against depicting Mohammed under any circumstances, hundreds of paintings, drawings and other images of Mohammed have been created over the centuries, with nary a word of complaint from the Muslim world. The recent cartoons in Jyllands-Posten are nothing new; it’s just that no other images of Mohammed have ever been so widely publicized.

This page is an archive of numerous depictions of Mohammed, to serve as a reminder that such imagery has been part of Western and Islamic culture since the Middle Ages — and to serve as a resource for those interested in freedom of expression.