Anti-Muhammad cartoon contest: Free speech or deliberately provocative?

posted on: May 5, 2015

When Pamela Geller and her controversial organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, announced it would hold a cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, their plan to satirize and lampoon the founder of Islam was intended to have both a defiant and provocative free-speech edge.

Sunday’s contest and its $10,000 prize were prompted in part by the Paris Charlie Hebdo massacre in January, Ms. Geller said in March, as well as the riots in Muslim countries sparked by the publication of satirical anti-Muhammad cartoons by a Danish newspaper in 2005. And indeed, as if on cue, two gunmen with apparent ties to Islamic militants overseas tried to storm the heavily secured event in a similar fashion, before being shot dead by a local police officer Sunday night.

The incident comes at a time when tensions between some segments of American society and Muslims appear to be becoming more fraught – with protests against Muslims in Texas and anti-Muslim social-media attacks after the release of the film “American Sniper.” In that context, Geller’s actions raise questions about speech seen by many as motivated to incite anger and hatred.

Source: www.csmonitor.com