Nat Hentoff / Aaron Frey: But Especially Islam
When the riots and deaths following those Danish cartoons were reported in American newspapers, none of the offending cartoons were published accompanying the stories in The New York Times, the Washington Post and other major dailies, except the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Sun. But, at the Village Voice, where I then had a column, I ran the story, with the cartoon of Prophet Muhammad wearing the bomb-shaped turban.
I was damned if I’d be intimidated for doing my job as a reporter. For a couple of weeks, I was more vigilant than usual walking the streets, but I’m still here. What most stays in my mind is that long before the Dec. 18, 2008, resolution on defamation of religions, so much of the American free press refused to run even one of the cartoons at the core of the story, and hardly anything about the United Nations’ Dec. 18 resolution.
Did they not want to offend certain readers? Were they afraid? If the U.N. resolution became international law, the First Amendment would still protect opponents here, but think of the bloody impact on “defamers” around the world.