JOHANNESBURG - A South African court has banned the publication of controversial cartoons in the countryÂ’s newspapers at the request of a Muslim organisation, the group said on Saturday.| "Personal foul ... piling on ... against the court. We'll penalize 15 yards from the spot of the foul, repeat down." |
Council spokesman Ebrahim Bham told AFP, “We went to court because (...) these cartoons and caricature of the Prophet Mohammed are well known to cause deep offence to Muslims throughout the world,”
“It has offended the religious sensitivities of Muslims. So we took whatever step we could to see if we could prevent that particular type of thing happening in South Africa.”
Mondli Makhanya, editor of the Sunday Times, said, “We regard this as a serious blow to the freedom of the press and have every intention of challenging the ruling when the matter returns to court.” Quoted by the Sapa news agency, Makhanya said he had been asked by the Muslim group to undertake not to reproduce the cartoons originally published in a Danish newspaper but had refused. “We believe that if we were to have given an undertaking not to publish, we would invite similar demands and threats from anyone who felt offended by the stories we publish,” he said. “No credible newspaper can be held to ransom by the beliefs of a section of a population.”
| Too bad your countrymen don't understand. |