Letters published in the Manitoban are edited for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Views expressed in the letters are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Manitoban.

Publishing Muhammad cartoon is disrespectful

I am writing today to express how much I am offended by your publishing of the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). We have a very respectful society in Canada where people from all sorts of demographics coexist in peace and harmony, and I am proud of it. But if we are to continue to coexist we need to keep respecting each other.

You have to realize that all Muslims love the Prophet more than they love their parents. Would you still side with freedom of speech if someone was bullying your mother in public? Would you still side with free speech if I was to publicly advocate and lobby to make racism (or any other grossly offensive thing) legal and widely acceptable? Of course not!

Similarly, we need to realize that no matter what kind of cartoons they are (funny or provocative), just the fact that the Prophet Muhammad is depicted pictorially is offensive to Muslims. And do realize that a quarter of the world’s population is Muslim.

We all condemn the killings in Paris, but that is no reason for all Muslims to be punished in this way.
I hope I have educated you a little on why Muslims take offence to these cartoons, and I hope you will remove the cartoons immediately and apologize to Muslims at the University of Manitoba and around the world for offending them.

Mohammad Anwar

Offending the Muslim community is inconsiderate

I was very disappointed to hear the stand that the Manitoban has taken regarding the publishing of the image of Muhammad in order to depict what the victims in the Paris attack died for.

Having heard the opinion of the Muslim community, I feel the Manitoban should not have published the image. To offend not only members of our university community but Muslim community members as well is inconsiderate.

I also feel by publishing this image the Manitoban has also endangered students who attend the University of Manitoba. It was already proven in Paris that extremists have no remorse for attacking other citizens. I ask you: why would they be more merciful to a university which is a location of a large population of the city’s future workers?

I feel the Manitoban could have displayed the university’s support and condolences for those who passed better. This could have been done by publishing images of those who passed and explaining the situation that occurred in Paris rather than offending members of a community who have already faced difficulties with the events that occurred.

The Manitoban has offended and endangered University of Manitoba students. A better approach such as publishing the images of the ones who passed in the Paris event could have been taken.

Dixie Baldwin