Copyright 2010 Joel Pett, Lexington Herald-Leader. Posted with permission.

Comedy Central’s reaction to the threat issued against South Park’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone by Revolution Muslim, a website promoting fundamentalist Islam run by a group in New York City, is misguided and regrettable.
The small and until now mostly obscure group posted Parker and Stone’s Colorado addresses as well as Comedy Central’s in New York, alongside a graphic image of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was brutally murdered in 2004 after the release of “Submission”, his film criticizing Islam’s treatment of women.
The network’s ill-considered response was to heavily censor the ensuing South Park episode, including the customary final speech, which the show’s creators say had no mention of Muhammed. The action was taken ostensibly to protect the employees of the network.
To their credit, the network did not censor Jon Stewart’s free-wheeling defense of Parker and Stone the following night, including his rather pointed message to Revolution Muslim. Nonetheless, Comedy Central must understand that this is not simply a matter of principle, but also one of real world consequences.
At CRNI, we are often the last line of defense for courageous cartoonists speaking truth to power in hostile circumstances around the world. The threats against them are rarely idle. They run the gamut from financially ruinous state-sanctioned lawsuits to criminal trials, imprisonment, and even disappearance and death.
We cannot think of a single instance where giving in to such threats and intimidation has led to anything other than more threats and intimidation, against a wider and wider list of “offenders” challenging the status quo.
Recent history shows that public pressure and unequivocal resolve are the only effective weapons against this sort of thuggery. These are even more effective when accompanied by the kind of pointed public ridicule Comedy Central normally champions.
A case in point: In 2005 CRNI presented it’s annual “Courage in Cartooning” award to the Turkish cartoonist Musa Kart, who was convicted in a criminal libel suit brought by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan because of an editorial cartoon he’d drawn depicting the Prime Minister as a cat. Mr. Musa’s employer stood by him during this fight, absorbing significant financial cost.
In solidarity with the cartoonist and his publisher, immediately following the conviction the cover of the Turkish humor magazine Penguen featured a series of drawings of the Prime Minister as a frog, a camel, a monkey, a snake, a duck, an elephant, a giraffe, and a cow.
The magazine suffered a similar suit and even larger fine, but in the process Mr. Erdogan’s image suffered lasting and well-deserved damage. While the outcome was far from an unequivocal victory for freedom of expression, the pushback and blowback unquestionably strengthened the still-fragile state of free expression in Turkey, in a struggle that continues today.
We at CRNI can only hope that upon further reflection Comedy Central will realize the danger of its acquiescence. The network’s abandonment of South Park will only encourage future demands and threats against this iconoclastic outpost of the right to be ridiculous. It will also embolden the miscreant cranks at Revolution Muslim, a clear lose-lose.
After almost 13 years, it’s hard to find a group or belief that hasn’t been targeted by South Park. Mockery is the currency they trade in, and Comedy Central has been rewarded handsomely for brokering that trade. Yet the network has thus far failed to grasp not only their moral responsibility, but the critical connection between free expression, creativity, and our (and their) prosperity. We urge them to rethink this miscalculation.

In a larger context, the Western world has overcome many experiences with the ultimately useless effort of the authoritarian mindset to stifle the spirit of freedom. For their right to think and speak freely, hundreds of thousands paid with their lives during the 400 years of the Catholic Inquisition, and millions more in the last century under the secular tyrannies of Hitler and Stalin.
All failed, but the mindset survives. Empowering fundamentalist Islamists, or anyone else, to undermine our free speech traditions through threats and claims of special privilege is an invitation to its return to power.