On May 20th, an eleventh-hour court proceeding, orchestrated by the Council of Muslim Theologians, ruled in favour of Johhannesburg's Mail and Guardian on the issue of publishing a Mohammed cartoon. The uproar was over the latest drawing by South African cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro, better known as Zapiro. Zapiro stated that the illustration was a response to "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day", an international incident that resulted in thousands of Mohammed cartoons being simultaneously published online and the subsequent blocking of access to the entirety of facebook in Pakistan and Iran. In 2006, the same organization successfully obtained an injunction to stop South Africa's Sunday Times from republishing the famous 2006 cartoon of Mohammed with a sizzling bomb in his turban which caused intense riots in a number of Muslim countries.

Zapiro's controversial drawing depicts Mohammed lying on a therapists couch, lamenting that "[o]ther prophets' followers have a sense of humour." In defending his work, Zapiro said that "I believe that all religions should be subjected to satire and that some religious groups should not be able to think they are above society." He also noted the irony of the large uproar that has come about as a result of his cartoon which itself asked people to think twice before they get so angry.

Mail & Guardian editor Nick Dawes defended his decision to publish the cartoon in a letter from the editor published online the next day. He writes:

"When I first saw the image, and approved it for publication, it was clear to me that it was Zapiro's contribution to the global debate around representations of the Prophet. This is an enormously complex and sensitive subject, but I felt that Zapiro had attempted to handle it with care. Unlike some other cartoonists who have tackled the same subject, he had not used Islamophobic imagery, nor had he mocked the prophet.

Zapiro's talent for satirical analysis means that he causes offence from time-to-time -- sometimes very profound offence. His very strong criticism of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and of human rights abuses by the Israeli government, for example, angers many Jewish South Africans.

His depictions of the Pope in cartoons dealing with the policies and doctrines of the Vatican offend some of our Catholic readers, and his depictions of President Jacob Zuma have drawn not only anger from the President, but a multimillion-rand lawsuit.

It was against this backdrop that I made the decision to publish the cartoon."

The Muslim Judicial Council (MJC) has spoken out against repeated death threats received by Zapiro since the cartoon's publication. MJC president Maulana Igsaan Hendricks said the organization also rejected calls for the boycott of the Mail and Guardian newspaper. A meeting to further discuss the cartoon will be held tomorrow between the MJC and top M&G executives. Zapiro has also confirmed he plans to attend but editor Nick Dawes reiterated that they would not be offering an apology.

In attempting to analyze the ongoing international debacle over various Mohammed cartoons, it may be helpful to consider the implications of the Streisand Effect:

a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of causing the information to be publicized widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no censorship had been attempted. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, following a 2003 incident in which her attempts to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.

Would Zapiro's cartoon ever have been drawn in the first place were it not for the previous protests over the 2006 Danish cartoon; which gave way to the more recent South Park controversy; protests against which in turn gave way to 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day'; and finally, massive protests against which led us to the current predicament?

Soures: BBC, CNN, Mail & Guardian