A student panel discussion on Islamic extremism that included a display of the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed degenerated into a chorus of name-calling as one speaker branded Islam an "evil religion" and audience members nearly came to blows.
Organizers of the panel, which included one Muslim speaker, had said that unveiling the cartoons was part of a larger debate on Islamic extremism sponsored by the College Republicans and The United American Committee (UAC), a fledgling conservative group not affiliated with the University of California, Irvine, where the event was held on Tuesday.
`Hate speech'
But the forum drew hundreds of protesters, including members of the Muslim Student Union, who said the event was continuation of a campaign of hate speech disguised as freedom of expression.
Inside the nearly packed 424-seat auditorium where the panel discussion was held, a UAC moderator displayed six cartoons, three depicting Mohammed, including one with the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban, and three anti-Semitic cartoons he said appeared in Middle Eastern newspapers.
Brock Hill, vice president of the College Republicans, said his group had a constitutional right to display the cartoons and noted that the panel included a Muslim speaker.
"We're not going against Islam whatsoever," he said. "This is about free speech and the free marketplace of ideas."
But later, panelists were cheered when they referred to Muslims as fascist and accused mainstream Muslim-American civil rights groups of being "cheerleaders for terror."
"I put out a call to Muslims in America: put out a fatwa on [Osama] bin Laden, put out a fatwa on [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi," said panelist Lee Kaplan, a spokesman for the UAC. "Support America in the war on terror."
The Council on American-Islamic relations, which boycotted the event, described the UAC as a "fringe group."
Escalation
Tensions quickly escalated when one panelist, the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, repeatedly said that Islam was an "evil religion," and that all Muslims hate America. Peterson, the founder and president of the conservative Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, later said that he did not believe that all Muslims were evil.
At one point, campus police removed two men, one of them a Muslim, from the audience after they nearly came to blows.
Osman Umarji, former president of the Muslim Student Union, equated the organizers' decision to display the drawings to the debasement of Jews in Germany before the Holocaust. He said earlier that none of the Muslims who protested outside the event would attend if the drawings were displayed.
Mohamed Eldessouky, 20, a criminology student who attended the discussion, said he was disappointed because he felt the panel and the audience were biased against Islam.
"I entered it with an open mind, but I thought it was totally biased. I thought the panelists would be more balanced. I think it did more harm than good," he said.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2