Opinion: The Freedom of Faith and the Freedom of journalism

Al-Mada is issued daily by Al-Mada institution for Media, Culture, and Arts.

Opinion: The Freedom of Faith and the Freedom of journalism

Al-Mada is issued daily by Al-Mada institution for Media, Culture, and Arts.

Friday, 17 February, 2006
IWPR

IWPR

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

During fifty years of working in journalism, I learnt how to respect the religions and beliefs of the people. Thus, I think it was a big professional mistake to abuse the Muslims’ faith because that did not concur with the mission of journalism. As a journalist, I strongly defend the freedom of expression and the freedom of journalism because with out them, we change in to cattle of sheep driven to the maze of ignorance. What is happening now as a result of those cartoons is because there is no differentiation between the freedom and the means of using it. The news paper that published the cartoons has apologized to the entire Muslims; this is enough to end the issue and to correct the mistake. Our big mistake is that we set the embassies on fire and boycotted the countries whose news papers published those cartoons; that will adversely affect our relations with those countries and will have bad impact on the Muslims refugees living under the laws of those countries. As Muslim, I denounce all attempts that violate my faith and beliefs, and denounce all attempts that deprive me from saying my opinion that differs from others’ because reality has many faces and many sides to look at it from.
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