Bangladeshi Cartoonist Freed

Seems being a cartoonist is the toughest job in certain Muslim countries.

This poor guy sat in jail for six months for nothing.

A Bangladesh cartoonist jailed for allegedly insulting Muslims with a reference to the Prophet Mohammed has been released, court and prison officials said Friday.

Arifur Rahman, 23, was detained last September after the cartoon appeared in a weekly satirical magazine published by the mass-circulated Bengali daily Prothom Alo.

Prosecutor Shahidul Haque Bhuiyan said a magistrates' court in the capital Dhaka on Thursday ordered that proceedings be dropped after the complainant in the case repeatedly failed to turn up for hearings.

"Arifur Rahman was released from jail on Thursday evening following a court order," added deputy inspector of prisons Shamsul Haider Siddiqui.

The sketch showed a small boy referring to his cat as "Mohammed cat", a reference a common practice where people put the name of the prophet before their own name.

These people really need to get a life.

Deeply Offended Muslims Riot in Bangladesh

Cartoon violence spreads around the globe, and we're not talking about Tom & Jerry.

Police halt B'desh protest over magazine cartoon

Baton-wielding police broke up a protest by hundreds of Islamists in the Bangladeshi capital on Wednesday against a magazine which published a cartoon they said hurt Muslims' religious feelings, witnesses said.

Poor little Muslims. Such delicate sensibilities. It's a wonder how they summon the courage to chop off heads on a regular basis.

Police waded in to halt a march by about 500 demonstrators chanting "death to the editor" and "hang the cartoonist" near Dhaka's national mosque.

Police said the march could not go ahead under the current state of emergency, imposed when an army-backed interim government took charge in January after months of political violence.

The protest came two days after the offending cartoon was printed in "Alpin", a weekly magazine published by Prothom Alo, the country's leading Bangla-language daily.

Police arrested the cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, at his Dhaka home on Tuesday, after Muslim religious leaders complained.

I see a parallel growing in the United States. Muslim "leaders" whine about the slightest of alleged offenses and the authorities hop to it.

The Information Ministry said it had seized copies of the offending magazine issue.

The interim government has pledged to punish the offenders, but urged the people to remain calm and show patience.

Good luck with that. Patience is definitely not a strong suit of the bloodthirsty Islamofascists.

"Definitely it is a conspiracy to ignite unrest in the country. The government will punish the offenders," Mainul Husein, adviser to the interim government in charge of the law and information ministries, told Muslim leaders on Tuesday.