'South Park' censored after death threats from Islamists

In the 200th episode of South Park, which was broadcast last week, a proposal to bring the Prophet Mohamed to town is met with short shrift at a community meeting. "Are you nuts?" one character says. "If Mohamed appears in South Park we get bombed!" "We don't know that," another replies. "Maybe enough time has passed that now it's OK to show Mohamed."

As it turned out, that hope was a forlorn one. The American broadcaster Comedy Central this week censored the programme after the episode's depiction of the Prophet Mohamed dressed as a giant teddy bear drew a warning on an Islamist website that the show's creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, would be murdered.

The warning was posted on the New York-based website Revolution Muslim. In an article that suggested that Parker and Stone would "probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show", a writer calling himself Abu Talhah al-Amrikee listed the addresses of Comedy Central's New York office as well as Stone and Parker's production office. He also posted a link to a piece giving details of the house that the two rent.

So Comedy Central broadcast the next programme, which concludes the plot of the anniversary edition, with several crucial speeches bleeped out. In Wednesday's episode, Mohamed's appearances were covered with a giant "censored" label, while he was replaced in the bear suit by Santa Claus.

Some branches of Islam consider the depiction of Mohamed to be blasphemous.

The 200th episode, a celebration of the show's rich history of causing offence, begins with a piqued Tom Cruise rallying a large group of his fellow celebrities including Mel Gibson, George Lucas, George Michael, and Barbra Streisand as a berserk giant robot to bring a class-action lawsuit against the eponymous town.

The only thing that will stop their suit, Cruise tells the townsfolk, is if they arrange for him to meet the Prophet Mohamed. "Mohamed has a power that makes him impervious to being made fun of," he explains to his fellow celebrities. "What if we could harness that power?"

After detailed negotiations with Jesus, a cocaine-snorting Buddha, and the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, the South Park residents manage to persuade Mohamed to come to town dressed in a giant bear costume to prevent his appearance bringing the same violent retribution that greeted cartoons of his likeness in a Danish newspaper in 2005.

The show has featured the Prophet Mohamed before, as part of Jesus' troop of religious superheroes called the "super best friends". Mohamed appeared as "the Muslim Prophet with the powers of flame".

But that, Matt Stone said in a recent interview, "was before the Danish cartoon controversy, so it somehow is fine. Then, after that, now there's a new normal. We lost. Something that was OK is now not OK."

Stone was speaking to the website Boing Boing, along with Trey Parker, during the production of the 200th episode. "If they would let us show it, that would be great," Parker said. "We'd be so hypocritical against our own message, our own thoughts, if we said, 'OK, well let's not make fun of them because [then] they won't hurt us'."

The Revolution Muslim website frequently praises jihadi violence. Al-Amrikee has recently posted messages praising the suicide bombers who struck in Moscow and celebrating the Polish aircraft crash that killed 96 people, including the country's president.

He later told the Associated Press that the message was not intended as a threat but as a warning. Asked if Parker and Stone should feel threatened by it, he said: "They should feel threatened by what they did."

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Stan Marsh
• Kyle Broflovski
• Eric Cartman
• Kenny McCormick
• South Park
• Prophet Mohammed
• Bear
• Costume
• Revolutionmuslim
• Theo van Gogh
• Cnn
• Comedy Central
• Matt Stone
• Trey Parker
• NICK GRIFFIN
• BNP
• SHARIA
• MUSLIM. EDL
• GEERT WILDERS
• ISLAM
• FASCIST
• yt:stretch=16:9

[carltaylor581]

KILL THESE BASTARDS

[mcsouthernfried]

man muslim people suck i sold my honda civic to one and he was awful intrested in trunk space so i madde a joke that i fit 25 bags of fertalizer in it with room to spare he seemed pretty enthused.

[bobo44248]

That jewish turned muslim is in Jail right now awaiting exreadition.

[LeTempleDuSoleil]

These mongrels deserve nothing. If they don't like the US or Europe, GET THE FUCK OUT!! Why are we bending over backwards to accommodate these psychopaths who are an obvious threat to society? Does terror sound good to you? Any speech that encourages violence against innocent people in any way, shape or form is NOT PROTECTED FREE SPEECH!! They have no reason to "protest" this country, no one is forcing them to even be here.

[kevboslice112]

why do people move to countries that they hate!!!!!

[Baylorchick20]

FUCK Religious Cunts that's why we need Atheism and Science to become to main logic, Sheesh get a fucking Life People

[speedcoregewalt]

@jerseyirish actually, that cartoon was months old when the outrage and rioting started. That imam has done an exceptionally well job fueling a fire for months until it burned as bright as the sun

[speedcoregewalt]

@KalleJularbo Arab coffee?

[speedcoregewalt]

@mcsouthernfried so because that muslim guy took the joke in a good way he sucks? You sir, have an ignorant sense of humour

[merajoga]

why would anyone want 72 virgins? everyone knows sluts fuck better

[JdMotionPicture1]

Screw that fat muslim asshole!

[WTFLYR]

I'm confused about why YTube people are upset about death threats on the internet. 90% of the people on YT need to clean up their language, before being offended by death threats made by others. I can only assume that most all of these threats were never intended to be taken seriously, the same way the language of most people on YT is not to be taken seriously. People don't use profanity in public anywhere near the way they do on YT, so I won't take the web threats or the profanity seriously.