Monday, September 10, 2007

Government censors newspaper for publishing cartoon of Jesus


The Malaysian government has taken a newspaper out of circulation for a month for having published a cartoon in which Jesus Christ drinks beer and smokes. Makkal Osai Tamil, a widely read Tamil newspaper, published the cartoon August 21, on its front page.
In the drawing, Christ has a can of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other and is quoted as saying: “If someone repents for his mistakes, then this heaven awaits them”.
Kuala Lumpur Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi (a devout Muslim), has condemned the publication saying that it was “unacceptable in a multi racial society”. A similar ban was placed last year on two papers for having printed a cartoon on Muhammad.
The photo at the top of the entry is reported to be of the newspaper. Doing a search on the Internet, I came across the photos below. Both appear to be someone's re-creation of the actual image used in the paper.

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