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FBI Advises Mohammed Cartoonist To Go Into Hiding
by Joseph Ernest September 17, 2010
Newscast Media --The FBI has advised the Seattle cartoonist who started "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" with a satirical cartoon in support of free speech to go into hiding.
Seattle Weekly editor-in-chief Mark D. Fefer announced in Wednesday's issue that Molly Norris' comic would no longer appear in the paper. Fefer wrote that the FBI advised Norris to move, change her name and wipe away her identity because of a fatwa, or death sentence, issued against her this summer.
"She is, in effect, being put in a witness-protection program — except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab," Fefer wrote. He told The Associated Press on Thursday that he had nothing further to say because it's a sensitive situation.
David Gomez, the FBI's special agent in charge of counterterrorism in Seattle, told the New York Daily News in July that the agency was doing everything it could to protect individuals on a fatwa list issued by Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Norris' cartoon inspired a Facebook page that caught the attention of authorities in Pakistan, who banned the social networking site in response. Most Muslims regard any depiction of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.
The Facebook page encouraged people to post images of Mohammed to protest threats against the creators of the American TV series South Park for depicting the prophet in a bear suit during an episode earlier this year.
Although the Facebook page was taken down by its creator, references to the page and to Norris' cartoon remain online. Norris wrote in a post on her website that she meant her work only to be a commentary on the South Park controversy.
"I made a cartoon about the television show South Park being censored," she wrote. "I never started a Facebook page. I apologize to people of Muslim faith and ask that this 'day' be called off."
Norris could not be reached for comment and her Web site has been taken down.
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