Muslim Group Holds Vigil in Response to DTH Cartoon
By Maggie Faust

The Muslim Student Association held its “Extinguishing Ignorance with Knowledge” event in the Pit Thursday night. The diverse crowd included UNC administrators and both the current and newly elected student body presidents.

Event organizer Arif Khan said the issue is not the whether or not the Daily Tar Heel had the right to print this cartoon, but whether the paper should have printed it.

“We do feel the staff had a responsibility of whether or not they should have published,” Khan said. “We feel that they should not have printed it.”

Chris Cameron is the opinion editor of the DTH and took part in making the decision to run this cartoon.

Cameron said he has standards when deciding what to publish and what not to publish.

“If it doesn’t incite violence and it’s not harmful for minors, then I’m probably not going to pull it,” Cameron said.

David Arant teaches media ethics at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He said the Daily Tar Heel's decision to print the cartoon surprised him, and he is not sure Cameron adhered to his own criteria.

“I would say that it has incited violence,” he said of the cartoon.

“I had no reason to think that would happen,” Chris responded.

Media law professor Cathy Packer also said she was surprised. She said the First Amendment gives journalists the right to offend, but she doesn't think the cartoon's message was worth the offense.

“I couldn’t see any message that outweighed the offense that was taken,” Packer said.

The MSA also held an educational forum after the vigil on Thursday to help give non-Muslims insight into why depictions of the prophet are so hurtful.

Cameron points out that the Quran itself does not state that such depictions are blasphemous.

“If I’m not mistaken, that is a tradition and not in the Quran,” Cameron said.