Dear Syed,

I wonder if you were one of the muslim community personalities who thought that John Howard should have included nut extremists like Sheik Omran, Bakri(since arrested for terrorism), Hiz-but-tahir supremicist group, and many other well known extremists who fully support, openly, Bin Laden and co. and turning the western world into a province of the new Caliph, all in the name of freedom of speech?

These people, many who have large followings(such as Sheik Omran who has a 10,000 strong subscription to his newsletter), openly talk of how 911, 7/7, and Bali are fully justified due to the west's interference in the middle east. Okay, so they would have preferred that Suddam and his Sunni mates have stayed in charge of Iraq, keeping the Shiites and the Kurds oppressed and without rights. Even Australia's help of the oppressed East Timorese is enough to justify, apparently, Bali-style atrocities.

Syed speaks like a true muslim bigot. He thinks that in the name of "freedom of speech", that we should hear lunatics who openly support the massacre of innocent people merely for interfering in their homeland's politics, even if this is interference like when the US pressured Syria to get out of Lebanon(didn't hear Keysar Trad or anyone else complain about that one), but the sight of a mere cartoon that portrays light satire, should be condemned and deserves the riots that they caused.

So typical. A muslim bigot actually believes that a kaffir who touches him should have his head cut off, but he is allowed to rape, murder and steal(eg. Gang rapes, racist bashings and murders here in Australia) from the Kaffir and if you even just complain, he will cry racism.

Also, please don't be a coward and answer BENJAMIN'S question about where you stand on Sharia, the barbaric legal code that is anti-democratic and anti-humanist. Those who support this, will be attacked verbally forever in the name of justice and humanity.

One reason I like to read OLO is to improve my understanding of the Muslim mind - unfortunately I seem to be getter further and further away from it, mainly due to inconsistency and level of hypocrisy. One thing is also certain is that Muslims are no nearer to understanding what makes Western minds tick either. So what can we do to help us all understand each other better?

Wake up.

A storm in a teacup, and the impact of globalisation.

Get over it Muslims, they should not have stirred the pot by printing it in a public, high exposure manner like this so do something using the appropriate channels, not using the old ways.

You are all better than what was portrayed, and all Muslims should not be encouraged by the actions of misguided brothers overseas.

A knee jerk reaction perhaps, but it took three months or so for this knee jerk reaction.

Are the publishers dumb? they must be to print it and cause this. It could have been forseen. What about the person who drew them, why dont you make him accountable?

It's absolutely revealing that all those who lambast freedom of expression and claim that the cartoons were an abuse of "freedom of expression", are all true believers of Islam, like Hassan, whose association with the democratic principles of an advanced civilization, despite their Western education, is tenuous, if not non-existent.

Scratch the back of their Western education and you will find underneath the troglodyte views emanating from a static religion ENCAVED in the seventh-century, which dogmatically refuses to breath the air of modernity in the twenty-first century.

Blog: http://congeorgekotzabasis.blogspot.com

I take great offence at Syed's description of the Bangladeshi feminist writer, Taslima Nasreen, as well as Salman Rushdie and any other who has 'blasphemed', by likening their work as 'blasphemous publications'.

Syed, you give the tiny minority of moderate Muslims a bad name. Actually, and does anyone else agree, the term moderate needs to be re-defined. I mean, even Sheik Hilali is being called a moderate.

The way Muslims have forced us to see it, a moderate is someone who totally agrees with suicide bombing, destroying the west, democracy, and so on, but isn't prepared to do the physical jihad themselves.

I am repulsed by Syed's arguments, weak & childish as they are, and I'd go as far to say that this article is perhaps one of the most offensive I've read here at Online Opinion.

Really, to liken Rushdie to a 'blasphemer' is outrageous, but shows just how ill many Muslims are. Syed is exactly like some nutcase from Texas in the 1800's thinking owning slaves is alright, or perhaps a better example, the Saudi's who still use slavery today (migrant workers from SE Asia). Saudi Arabia only formally abolished slavery in 1962!

Lastly, Syed says one thing that could be good, and that is a banning on any attacks on religious institutions. However, how many mosques would this leave standing Syed, as Muslims surely are the main perpetrators of racial & religious hatred in the world today?

TELL US WHERE YOU STAND ON SHARIA SYED. WE NEED TO KNOW WHETHER YOU CONSIDER US NON-MUSLIMS (kaffir) EQUAL, OR YOU THINK OF US AS SUB-HUMAN DHIMMI'S.........

Syed: Are you implying that there was no brutal, cowardly, despicable moslem terror before these cartoons? These cartoons which were printed in a Egyptian n/paper well before the Danish efforts.
Syed have you read not the cartoons but the lying derogatory comics about the Israelis published by islamics?
Have you read the savagely lying cartoons about us westerners in islamic papers? {and where do most islamic nations get their hand-outs, that's right Syed from the maligned western nations
In what squalid dictatorial islamic nation is there a free, really free press?
What have your leaders in store for Australia should you take over Syed, other than "honour?" killings, the bloody, merciless, absolutely uncivilised sharia law, and women "put in their place"
Sorry mate you come across as a typical islamic bloody minded 'king sized' hypocrite.
You see your religion and the islamic countries then the west with Christianity - which do you prefer Syed? Oh! silly me it's the west and yet you and your ilk take the freedoms offerred and plot to take Australia back to brutality and total barbarism or islam. numbat