This afternoon, we received the following message from CafePress, the company through which we sell bumper stickers, buttons, t-shirts, and other political gear:
At this time we have decided to remove all depictions of the Mohammed, as it is extremely offensive to the followers of Islam. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Sincerely,
Content Usage Associate
CafePress.com
CUP@cafepress.com
CafePress is no longer allowing us to sell items that feature the image of Mohammed. Oh, but they’re doing it sincerely. CafePress is censoring us sincerely. Well, at least they’re not censoring us facetiously.
I understand that CafePress is within its legal rights to follow the laws of Islamic fundamentalist theocrats and censor all depictions of Mohammed, the primary prophet of Islam. The important question isn’t a matter of legal right, however. It’s a question of doing the right thing.
Consider the context in which CafePress is caving in to Islamic fundamentalist demands: The CafePress censorship occurs right after a man named Umran Javed was imprisoned in Britain for inciting the murder of Danes and Americans in response to the publication of cartoons of Mohammed. Apparently, the people at CafePress agree with Umran Javed’s threats. They agree with the people who rioted and assaulted people over the publications of a few cartoons. The people at CafePress appear to agree that, whenever radical religious groups threaten to kill people unless we censor ourselves, we ought to obey.
You see, CafePress doesn’t actually oppose publishing all messages that offend people deeply. In fact, CafePress is full of products that gravely offend large numbers of people. I’m among the people extremely offended by many items on CafePress.
I find the gear CafePress sells for the racist Confederate States of America movement, with the bars and stars Confederate battle flag and declarations that “The South Shall Rise Again” to be extremely offensive. I find the Christian shirts CafePress sells telling people to “Believe or Burn” to be extremely offensive. I am offended by the CafePress merchandise with the message “Aborted Babies Go to Heaven BUT Their Parents Go To Hell”. I am profoundly offended by the things CafePress sells that read “Liberals Love America Like O.J. Loved Nicole”.
I’m not asking CafePress to censor these messages. I value free speech, and that’s why I helped put up the images of Mohammed in the first place: As a protest against efforts by Islamic fundamentalists to censor free speech here in America. I would, however, like CafePress to be consistent in its policies. If it isn’t going to censor messages and images that profoundly offend me, then CafePress shouldn’t censor images just because they offend other people.
The thing that bothers me the most about CafePress’s censorship is that while they are rewarding Umran Javed’s violent demands agreeing with the people who threaten to kill Americans for publishing images of Mohammed, CafePress is actually helping other people spread other death threats. We documented long ago how one CafePress shop, RightWingStuff, has created many items encouraging people to assault and kill liberals. CafePress has sold many items encouraging people to club liberals, burn them, bash liberals in the heads with rocks, and hunt down Democrats and liberals like wild game and shoot them.
So, CafePress seems to have no problem supporting death threats, but when it comes to publishing an image of Mohammed, well, they just get all outraged at that. Go ahead and threaten to kill people, and that’s fine with CafePress. Just don’t offend the religious sensibilities of rioting Islamic fundamentalists.
The people at CafePress ought to know better than this. To censor messages on buttons, bumper stickers, and t-shirts just because someone takes offense at them is contrary to American values. Besides that, it’s just plain boring. What would CafePress be left with if it censored all of the offensive images on the items it sold? Bumper Stickers reading I Love Teddy Bears?
In a democratic society, no one has the right to be protected from being offended. We all do have the right to speak freely, even if our speech offends other people’s beliefs. So, CafePress may have the commercial right to decide not to carry our images of Mohammed any more, but we also have the right to continue to put cartoons of Mohammed up on the web. We will continue to do so until the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America is revoked, and our web site is forcibly shut down.
To me, hate speech pushes the limits WAY MORE than pictures not conforming to one branch of religion…
Isn’t there another way you can continue your Mohammed merchendise? I like Muslims, but as long as there’s hate speech being treated as better than innocent depictions some sort of action needs to be taken.
CafePress was the victim of a DoS attack for several days in a row right before Christmas, just as Irregular Times was when it printed its Mohammed cartoons. Coincidence?
The message CafePress is sending out is that intimidation works, terrorism works, fear works. Persuading, reasoning and voting do not work. Is there some other company that does online printed goods?
When right-wingers come over here and post stuff about “Islamo-Fascism” http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2006/12/22/virgil-goode-ellison1/#comment-250858
they base their information not on what the person says they will do but on some passages of the Koran very much open to interpretation that talk about “kafirs”. Right-wingers take these Koran passages very seriously indeed as an indication of the true intentions of all Moslems.
How much more should we listen to the words of right-wingers who advocate violence and take their words seriously. The motto of their website is “back-handing the left into submission”, a clear reference to the legal definition of assault. Taken with all the other messages of clubbing, burning and shooting “liberals”, I don’t see anything to indicate that they don’t really mean what they say. CafePress is aiding and abetting potential criminals. Let’s just hope they do not become an “accessory after the fact,” when the headlines show some crime being committed by someone wearing one of their shirts.
When the Bush administration says the war in Iraq is preventing terror attacks here, they are wrong. These DoS attacks are still happening and still undermining our economic institutions. With all the blank checks for wiretapping, warrantless searches, and waterboarding the congress has handed this adminstration, the Bush still hasn’t been able to do anything about these Denial of Service attacks that continue to undermine our basic freedoms.
The online buzz about CafePress also mentions printfection, zazzle and spreadshirt.
Printfection seems only to traffic in Gildan shirts, and Gildan has some unfortunate sweatshop history.
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well it seems to me that this is a choice for them to make, and fine, people should discuss it, but pointing the finger at the leaders of islam is incorrect. Every adherent of Islam believes that the Mohammed should not be depicted, and that is because it is what the mohammed himself requested.
Whether it is in fact God’s wish, whether you are an adherent of Islam or what, is up to you to decide. But whether Cafepress decide not to publish images that offend many hundreds of millions of people at their deepest core, is for Cafepress to decide.
You are perfectly free to set up your own printing business, or to find another printing business. Cafepress is NOT censoring your right to speech. They are reserving their own right to speech. There is certainly a difference, CafePress is not a government service, it is not a monopoly and it has no mandate to publish everything that YOU request they publish.
Get over yourself, this type of exaggerated bellowing about FREE SPEECH is what gives free speech a bad name amongst those who are not familiar with the tradition and among cynics opposing everything in free society.
Yes, I mean free speech is all well and good, but if you go around saying whatever you want, I mean, that’s clearly over the line.
What exactly is a “pingback”?
Who produces them?