Why Tolerate Terrorist Publications - Essay Example

The 9/11 Museum for instance refused to censor an Al-Qaeda film even amidst criticism (Weiss, 2014). This is because, according to Akbar Ahmed, Chair of Islamic Studies at American University argued that censoring such publications was an offense to the Islamic religion because it would stigmatize the whole world into thinking that terror activities are done by Muslims. To make it clear, John Esposito, an apologist for Islam at the Saudi-funded Prince Talal Center at the Georgetown University insisted that if censorship was to be used, it was then important to make sure that “Muslim terrorism” and “Islamic terrorism” are two independent terms that needed to be defined separately.

Through such an explanation, negative ideologies embedded in peoples’ minds that terror activities are purely carried out by Muslims could be dropped.According to reports dating 13th Jan 2015 on CNN (Wimple, 2005), censoring Al-Qaeda information would only generate news and in return, most people would end up reading all contents revolving around the Militia group. Therefore, disassociating from such propagandas, according to the CNN spokesman would be an intelligent way of protecting news reporters from being targeted especially in situations where there is very little evidence to support the claims.

CNN host Carol Costello r said, “CNN will not show you the new cover, which depicts the prophet, Muhammad, because it is our policy not to show potentially offensive images of the prophet.” (Wimple, 2005). The statement was made after people claimed that the media was censoring Charlie Hebdo out of fear of Islam (Hemingway, 2015). A critical analysis of the claim indicates that censoring Al-Qaeda publications, especially the Inspire Magazine could be a possible cause of the war between radicalized Muslims and innocent Muslims.

Some consider it an offense to censor such information because their faith is being used to create rifts between nations. While most terror groups have a strong belief that Allah, through Prophet Mohammad commanded and promised them of fortunes when they engage in Jihad, in the fight against people offended the Islamic religion, it still is a mystery why so many people, who are very innocent, suffer at the expense of those ‘fortunes.’ConclusionCensoring information is important and in accordance with the Amendments of the 9/11 attack.

However, the structure and discrimination evident in this act is the cause of all problems between the Islamic Nations and The US. While the public benefits from getting important information that can be helpful in case of any planned terror attack, it discriminates Muslims, who may be innocent because of the ideology adopted that claims all terrorists are Muslims. The Islamic religion appears perpetuated and causes stigmatization.References