'SOUTH PARK': Is pro-jihad website threatening cartoonists over Muhammad satire?

By Michael Cavna



"South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker. (Comedy Central)



"South Park" creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker know the power of a satiric image. The producers of the website RevolutionMuslim.com, in turn, are trying to rely on the impact of a violent one.

And it's not so difficult to interpret the image -- and its caption -- as a provocative threat.

There is a fatally stabbed Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch film director (and great-grandson of Vincent Van Gogh's brother) who was assassinated in 2004 after he produced a film critical of violence against Islamic women. The caption reads: "Have Matt Stone And Trey Parker Forgotten This?"

The image was posted last Thursday -- as Comedy Central's "South Park" aired its 200th episode, which depicted the prophet Muhammad. The post -- titled "South Park Aired Episode Insulting the Prophet (Salaa Allahu 'Alayhi Wa Salam)" -- goes on to link to a 2009 Huffington Post story about where the animators live in Colorado. The item says it was written by Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee.

The same writer followed with a post Sunday titled: "The Defense Of The Prophet (salaa Allahu 'alayhi wa salam) Campaign." The post includes a nearly six-minute Boing Boing clip in which the creators discuss "South Park's" 200th episode and the show's depiction of Muhammad (including the earlier "Super Best Friends" episode), as well as the Danish cartoon controversy. In choosing to satirize Muhammad again, the creators say: "We aren't punking."

RevolutionMuslim.com precedes the embedded clip with these words: "Here are the authors boasting of their insults and celebrating their complete disregard for what anyone considers sacred: Are you afraid that you would be bombed, she [the interviewer] asks? Perhaps they are not, perhaps they should be, only time will tell.

The post also embeds a YouTube clip in response to "South Park" titled "The Defense Of The Prophet SWS Campaign." The clip says: "Help us remove this filth," shows still pictures of Matt Stone, Trey Parker and Theo Van Gogh and includes audio describing the punishment for the blasphemy of depicting the prophet Muhammad.

According to an Associated Content story, RevolutionMuslim.com is a "radical" site based in New York that "is actively making threats against Americans. It is also actively encouraging anti-American jihad."

Parker and Stone's musical comedy "The Book of Mormon" is scheduled to open on Broadway next March.



