In response to Wednesday’s terror attack in France, some prominent media outlets have chosen to submit to Muslim terror rather than defend free speech. 

(Photo: shutterstock)

Associated Press (AP), one of the world’s most prestigious media outlets, has caved in to Muslim terror and censorship, the Daily Beast reports.

On Wednesday, terrorists murdered 12 people and wounded several others outside Charlie Hebdo headquarters in Paris because the satirical magazine had published caricatures of the prophet Mohammed, which they consider to be sacrilege.

AP announced Wednesday, shortly after the massacre in Paris, that its policy is to not show images of the Prophet Mohammed. “None of the images distributed by AP showed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed,” said spokesman Paul Colford, telling the Daily Beast that several photos from the French SIPA agency were automatically sent to the AP’s commercial photo unit but have since been removed.

A photo of Stéphane Charbonnier, Charlie Hebdo‘s murdered editor, holding a cartoon of Mohammed, was deliberately cropped. “It’s been our policy for years that we refrain from moving deliberately provocative images,” the AP spokesman added.

The New York Daily News published a grisly photo of the terrorists shooting a French policeman in the head as he lay on the sidewalk, but they likewise censored the photo of Charbonnier, cutting out the Charlie Hebdo magazine that he was holding.

Several other news organizations, including the London Telegraph, also edited out Charlie Hebdo magazine covers displaying Mohammed, the Daily Beast adds.

The Daily Beast, on its part, has chosen to display some of the most controversial covers on its site.

Blaming the Victims for Provoking Muslims

Writing for The Gatestone Institute, Douglas Murray says that the media seems to prefer coerced self-censorship. By doing so, they are stating that “it is your own fault if you get hurt, [and] none of this would be happening to you if you had only kept your mouth shut.”

He points out that the press is already blaming the victims. Commentators on CNN opined that Charlie Hebdo had been “provoking Muslims” for some time.

“Perhaps they assume that it is easier to force good people to keep quiet, or keep their own media offices from being attacked, than to tackle the problem of Islamic extremism head-on,” Murray states sarcastically.

Relating to the NY Daily News censorship of the Charbonnier photo, he writes that “the paper was willing to show a man who had been alive that morning in the process of being murdered. But they chose not to publish a cartoon of a historical figure who died 1400 years ago.”

Murray is concerned about the media succumbing to terror and Islamic pressure, and he concludes by warning that “if those in positions of influence do not deal with this problem now, we will not like those who deal with it later.”

By: United with Israel Staff