The online/FM indie Russian radio station Echo of Moscow is under fire for posting a questionnaire to its readers on its website. The question went roughly as follows: “Whether [to] print editions cartoons of the Prophet MuhammadMuhammad in response to the shooting of the editorial board ‘Charlie Hebdo’?”
Over half a million people voted (yes, Echo is a big deal). 63 percent said go for it; 35 percent said no; two percent said “difficult to answer.”
Apparently Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Chechnya, weighed in as well, but it is not entirely clear exactly what he said, where he said it, or the context of his remarks. The Daily Beast says Kadyrov tweeted that Echo’s editor Aleksei Venediktov had disrespected Muslims by even asking the question. If the Russian government doesn’t do something about this problem soon, “there will be people to make Venediktov responsible,” Kadyrov warned.
v.7 Russian World News has a longer excerpt of Kadyrov’s remarks, which it says appeared on Instagram. Venediktov has “no family or religious values,” he allegedly declared. “But it does not give him the right to indefinitely sling mud and insult tens of millions of Muslims.”
Furthermore:
“I firmly believe that the government should call to order radio incite animosity and hatred between peoples and nations. Otherwise, there will be those who will call to account Venediktova. Today in Russia there are many problems to overcome which, more than ever, we need unity and solidarity of the peoples. A Venedictov need distemper need any spark to chase people in the area. We hope that these efforts will not go unnoticed and demand governments. Otherwise, the Muslims of Russia, which does not care about the fate of his homeland, will not endlessly tolerate the antics Venediktova and companies . . . “
Anyway, you get the idea. Speaking personally, I go with the aforementioned two percent, but apparently Echo can’t even solicit its listeners and readers for content feedback without getting threatened with government censorship and worse? Что есть, то есть, as they say in Hollywood.
