What we are missing here in this discussion is understanding of the term respect. When somebody draws a cartoon of a religious prophet with a bomb instead head-gear, it doesn´t mean that person doesn´t respect other people´s right to practise their religion. It is means of commenting on the event that a group calling themselves followers of Islam committed an act of terrorism. The message of the cartoon wasn´t "All Muslims are terrorists or Mohammet was a terrorist" the message was "Some people abuse religion in order to justify their crimes"

Freedom of speech is a complex issue. On the one hand, in Europe it is illegal to discriminate against religions, ethnicity or gender. Of course it´s not true that Europe is a perfect continent and discrimination never happens. But when it does, you can go to court. On the other, you cannot expect people to respect your religion or political views. Everybody´s free to criticize everyone and everything. Yet, the fact that somebody criticises your religion doesn´t deprive you of your right to practise whatever you believe in. In other words, you´ve got the right to believe and practise any religion you choose but you have to accept that other people are going to criticise it if they feel like it. I haven´t heard of one single religion/prophet that has not been mocked. Still, if you are a believer why should you care about it? somebody´s sense of humour (or lack of it) does not influence your right to believe.

Incidents when members of any religious or ethnic group are being attacked should be condemned, they have nothing to do with freedom of speech. But drawing cartoons, telling jokes or writing research papers are means of expressing your beliefs or opinions and you should be free to do that.

 Actually, they do...that is if they follow the Nicene Creed.....

First Council of Nicea (325)

" We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;

By whom all things were made [both in heaven and on earth];

He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven;

From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

And in the Holy Ghost.
[But those who say: ´There was a time when he was not;´ and ´He was not before he was made;´ and ´He was made out of nothing,´ or ´He is of another substance´ or ´essence,´ or ´The Son of God is created,´ or ´changeable,´ or ´alterable´—they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.]"

The only difference is between Trinitarians and Unitarians....which is what the big issue was at the time.

"Unitarianism as a theology is the belief in the single personality of God, in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity (three persons in one God).[1] It is the philosophy upon which the modern Unitarian movement was based, and, according to its proponents, is the original form of Christianity. Unitarian Christians believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, as found in the New Testament and other early Christian writings, and hold him up as an exemplar. Adhering to strict monotheism, they maintain that Jesus was a great man and a prophet of God, perhaps even a supernatural being, but not God himself. Unitarians believe in the moral authority, but not necessarily the divinity, of Jesus. Their theology is thus distinguishable from the theology of Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, mainline Protestant, and other Christian denominations which hold the Trinity doctrine as a core belief."

Here is a list of some of the differences between different schools of Christianity.

At least in your own country you should feel free to criticize ANY belief system!

I unfortunately have to repeat, you have a lot of cliches about Muslims and Turks in your mind. Some of the broadest minded persons I have ever known were Muslims who regard this religion as a covenant between God and themselves. Islam is not a shallow belief system, it is at least as sophisticated as other religions. There is a strong movement of sufizm for example providing for the philosophical openings of the religion. It takes years to come to grasp of the essence of the sufi school. It is not just something you can judge based on a vague definition. In our country, Kemal Ataturk established a secular republic and its first parliament gave suffrage to women earlier than most European countries.  This happened in a muslim country. 

If you are unhappy with the Turkish minority in your country, you are welcome to sign up with a radical right wing party and pave the path for ousting those people.  We did not buy their tickets 50 years ago so we don´t care about them today. They are in a different country, striving to become a part of it. They often don´t even speak Turkish (talking about the third generation) and usually waiver from their turkish citizenship since they don´t want to fulfill their military service in a country they only know through their parents. By and large, it is your problem.

It is of course, not normal, boasting of your alcohol consumption, support for the gays, and post-modern ways. Just by saying them you prove you don´t know the first thing about life in big cities. Day in day out, we are sharing life with males and females who do all sorts of jobs from truck driving to delivery services. You may regret being entitled to a lesser salary the European style, but in Turkey both sexes are offered the same amount of salaries.  This is also true for the military. We have had a female prime minister again earlier than many European countries. To cut it short, we are happy with our lives. 

When there was a war in Iraq our government opened the doors for the Kurdish refugees and if my memory is not fooling me some 300.000 of them flooded into our borders.  No European country is doing this.  Greek and Italian war boats actually drive African refugees back to international waters. 

In the 80´s and 90´s, so many political (mostly Kurdish) refugees emigrated to Sweden, Germany and Holland. At that time, the governments in those countries were playing a political game. Now they have a drug traffic problem...  Many of those people were wanted by the Turkish police. For example:

"Fehriye Erdal is a female terrorist of Kurdish descent from Turkey. She was one of the three DHKP-C members involved in the assassination of a Turkish businessman, Ozdemir Sabanci and two of his employees on January 9, 1996 in Istanbul, Turkey. In 1999, she was captured in Belgium.^[1] At the time of her arrest, she held a fake passport under the name Nese Yildirim. Belgian officials were able to identify her only after her fingerprints were taken. In 2006, a couple of hours before her sentence was announced and in spite of being under 24-hour surveillance of the Belgian Secret Service, she managed to flee.^[2] She was to be sentenced to a four-year imprisonment in Belgium for the crimes she had committed in that country.^[3] She would later be handed over to Turkey in order to be tried for her involvement in terrorist activities within the borders of the Turkish Republic. Since her escape, Interpol has issued a red bulletin for Fehriye Erdal sending a message to its 186 member countries that she is to be captured and returned to Belgium.^[4] Although there have been reports that she has been seen in Cyprus and Jordan, there is no solid information on her whereabouts."

Source: Wikipedia.

P.S. Turkish government did everything to get this fugitive back from Belgium. The Belgian government came up with excuses all the time. She mysteriously disappeared. Many other people mysteriously disappeared. Kurdish terrorist Apo was arranged passports by the Greek authorities.

Before complaining of the minorities in your country think about this: would your government allow anything that that would not be to their benefit? As a matter of fact, they can clean the country from illegals if they want to. But who knows who is making money from where and through what association. This is alway the reason why simple problems cannot be solved.

As for your claim about tolerant Europeans permitting mosques in their countries. Well, in Athens, there are no mosques. All of them have been destroyed or converted. In Bulgaria,many  mosques are being used as stables. All around Europe, there is an unearthly racist awareness. As Alameda explained earlier, there is a similar kind of awareness in the US too. I would not want to offend anyone here but I geniunely think this awareness think is hard coded into your culture. We can talk about a Balkan style ethnic awareness, Italian,  Spain and France form another group, there are central and European countries that make up the third group.

 A thoughtful post as usual Daydreamer....of course, I have some disagreements

The question of when and where Free Speech and Hate Speech converge is difficult to define in light of today´s internationalism.  It is clear that when articles are published & broadcast across an international audience there are very real threats regarding unintended impact and risks are greatly amplified.

It seems in the name of Free Speech people are taking license to spew all sorts of venomous bile.  We certainly have a lot of it here in the US....case in point:

Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs Responsible for Rise in Hate Crimes Against Hispanics

Some are ignorant and naive; some do it to increase their public stature. I think we need to ask ourselves exactly what are we doing.

If we can admit we don´t understand other cultures, maybe then we will understand we don´t realize when we are crossing lines and try to be more careful in hurting others feelings.

In light of recent events, it appears most probable that those limits will be trial.

Criminal Code of Canada

Sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code make it a criminal offence to:

advocate genocide

publicly incite hatred

wilfully promote hatred against an "identifiable group."

Hate Speech

....and then there is the issue in legal terms of Provocation.  This is a hot debate and I doubt if we will resolve it here and now, but it´s certainly something to think about.

It reminds me of one time I called a French person rude....of which they were greatly insulted and hurt.  In US english calling someone rude is not a big insult, in French, it´s very bad....(rude) and not taken lightly at all.

What a cop out...we are responsible for our own actions people..if you are that easily influenced by radio personnel maybe some physco therapy is needed. I think it´s pitiful that people blame Rush for increased hate crimes...  It´s the blame game here in the states...everyone points fingers but never do they take ownership for their actions. 

Calling someone "rude" is an insult to most people...sometimes I wander Alamada if you really live in the U.S.  You tend to speak in general terms for all of us...

The thing about Limbo is that it shows how misogynist and racist this country is, if a mental person like him can make a career out of talking about his racist opinions... Media does influence the culture, but it´s not that simple... Limbo himself can´t do much.. it has to fall on a ´fertile ground´..

sigh....in many ways you are right ........and he tills the ground very well....then he´s not alone...there are a whole lot of them.

I do think they encourage things. Sort of like a cheer leader or motivational speaker. They do have an effect.

You know there is such a thing as public relations.....aka propaganda....billions are spent on it.....

Noam  Chomsky ....Manufacturing Consent?

Of course none of it would work if people were not lazy.....but are they lazy or overworked, busy trying to make sense of a very complicated world and looking for shortcuts.

 yes you are correct teaschip....however the tone, body language have to also be considered.  Another French person, who is fluent in English explained to me the difference.

BTW....is there some reason you don´t spell my name right? It´s Alameda, not Alamada.