Adriana Saftoiu, the spokeswoman for Cotroceni (the Presidential Palace) told Cotidianul daily that, ???????President Traian Basescu called Cristian T. Popescu, the President of the Romanian Press Club and asked him to take the necessary steps in order to stop the publication in mass-media of the respective cartoons.???????

Up to this press release there were no official communiqu????s of the Romanian Presidency, Government, or the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on this matter. The Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) declared for the Cotidianul, ???????while we do respect the freedom of expression of the mass-media, the Middle East reactions do not let us unconcerned.???????

Most likely the Romanian President took this position of, ???????let????????s say it more diplomatically ???????? extreme prudence ???????? thinking of our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Fariz Allaqtta, President of the Islamic League in Romania also suggested that the media should not republish the cartoons. He subtly suggested that otherwise, only God knows what will happen. I take this as an unfit attempt of intimidation. (to say the least)

While I strongly believe that we should respect each other as human beings, including our cultural and religious differences, in this particular case I cannot ignore the Muslims hypocrisy. It is not only us (Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.) that have to respect the Muslims; they also have to respect us. Simply put, what goes around comes around.

Why weren????????t the Muslim clerics or governments feel offended when the fanatic Islamists cut the throats of innocents in Iraq? Or when Muslims physically and emotionally abused, killed and chased away the Christians in Darfur??!

Moreover, the Arabs and the Muslims are allowed to portray the Jews as pigs and monkeys (you do not have to trust my word, just check the Freedom House reports, the Saudi and the Palestinians text books, the Egyptian newspapers or watch the Lebanese Al Manar) and make all sorts of negative allusions about the Christians, but when the others satirize their flaws, well, then it????????s a crime! Why is that?!

The Muslims can be as critical as they want to, but they should not be allowed to thrash one of the most important feature of the Western civilization: our freedom of speech, action and thought.

p.s where are the so-called moderate muslims? are they real? what is their position? the silence is deafening…