After posting a Thursday column by radical Muslim cleric Arjem Choudary in the aftermath of the terror attack in Paris, USA Today is defending it’s decision to run the piece, saying Choudary’s op-ed was one of “tempered analysis.”
In his piece, Choudary, who’s been on a media tour since the attack, wondered why the French government would allow the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo to continuously “provoke Muslims” and put the “sanctity of its citizens at risk.”
In USA Today’s defense of the piece, editorial page editor Brian Gallagher said that while Choudary is by no means an “appealing figure,” his piece was a “tempered analysis” of the motivations.
GALLAGHER: His argument is neither an incitement to violence nor a defense of the murders. Both of those would have been unacceptable. Rather, it is a tempered analysis of the motivations behind tragedies like the Charlie Hebdo attack: Nothing is more central to Islam, he points out, than the sanctity of the religion’s founder, the prophet Mohammed. So Muslims, passionate in their faith, are duty-bound to reject Western standards of free speech that tolerate blasphemy to the prophet.
Since the attack on the offices of the Paris newspaper, Choudary has appeared with both Fox News’ Sean Hannity and NewsmaxTV’s Steve Malzberg, offering up incendiary comments. Before his interview with Malzberg, Choudary asked the host if he was Jewish, sparking a heated back-and-forth between the two.
As noted by TheDC on Thursday, USA Today decided against running a column by conservative columnist Ann Coulter back in 2004. (RELATED: USA Today, Which Refused To Publish Ann Coulter, Publishes Radical Imam’s Op-Ed)
Meanwhile Hannity told him toward the tail end of their interview flat out that he is an “evil S.O.B.”
[h/t: Mediaite]