There is a fair bit to cover here so this is going to be a long post.
This whole series of events boils down to the fact that in Islam it is blasphemy to depict their prophet Muhammad in any way, and a minority of Muslims think they can enforce this upon the non-Muslim world by making death threats, many people disagree with these premises.
Recently (May 20th) it was draw Muhammad day. This all began with South Park episodes 200-201 which 'featured' Muhammad. The whole point was to play off all the political correctness around not offending extremist Muslims and the character was never actually seen on screen, always being behind a black rectangle labeld censored, there was also no anti Muslim content at all with Muhammad being one of the good guys.
Regardless a minority group called Revolution Muslim got all worked up and started making veiled threats so the 2nd episode also censored out Muhammads name and the standard ending monologue spelling out the episodes political/religious/moral point. After this a cartoonist unrelated to the show jokingly suggested making May 20th draw Muhammad day, several online characters who strongly believe in free speech decided this was actually a good idea and started a campaign to make it happen. The whole point was a show of strength against the extremists to prove that however a few corporations act and no matter what the minority do the west will not surrender free speech to a handful of 3rd world nut jobs. It was never about degrading or insulting Muslims in general, unfortunately due to the nature of the group a sizeable number of racists and bigots were also attracted and there was a lot of hate speech coming from both sides. This campaign ended up causing Pakistan to block Facebook and Youtube amongst other sites but for me its most important impact was one of the Muslim responses it generated.
A Facebook group was set up in response aimed not at demonizing those who took part but at moderate Muslims quoting the more peaceful passages in the Qur'an and showing that on the whole Muslims are good people who don't agree with the well publicised rantings of a minority. I would like to think that the group will be enough to get the ball rolling and get moderate Muslims to help stamp out the extremists and make their religion much less hated than it currently is.
Summing up my views on this whole thing.
Good on South Park for taking on another issue that needs addressing.
Someone get rid of the extremists or preferably talk some sense into them.
Draw Muhammad day was in principal a good idea and hopefully the powers that be will finally grow a pair, but it attracted a lot of asshats that also need removing or an education.
I also support the Muslim response in my Youtube link despite not caring about any religion since it promotes moderation rather than fanaticism.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/10136576.stm A bit on the campaign although they appear to have missed the point somewhat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8691406.stm the Pakistani facebook ban
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7ok4njJXI8 the principle of draw Muhammad day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0v3-3yCbr8 a rational muslim response
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