What would Jesus do?

Malaysia has banned a Tamil-language paper for one month for printing a picture of Jesus with a cigarette in one hand and a can of beer in the other.

Makkal Osai printed the caricature last Tuesday on its front page with a caption quoting Christ as saying: “If someone repents for his mistakes, then heaven awaits them.”

 

The paper’s editor apologised, saying the caricature had been taken from the internet, but a local politician filed a police report, calling it a “threat to national harmony”.

 

Periasamy said the graphic artist who downloaded the picture of Jesus had overlooked the fact that the picture had been altered to insert a cigarette in one hand and another object, possibly a can, in the other.

 

The artist had since been suspended, he said.

Most church groups were, understandably enough, a bit miffed by this. However, they accept apologies from the paper.

Christians make up about 9% of Malaysia’s population, with 60% Muslim, 19% Buddhist and 6% Hindu. The government previously closed two publications for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (you no doubt remember the controversy over those Danish cartoons). Officials from the largely Hindu Malaysian Indian Congress, which forms part of the government, have demanded Makkal Osai’s editor be sacked and the paper closed.

I can’t find the image the paper used, but a trawl through the interweb has thrown up several along the same lines. Do these pictures offend you?

smokingjesus.jpg

jesuscigarettesbeer.jpg

beer_jesus.jpg

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