Hate speech does not equal free speech.

That message painted on the rock on Farm Lane on Tuesday encompassed how the Muslim Students' Association, or MSA, says it feels about 12 Danish cartoons created last fall depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

As part of "The Day of Defense," members of the group passed out information and answered questions about the Muslim community in the wake of several newspapers reprinting the cartoons.

Their mission for the day was to educate others about the controversy in a peaceful manner, said MSA President Farhan Abdul Azeez.

The human biology senior said they chose to label the cartoons' message as hate speech because it negatively went against principles of both Islam and freedom of speech.

"It's the crutch of the matter," he said. "Freedom of speech is an important principle in America and in the Muslim world. This is an issue of respect.

"Anybody's right to say anything ends where another person's dignity begins."

But people are torn on the issue throughout the world.

Violent protests have erupted abroad due to the cartoons' publication and at least 48 deaths have occurred since January, when controversy over the cartoons began to ensue.

Although the majority of news organizations in the United States have refrained from running the images, a few — from collegiate to professional — decided to publish them, including an MSU-based Web site, www.SpartanEdge.com.

"It's not a publicity stunt, it just happened to be the biggest free speech issue of the day," said Alexander Scott, editor of the site. "I don't think political cartoons qualify as hate speech; it's satire, but it's just a political cartoon."

Azeez said the cartoons are just one piece of a puzzle involving a growing trend against Muslims but they presented an opportunity to educate others in a positive manner.

"The publication of these cartoons is the opposite of building bridges," he said. "Rather than continue the divide, we must learn more about each other and come to some common ground."

Psychology senior Farah Jaleel attended a panel discussion held as part of the day and said she was disappointed at the low turnout of 30 people.

"It seemed like the people who already know about the issues are the ones who came," she said. "This was to try to reach those who don't know. It's disappointing."

During the day, Azeez was one of several students stationed on different parts of Farm Lane handing out informational pamphlets which included a timeline of events, a short explanation of who the Prophet Muhammad was and what the Quran states about his depiction.

David Stowe, professor of Writing, Rhetoric & American Culture, invited Azeez to speak to one of his classes after seeing MSA members passing out information.

"It definitely touches on some really important core issues of freedom of expression versus religious sensitivity," he said. "Hopefully people are talking and trying to make sense of both sides of the issue."

Tough call

The decision to publish the cartoons has journalists divided as well.

In addition to SpartanEdge.com, student publications from the University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Illinois State University have chosen to run the cartoons.

An editorial released by the Harvard Salient defended their decision by stating "publishing materials that criticize the ways Islam has been usurped worldwide for purposes of violence and oppression is a risky, but honest and necessary, business."

The State News has chosen not to publish the cartoons and has received responses for and against the decision.

Two editors from the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been suspended from the newspaper after they decided to run the cartoons.

"It doesn't make sense to see international condemnation if you can't, as a reader, see the very fundamentals of the controversy," said Acton Gorton, editor in chief and one of the students at the center of the controversy.

After Gorton, 25, decided he wanted six of the cartoons to accompany a column he was writing, he said he asked Opinions Editor Charles Prochaska for his input but there were no meetings with the seven-member editorial board because it wasn't a reflection of their views.

Prochaska could not be reached for comment.

An investigation into how the two made the decision to run the cartoons, which appeared on Feb. 9, is currently being performed by senior members of the newsroom and will determine whether or not they are allowed to return.

Jason Koch, a journalism senior who is serving as one co-interim editor in chief, said people in the newsroom were angry because nobody had input.

"They weren't suspended for running them, it was the manner in which they did it," he said. "The secretive way, not showing anyone and not letting the ones they did show give any opinions."

The task force, which consists of only non-editor senior staff members, is conducting interviews throughout the newsroom and will make a formal recommendation to the Daily Illini Board of Directors soon, Koch said.

Shaz Kaiseruddin, UIUC law student and MSA president, said the group drafted a letter in response to the Daily Illini and also held a peaceful demonstration after they printed the cartoons.

"We didn't try to get them suspended, our main energy was rather propagating greater awareness and coalition building," she said. "At the end of the day, there would be no greater victory than having open dialogue."

Ron Dzwonkowski, editor of the Detroit Free Press editorial page, said he met with the paper's cartoonist and editor in chief and decided not to run the cartoons because they didn't make a political point.

However, they did decide to publish links to Web sites where readers could view the images at their own discretion.

"We just think it would needlessly offend people," he said. "We run editorial cartoons that make a point and we don't run editorial cartoons that are mainly intended to provoke a reaction."

Rabiah Ahmed, spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the decision made by most American newspapers to abstain from reprinting the cartoons shows maturity "by not antagonizing the Muslim world and furthering the hostility that we have seen in the last few weeks."

Maggie Lillis can be reached at lillisma@msu.edu.