Radio Hosts Armstrong And Getty Call For Mocking Of Prophet Muhammad
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - Radio talk show hosts understand controversy. Many of them try to create it every day. But one activist says comments by a local radio host went too far and they could be dangerous.
A call for an onslaught of anti-Muhammad videos is what listeners woke up to on "Armstrong and Getty" on Monday morning.
"I'm horribly disappointed there aren't thousands of Muhammad-mocking videos on YouTube right now," Jack Armstrong said during Monday's show, which airs in Sacramento on 650-AM KSTE.
"So many people that are good with the computer make an anti-Muhammad ad," he said. Post it to Al-Jazeera. We need to swamp them with ads until they just gotta grow up or something."
And the hosts didn't stop there.
"It would seem to be the only response to this is to flood YouTube, flood the world with cartoons and movies and songs saying bad things about Muhammad until they finally grow up and realize, 'Eh, what difference does it make? That's, like, just your opinion, man.'"
Those comments were in response to scenes in the Middle East of violence spilling into the streets. Another outbreak happened is Pakistan on Friday - the latest ripple in a wave that's crossed continents, all over an American-made video portraying the prophet Muhammad as a pedophile.
Basim Elkarra is with the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"The folks that did find out in the community have been just trying to ignore it," he said of the radio hosts' comments.
While he defends the hosts' right to free speech... he's exercising that right himself.
"I sent Armstrong and Getty an email today," he said. "I'm just telling them when they want to address these issues, we're open for a dialogue."
The radio hosts' bosses over at Clear Channel aren't saying a thing about this incident. But Tuesday morning, a day after the comments, a "best of" show aired in place of new programming.
