South Park Terrorist Turns Out to Be Real Deal

Remember back when Matt and Trey were threatened over their new South Park episode about Muhammad by some little putz and subsequently were highly censored by Comedy Central—spawning a sea of angry fans, as well as pissing off Matt and Trey?

It was not a happy time for us South Park fans. I remember hissing and seething, unable to see either episode fully uncensored—perusing the Internet trying to find the original episode and failing. People who’d recorded the episode on DVR had it, but since I also failed to set up the recording (that won’t happen again, now that I’ve experienced this disappointment), I didn’t have that, either.

Posters here at South Park Talk were also upset. msarko posed the question, “What’s the point of maintaining a relationship with a network that doesn’t respect their art?” Another poster responded, “This is not acceptable. Freedom of speech should not be dropped from one episode to another and I am extremely pissed at comedy central for giving in to pointless threats.”

So am I—though it does turn out that such pointless threats may not have been so pointless after all. Apparently the guy who sent in the threats—a twenty-year-old from Virginia by the name of Zachary Chesser—was really supporting a terrorist group after all. He was arrested last Wednesday for providing the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab with material support. Though these charges aren’t connected with the death threats he issued against Matt, Trey, and Comedy Central, they do indicate that Chesser may be walking his talk when it comes to his violent rhetoric.

This twerp actually took his baby with him to Somalia as a cover when he tried to join a terrorist group in the country. If he’s willing to put his own infant child at risk, I’m sure he’s willing to do much more—including carry out any threats he might issue.

All of these revelations might be disturbing, but in my mind—and in the minds of many other fans as well as non-fans of South Park—they still don’t constitute an excuse for censorship. When we cave in to one idiot’s demands, we’ll have to start caving in to all of them; before you know it, harmless grannies who don’t want to hear the word “damn” on television are going to start penning fake terrorist letters, knowing that their efforts will get results.

Matt and Trey had some kind of great speech planned for Kyle that was censored at the end of episode 201, too. It didn’t even contain Muhammad’s name—but it, too, was completely bleeped out. I really hope that we’ll get to hear that speech sometime—maybe on the DVD?—but I sincerely doubt it. It’s too bad; the speech was about censorship, fear, and intimidation, and it would have been timely—and, given that it was from my favorite little cartoon Jewish boy, wise.