The chilling effect of fear of violent Muslim retaliation continues in the previously staid world of publishing where preemptive self censorship now dominates. Recalling the international riots triggered by some mild Danish cartoons that mocked Islam and its inventor, Mohammed, Yale University Press refused to print the cartoons in a book about the cartoons.

Not confined to the U.S., fear of future of a future deadly Muslim backlash also prevails in Europe. Sarah Marsh of Reuters reports on the German publisher Droste's cancellation of a book about an Islamic honor killing because, as the company's head forthrightly explained

"After the Mohammad cartoons, one knows that one can't publish sentences or drawings that defame Islam without expecting a security risk," said Felix Droste, head of Droste publishers.

Droste then offered this lame excuse for the company's cowardly actions.

Droste said that while it had a long history of releasing controversial books and was already planning to publish another murder mystery on the topic of honor killing, it would not publish books insulting peoples' faith -- whether Islam, Christianity or other religions.

"We do not want to offend religious groups," spokeswoman Nora Tichy said.

Offending those who believe in freedom of speech and press is apparently just dandy. And just out of curiosity, how many books offensive to Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, animists and others has it turned down?

hat tip: Andrew Apostolou