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Seattle Weekly Cartoonist Goes Into Hiding After Fatwa

september 15, 2010 05:18 pm

Molly Norris, a Seattle-based cartoonist whose work regularly appeared in the Seattle Weekly, has gone into hiding because of threats against her life. Earlier this year, Norris caused a firestorm by cheekily declaring May 20, "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," and drawing a Mohammed cartoon herself.

According to Seattle Weekly editor Mark Fefer:

On the insistence of top security specialists at the FBI, she is, as they put it, "going ghost": moving, changing her name, and essentially wiping away her identity. She will no longer be publishing cartoons in our paper or in City Arts magazine, where she has been a regular contributor. She is, in effect, being put into a witness-protection program—except, as she notes, without the government picking up the tab.

In July, the NY Daily News reported that a Yemeni-American cleric had placed Norris on an "execution hitlist."

View full article at Seattle Weekly