HiPhish: This has nothing to do with political correctness, but with common courtesy and respect. You know that it is forbidden in Islam to depict Mohammed and that it upsets people, and that's precisely why you're doing it. It's like the bully kid who will keep tormenting the nerd but never leave visible marks so he can always hide behind the teacher. At least until the nerd kid gets fed up with the shit and strikes back. The person to blame is not the bully, it's the teacher who kept protecting the bully.
Here is the deal: immigrants, muslims, jews, orthodox christians, buddhists, they are all good enough for western Europeans to clean up their shit, but when they also want to be themselves they have to "integrate" (i.e. assimilate). You think all the muslims would be glad to come over to clean up after you but leave their religion and culture behind? Just recently in Germany politicians have been trying to force immigrants by law to speak German at home. Of course there is no way they could actually enforce that but just the fact that such a law was being considered is abhorrent. Especially when actual experts who know their stuff always encourage parents to speak their native language at home and let children pick up proper German in kindergarten or at school.
I'm not saying one should give in to every little demand for political correctness. I would defend every academic's right to use depictions of Mohammed for scientific purpose. But this was just pure provocation. You cannot shit on people and expect them to be grateful to you for shitting on them. There is a proverb in German that goes something like "they way you make your bed is the way you lie" and these men have been making their bed for years.
You have the right to express your opinion. And I have the right to think that your opinion is despicable.
To say that guys at Charlie Hebdo "had it coming" is despicable. Because it's basically saying that drawing a picture justifies to be killed. As far as I know, Charlie Hebdo never killed anybody with their pencils, never called anybody to kill anybody else.
What you fail to understand is that they were criticizing intolerance and extremism, not Islam. They criticized as violently the christian extremists, jewish extremists, etc...
Because it is all about freedom of speech. If you start to say "yes, freedom of speech is good, but there are some topics you should not talk about", you basically negate freedom of speech.
To be honest, I didn't agree with many things Charlie Hebdo published these last years. I think they were trying too hard, that often it missed the point. But never, never, I thought that "they had it coming".