Political magazine, The Liberal has followed the lead of The Spectator in publishing one of the cartoons at the centre of the Muhammed carttons controversy… and then withdrawing it.

In an editorial accompanying the cartoons, the magazine’s editor, Ben Ramm wrote a strong defence of freedom of speech.

[The Liberal] will not be coerced into self-censorship by the threat of violence from those who use a platform of free speech to call for the destruction of the very system that enfranchises them.

We are not militant secularists or atheists, but as democrats we believe that everyone should have the right and opportunity to explore their creativity and the creativity of others in the public sphere, and lament censorship in all its forms.

The Liberal - a publication first launched in protest at the strictures on freedom of expression - will not collude in the downfall of a tolerant, open-minded and pluralistic philosophy, and we lament, as WH Auden did in 1938, that: ‘You talked of Liberty, but were not just; and now your enemies have called your bluff; for in your city, Only the man behind the rifle had free-will’.

After senior police officers from Scotland Yard warned the magazine that its staff could not be guaranteed protection from possible protests, the cartoon was pulled from the Liberal’s website (which appears to be down at the moment) and replaced by a large white square with the word “censored” placed over it.

The Spectator pulled the cartoon last week. Publisher Andrew Neill ordered the cartoon be taken down after it was uploaded without the consent of the magazine’s acting editor, Stuart Reid.

French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, has doubled it’s print run after publishing a cartoon row special edition on Wednesday, featuring all 12 of the original cartoons plus several new ones including - on its front page - a crying prophet burying his face in his hands and saying “it’s too hard to be loved by fools.”

Malaysia’s Sarawak Tribune has been indefinately shut down by the government for reprinting one of the cartoons.

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