All this past week, both fans of free speech and those of cartoons with talking feces as characters have been wondering how the creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, would handle the death threats they received from Islamic extremists after last week’s episode. Would they continue to show Muhammed (bear costume or no) or would they bow to pressure. When the second episode in the two-part series aired last night, another big question was raised. Muhammed’s appearance was even more censored than last week, his name was now bleeped out in addition to him being covered up by a big black box. This left fans wondering whether this move was made by the creators or if, like an episode from 2006, executives at Comedy Central had added the bleeps against the artists’ will. A post made on the show’s official site this morning now makes it clear that the network was responsible.

In 2005, the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard sparked world-wide outrage with a simple piece of media: the now-infamous political cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb as a turban. A reviled figure in much of the Muslim world, Westergaard was attacked Friday night by a 28-year-old Somali man carrying a knife and ax. This morning, the assailant was charged with two counts of attempted murder on the Danish artist, according to the New York Times.