Last year, a Spanish court found two cartoonists guilty of offending the royal family by drawing a caricature of the Spanish crown prince having sex with his wife. They were fined €3,000 each.

“I don’t see the world up in arms defending freedom of expression,” my editor told me after listening to the news on the radio.

Throughout this year, nothing substantial happened to defend this cartoonist, condemn the Spanish royal family for trying to muffle the press, or any reprints of the caricature in defense of the paper’s courageous decision to run it. And no Muslim demonstrations were held to condemn double standards.

A year later, the world is actually up in arms to defend another cartoonist, this time in France. Before you hold your breath in anticipation, it isn’t another cartoon attacking Islam; it’s a satirical editorial about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s son, which espoused what critics called “anti-Semitic” sentiments.