COLUMBIA, S.C. _ Two student newspapers at Clemson University have reprinted controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, upsetting Muslim students on campus and drawing a rebuke from the school's president.

    The papers, the conservative Tiger Town Observer and the liberal Clemson Forum, are not funded by the school, but the Observer has an on-campus office.

    In an open letter e-mailed to Clemson students and staff, President James Barker said he was disappointed that the papers printed the cartoons, which were first published in a Danish newspaper and have sparked deadly riots around the world.

    "While I wholeheartedly support freedom of the press and the right of student media to operate independently of administrative oversight and censorship, student journalists must understand that with rights come responsibilities, including the responsibility to be respectful of different faiths and beliefs," Barker wrote. "One of Clemson's goals is to strengthen our sense of community and increase diversity. The publication of these cartoons does nothing to further that goal.''

    The letter said the cartoons were published in both papers Friday. Mehmet Babacan, a student from Turkey who is president of Clemson's Muslim Student Association, called the cartoons "disturbing.''

    "I just can't understand, what's their aim?'' he said. "Certainly it's not going to help our community at all to understand each other.''

    Babacan said the cartoons attack one of Islam's holiest symbols.

    "It's just nonsense and meaningless for us,'' he said. "I'm just feeling depressed.''

    He said the group planned to issue a formal statement next week.

    Muslims believe any image of Muhammad is sacrilegious. One of six cartoons published in the Observer depicts the prophet with a bomb in his turban.

    Andrew Davis, editor of the Tiger Town Observer, said the staff agreed unanimously to publish the cartoons because the mainstream media's refusal to print them meant most of the public had not seen the drawings at the center of the controversy.

    "We feel it is our duty as journalists to disseminate information to the public,'' said Davis, a senior political science major from Surfside Beach. "The public is not aware of what these images look like.''

    He said it was a coincidence that the two papers published the images on the same day. Davis said both papers publish monthly. "This is our first issue since this whole fiasco has begun,'' he said.

    Davis said he understood why Babacan was upset.

    "I can understand that he's upset by these. After all, these cartoons are an attack against his religion,'' he said. "However our aim is to inform the public of what's going on over there.''

    The Clemson Forum, in an editor's note at the end of a column accompanying the cartoon, said it did not condone "religious intolerance or discrimination.''

    "While the Forum understands the current severity of this issue, we have merely reproduced these cartoons within an editorial to give individuals an alternate point of view,'' said the column, which was written by a student identified only as "Peter.''

    Bill Rogers, executive director of the South Carolina Press Association, said he's aware of only one other newspaper in the state that published any of the cartoons: the Columbia City Paper, a seven-month-old, locally owned weekly.

    That paper's publisher, Paul Blake, said he felt the paper had a responsibility to print one of the cartoons to illustrate a column on the topic.

    "It was not meant to get any attention,'' Blake said. "As the alternative press, it's our responsibility to print the things that the mainstream press will not.''

    Rogers was not surprised that student newspapers chose to publish the images. "Student newspapers are a little bit freer to do things like this, a little freer and more into challenging the status quo,'' he said.