U.S. Says Cartoons of Prophet Mohammed Offensive

February 03, 2006

(MASNET & News Agencies) Friday, February 03, 2006  www.masnet.org

The U.S., in calling cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed (saw) offensive, said with freedom of expression comes responsibility.

The United States blasted the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as unacceptable incitement to religious or ethnic hatred.

 

"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims," State Department spokesman Justin Higgins said when queried about the furor sparked by the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish newspaper, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

 

"We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression, but it must be coupled with press responsibility," Higgins told AFP.

 

"Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices."

 

The cartoons have caused an international furor, with protests in many Muslim nations and from Muslim political leaders.

 

While many European newspapers have turned the publication into a free speech debate, no major U.S. newspaper has published the cartoons.

 

Editors at several U.S. news organizations told AFP they were covering the escalating row, but had decided not to reprint or air them on television out of respect for their readers or viewers.

European media responded to the criticism against the original Danish newspaper that printed the caricatures by republishing the offensive images themselves.

State Department: Cartoons Depicting Muhammad Offensive

February 4, 2006
The U.S. State Department has condemned the decision of newspapers in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe for publishing cartoon drawings depicting the prophet Muhammad, something that is offensive to Muslims.

State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus told reporters, 'Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices.'

Meanwhile, thousands of angry Muslims protested the cartoons this afternoon after meeting as mosques for Friday prayers. Protests were held in Turkey, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. At many of the protests, the Danish flag and the flags of other countries that published the political cartoons were burned.

The caricatures were originally published in Denmark in September. They have since been reprinted in newspapers in Norway, Germany, France and even Jordan. One particularly controversial sketch depicted the prophet Muhammad wearing a turban that was shaped like a bomb.

Islamic law forbids depiction's of Muhammad and other major religious figures even positive ones to prevent idolatry. Even positive depictions are not considered acceptable.

Some of the protests bordered on violent. In a mosque in Ramallah inside the Palestinian territories, protesters shouted, 'Bin Laden our beloved, Denmark must be blown up.'

In Nablus, Hassan Sharaf, an imam at a local mosque told worshippers at his sermon 'If they want a war of religions, we are ready.'

British Foreign Minister Jack Straw was also critical of newspapers that published the drawings. For now, the anger on the street throughout the Muslim world remains high, something that extremists, jihadists and radicals will be certain to exploit.

U.S. Newspapers Decline to Publish 'Muhammad' Cartoons

By Joe Strupp  www.editorandpublisher.com

Published: February 03, 2006 3:50 PM ET

NEW YORK As a collection of controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad circulates online and through some European publications, prompting numerous acts of violence abroad, nearly all U.S. newspapers have chosen not to publish the cartoons.

Although most American papers have covered the issue, with many running Page One stories, most contend the cartoons are too offensive to run, and can be properly reported through descriptions. While some have linked to the images on the Web, others are considering publishing one or more of them next week. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer has complained that The Associated Press should at least distribute the images and allow members papers to make the call.

"They wouldn't meet our standards for what we publish in the paper," said Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, which ran a front-page story on the issue Friday, but has not published the cartoons. "We have standards about language, religious sensitivity, racial sensitivity and general good taste."

Downie, who said the images also had not been placed on the Post Web site, compared the decision to similar choices not to run offensive photos of dead bodies or offensive language. "We described them," he said of such images. "Just like in the case of covering the hurricanes in New Orleans or terrorist attacks in Iraq. We will describe horrific scenes."

At USA Today, deputy foreign editor Jim Michaels offered a similar explanation. "At this point, I'm not sure there would be a point to it," he said about publishing the cartoons. "We have described them, but I am not sure running it would advance the story." Although he acknowledged that the cartoons have news value, he said the offensive nature overshadows that.

"It has been made clear that it is offensive," Michaels said when asked if the paper was afraid of sparking violence or other kinds of backlash. "I don't know if fear is the right word. But we came down on the side that we could serve readers well without a depiction that is offensive."

The Los Angeles Times sent this statement to E&P this afternoon: "Our newsroom and op-ed page editors, independently of each other, determined that the caricatures could be deemed offensive to some readers and the there were effective ways to cover the controversy without running the images themselves."

The cartoons, which include one of the Muslim prophet wearing a turban fashioned into a bomb, have been reprinted in papers in Norway, France, Germany and Jordan after first running in a Danish paper last September. The drawings were published again recently after some Muslims decried them as insulting to their prophet, AP reported, adding that Dutch-language newspapers in Belgium and two Italian "right-wing" papers reprinted the drawings Friday.

Islamic law, according to most clerics' interpretations of the Quran, forbids depictions of Muhammad and other major religious figures -- even positive images.

Tens of thousands of angry Muslims marched through Palestinian cities, burning the Danish flag and calling for vengeance Friday against European countries where the caricatures were published. In Washington, the State Department criticized the drawings, calling them "offensive to the beliefs of Muslims," and two Italian right-wing papers reprinted the drawings Friday.

Still, most American newspapers are not publishing the cartoons, sticking mostly to the view that they constitute offensive images. "You want to make sure that you are sensitive to the cultural sensitivities," said Mike Days, editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, which may run the images next week, but remains cautious. "I think you want to do it in a way that makes sense. I am not so sure the average American understands what the controversy is about, the use of the images of Muhammad."

Days said the paper might run the cartoons along with comments from experts in Muslim law so that the reasons behind the controversy are clear. It appears the New York Sun is the only American daily to run the images, according to The Washington Times.

Several newspapers, such as the Philadelphia Inquirer, have either placed the cartoons on a Web page or linked to a Web site that has them. The Inquirer, which has not run the images in print or on its site, has a Web link to a Belgium news page where the cartoons can be seen.

"We are taking it on a day-by-day basis, depending on the story," said Anne Gordon, Inquirer managing editor. "We have run an image of someone looking at a paper with the cartoon. We feel strongly that if the story takes another turn, we are prepared to publish."

Gordon criticized the Associated Press for not distributed images of the cartoons to member newspapers. Although Gordon understands the concerns about sensitivity, she said AP should allow each paper to make up its own mind.

"It is not AP's role to withhold information from news cooperative members," Gordon said. "They are a co-op and we believe they overstepped their bounds to independently withhold the cartoon. It is not their decision to make independently."

Kathleen Carroll, AP executive editor, said the news cooperative has long withheld images it deemed offensive, such as photos and video of beheadings. "We have a very longstanding policy of not distributing material that is found to be offensive," she said, adding that the Inquirer was the only newspaper she knew of that had specifically requested the images from AP. "These images have not met that standard."

But Carroll also agreed with some other editors who said the cartoons did not add to the news coverage in a major way. "If people want to find them, they are easily found," she said.

Doug Clifton, editor of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, agreed that the offensive nature precluded running the cartoons. "It has become a part of great angst and I don't see any reason to run it, you can just describe it," he said of the cartoon images. "I don't see a need to insert ourselves in that fight."

Clifton recalled his time at the Charlotte [N.C.] Observer years ago, when the paper ran an image of a controversial piece of artwork, in which a crucifix was placed in a glass of urine. "You knew you would get an outpouring of anger," he recalled. "If I thought there were very good editorial reasons for running it, we'd run it. But I don't think there are."

But Clifton said his paper will likely place a link to the images from another site when it runs an editorial on the issue Saturday or Sunday. "They will have the option to see it if they choose," he said about the Web readers. "The [print] newspaper reaches a much, much broader audience."
Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.

Publishing those cartoons was a mistake
Zsofia Szilagyi International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2006

BUDAPEST The Western news media is unlikely to heed the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, and the European politicians who have condemned the provocative nature of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which have provoked rage in the Muslim world. But it does need to engage in serious debate about its preferred role in mediating between cultures. This should start with the admission that publishing and republishing the cartoons was a grave mistake.

Of course, the Danish and Norwegian newspapers that originally published the cartoons had no intention of setting off mass demonstrations, diplomatic rows and economic boycotts of their products in the Middle East. They simply wanted to make a statement about the extensive self-censorship that has developed within news media and artistic circles since the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in 2004.

But when making a point about self-censorship and press freedom, newspapers should have considered the cartoons' potential effects on Europe's growing anti-Islam sentiments. Why make a negative point about Islam in an environment where Islam is already getting extensive negative press through the coverage of hostage-takings, bombings and terrorist groups?

On Monday, the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten issued a statement regretting the offense the cartoons had caused to Muslims around the world, but continued to insist that their publication was justified under freedom of speech principles. To show solidarity, several European newspapers republished the cartoons, some of them urging tough action in defense of press freedom.

Newspaper editors should have been aware, however, that in a world of global information flow there is an insurmountable contradiction between traditional free speech values and public discussion about Islam.

In our networked world, existing societal and political tensions can be inflamed instantly through the transfer of messages from one cultural context to another. Media messages, films and art works cannot be addressed to a specific cultural group - traditional borders of culture and nation no longer exist.

Whether we like it or not, now we all effectively live next door to one another. This raises the stakes in the century-old debate on how to strike a balance between individual and collective press freedom rights.

The central question in this debate is as simple as it is difficult. What is more important for the democratic advancement of a society - to ensure the freedom of expression of all its citizens (within the limits marked by law) or to protect the collective interests of society?

Both these goals cannot be fully accomplished at the same time, and the two dominant philosophies of the press - the libertarian and the social responsibility theories - have come up with very different definitions of the media's main mandate.

The former hails individual freedoms, even to the detriment of the quality of media output, while the latter places more emphasis on the media's responsibility in leading an informed, high-quality discussion, with due respect for minority rights.

Backers of the social responsibility theory now have a new powerful argument against the libertarians - that once messages are out in public, they develop a life of their own and become subject to multiple interpretations, and often manipulation that serves political agendas.

There is no doubt that freedom of speech is an essential foundation of any democracy. But when newspapers insist on this right, they have to understand that they do not - alone - create the context and lifespan of their messages.

Freedom of speech has never been a static value, and the responsibilities of the press evolve with every new social and political development around the world - requiring the limits of media output to be subjected to constant review.

The press needs to serve the ever-evolving public interest, and it needs to do so by focusing on responsibility, and not solely on freedom.

(Zsofia Szilagyi is a Budapest-based political analyst and director of the Human Rights Film Foundation.)
 

Spanish El Pais Publishes the 'Caricatures'
By Anadolu News Agency (aa), Madrid
Published: Friday, February 03, 2006
zaman.com

The Prominent Spanish daily El Pais has published the upsetting caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed on its front page; the caricatures were earlier published by the Danish newspaper, Jyylands-Posten in January.

El Pais editors have made no announcement about the decision to run the cartoon on front page.

A Norwegian daily, following in the footsteps of the Danes, also published the same insulting caricatures which triggered strong reactions throughout the Islamic World.

Despite protests, this week a number of newspapers in France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and Hungary also published the same cartoons on the grounds of "freedom of expression".
 

Cartoons unify angry Muslims
By Ian Fisher The New York Times
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2006

GAZA Tens of thousands of Palestinians, divided by recent elections, marched in angry unity on Friday against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that they consider blasphemous.

Muslims took to the streets in numbers here in Gaza City, Jerusalem, Nablus and Ramallah, as well as in Britain, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. They called for boycotts of European goods and burnt the flag of Denmark, where the cartoons first appeared.

While the huge rally here in Gaza was peaceful - and many leaders spoke against violence - some of the oratory was not.

"We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible," a preacher at the Omari mosque here told worshipers during Friday prayers, according to wire service reports. Other demonstrators called for severing the hands of the cartoonists who drew the pictures, which they consider an attack on Muhammad and Islam.

The cartoons have outraged Muslims, although many Europeans have defended their publication under the right to free speech. One cartoon depicts Muhammad, the founder of Islam, with a turban in the shape of a bomb.

Since being published in Denmark in September, they have been reprinted in Germany, France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland, as well as in Jordan.

They also were televised in Britain. Editors at the papers in France and Jordan were fired afterward.

In France, where rioting broke out last year among its sizable Muslim population, President Jacques Chirac released a statement Friday defending free speech but also appealing "to all to show the greatest spirit of responsibility, of respect and of good measure to avoid anything that could hurt other people's beliefs."

Here in Gaza, which has been split since the radical Islamic group Hamas won a surprise victory in last week's parliamentary elections, the issue has played out in local politics over the last two days.

On Friday, during one of the largest demonstrations here in recent years, Hamas supporters carrying their green banners marched side-by-side with those carrying the yellow banners of Fatah, which was beaten badly in the elections after decades of running Palestinians' affairs. With them were supporters of other factions, including Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP.

While factional fighting is common, and has flared between Hamas and Fatah since the election, the rally on Friday was quiet with almost no guns in sight.

"Even after these elections, the biggest concern is that we are an Islamic society," said Salah Hashish, 42, an Islamic judge and Hamas supporter, who was driving his car with his wife and six children in the protest. "This is a new phase in the war against our religion."

A Hamas spokesman and new legislator, Mushir al-Masri, addressed the huge crowd outside the parliamentary building, seizing on the issue of unity over the cartoons. He said Hamas would seek to duplicate that unity when its government officially takes office.

"Hamas will be merciful to everyone," he said, calling for the various factions to join Hamas in a new government. "Merciful to Fatah. Merciful to PFLP. Merciful to Islamic Jihad."

Masri, like many other leaders here, condemned any violent retaliation for the cartoons. On Thursday, two armed groups swarmed the office of the European Union here in Gaza, while another group threatened citizens of countries where the cartoons were published.

"Those who threaten, this is not the real Islam," an imam, Walid El Amudi, told worshipers at the Western Mosque in a refugee camp here. "We should show mercy and beauty."

A pamphlet released by gunmen at the EU office threatened harm to churches - and Hamas leaders, showing how their role has changed since the elections, quickly and publicly reacted to calm fears of Gaza's small Christian minority of 3,000 people. On Thursday, a top Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, visited the only Catholic church in Gaza to condemn any threats against Christians.

"He said he is protecting us not because he is Hamas," said the Reverend Manuel Musallam of the Holy Family Church, who said he has had long and friendly relations with Hamas. "He is protecting Christians and our institutions as the state of Palestine and as a government."

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and a top leader of the defeated Fatah, arrived in Gaza late Friday to begin initial talks with Hamas about forming a new government. He said he would not begin those meetings until Saturday.

Hamas also seemed to be making moves toward Israel. In an article published on Friday in a Palestinian newspaper, Khaled Mashal, the top Hamas political leader, who lives in Syria, said that Hamas would never recognize Israel's right to exist but it was prepared to discuss a long-term truce.

"If you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, then we will be ready to negotiate with you over the conditions of such a truce," he wrote.

Previous Hamas statements about a truce included, among other demands, the requirement that Israel first pull back to its 1967 borders.

In a moment of particular tension on all sides, at least two homemade rockets were fired from northern Gaza into an Israeli kibbutz on Friday, seriously wounding a 7-month-old baby, the Israeli military reported.

Three others were slightly wounded when one of the rockets hit a house on the outskirts of Kibbutz Karmia, about eight kilometers, or five miles, north of Gaza.

The army reported that it fired artillery back into Gaza. Islamic Jihad later claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meanwhile, in Nablus, the army reported, two Palestinian men were arrested while trying to smuggle two explosive suicide belts into Israel.

Each of the belts was packed with about seven kilograms, or 15 pounds, of explosives.

No group has claimed responsibility for the effort.

Hezbollah stages attack

Hezbollah guerrillas attacked an Israeli military position along a disputed part of the south Lebanon border on Friday and the Israelis swiftly responded with airstrikes on suspected Hezbollah sites, The Associated Press reported from Beirut, citing Lebanese security officials.

Hezbollah said it was retaliating for the death on Wednesday of a 15-year-old boy. Hezbollah added that it attacked the same Israeli position that had fired on the boy.

A Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said his group's attack Friday was a message to Israel that "the resistance was, still is and will always be there to defend the dignity and blood of its people."

The Israeli Army confirmed that Hezbollah fired a barrage of rockets at an Israeli military position in Shebaa Farms.

It said there were no immediate reports of injuries.
 

Temperatures Rise Over Cartoons Mocking Muhammad

By CRAIG S. SMITH and IAN FISHER

February 3, 2006 New York Times
PARIS, Feb. 2 — An international dispute over European newspaper cartoons deemed blasphemous by some Muslims gained momentum on Thursday when gunmen threatened the European Union offices in Gaza and more European papers pointedly published the drawings as an affirmation of freedom of speech.

In Gaza, masked gunmen swarmed the European Union offices on Thursday to protest the cartoons, and there were threats to foreigners from European countries where the cartoons have been reprinted. The gunmen stayed about 45 minutes.

A newly elected legislator from Hamas, the radical Islamic group that swept the Palestinian elections last week, said large rallies were planned in Gaza in the next few days to protest the cartoons, which depict the Prophet Muhammad in an unflattering light. Merely publishing the image of Muhammad is regarded as blasphemous by many Muslims.

"We are angry — very, very, very angry," said the legislator, Jamila al-Shanty. "No one can say a bad word about our prophet."

The conflict is the latest manifestation of growing tensions between Europe and the Muslim world as the Continent struggles to absorb a fast-expanding Muslim population whose customs and values are often at odds with Europe's secular societies. Islam is Europe's fastest growing religion and is now the second largest religion in most European countries. Racial and religious discrimination against Muslims in Europe's weakest economies adds to the strains.

The trouble began in September in Denmark, when the daily Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons lampooning intolerance among Muslims and links to terrorism. A Norwegian magazine published the cartoons again last month, and the issue erupted this week after diplomatic efforts failed to resolve demands by several angry Arab countries that the publications be punished.

The cartoons include one depicting Muhammad with a bomb in place of a turban on his head and another showing him on a cloud in heaven telling an approaching line of smoking suicide bombers, "Stop, stop, we ran out of virgins!"

They have since been reprinted in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Hungary. The BBC broadcast them on Thursday.

[On Friday, 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage inside the lobby of the Jakarta building housing the Danish Embassy, unable to get past security to the embassy on the 25th floor, Reuters reported. They tossed rotten eggs and made fiery speeches calling on their government to sever diplomatic ties with Denmark and evict its ambassador. The protesters dispersed after an hour. There were no arrests.]

Most European commentators concede that the cartoons were in poor taste but argue that conservative Muslims must learn to accept Western standards of free speech and the pluralism that those standards protect.

Several accused Muslims of a double standard, noting that media in several Arab countries continue to broadcast or publish references to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a notorious early 20th-century anti-Semitic hoax that presented itself as the Jews' master plan to rule the world.

Many Muslims say the Danish cartoons reinforce a dangerous confusion between Islam and the Islamist terrorism that nearly all Muslims abhor. Dalil Boubakeur, head of France's Muslim Council, called the caricatures a new sign of Europe's growing "Islamophobia."

Saudi Arabia and Syria recalled their ambassadors from Denmark, while the Danish government summoned other foreign envoys in Copenhagen to talks on Friday over the issue, having already explained that it does not control the press.

Jyllands-Posten has received two bomb threats in the past few days, despite having apologized for any hurt feelings about the drawings.

Thursday morning, about a dozen gunmen appeared at the European Union offices in Gaza, firing automatic weapons and spray-painting a warning on the outside gate. The men handed out a pamphlet warning Denmark, Norway and France that they had 48 hours to apologize.

The office, staffed then only by Palestinians, reportedly received a warning that the gunmen were coming, and was quickly closed.

In Nablus, on the West Bank, two masked gunmen kidnapped a German from a hotel, thinking he was French or Danish, Agence France-Presse reported. They turned him over to the police once they realized their mistake.

Leaders of Fatah and Hamas said they did not endorse harming any foreigners in Gaza. All the same, the threat emptied hotels there of Europeans, most of them journalists.

France Soir, the only French daily to reprint the cartoons, fired its managing editor late Wednesday as "a strong sign of respect for the beliefs and intimate convictions of every individual," according to a statement from its owner, Raymond Lakah, an Egyptian-born French businessman.

In an editorial defending its decision to publish the cartoons, France Soir asked Thursday what would remain of "the freedom to think, speak, even to come and go," if society adhered to all of the prohibitions of the world's various religions. The result, the newspaper said, would be "the Iran of the mullahs, for example."

Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, issued a statement condemning "in the strongest terms" France Soir's publication of the cartoons. "Any insult to the holy prophet (peace be upon him) is an insult to more than one billion Muslims," his statement read.

On Thursday, France's embassy in Algeria, a former colony, issued a statement condemning the publication, saying the French government was "deeply attached to the spirit of tolerance and to respect of religious belief, as we are to the principle of freedom of the press."

"In this light, France condemns all those who hurt individuals in their beliefs or religious convictions," the statement read.

Still, Europeans showed no signs of backing down. Le Monde ran a sketch of a man, presumably Muhammad, made of sentences reading, "I must not draw Muhammad."

Craig S. Smith reported from Paris for this article, and Ian Fisher from Gaza.

Ankara criticizes European papers over cartoons

 Warns may hurt "efforts to bring different cultures closer"

Friday, February 3, 2006

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News www.turkishdailynews.com.tr

  Turkey joined a chorus of critics yesterday against the publication of drawings of Prophet Muhammad in European newspapers, saying reprinting of the cartoons was “unfortunate” and warning that it might hurt efforts to bring different cultures closer.

  “It is unfortunate that those cartoons have been published -- first in Denmark, then in Norway and again after quite some time in other European countries,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Namık Tan told reporters at a weekly press conference. “The press also should act with moderation instead of fanning the issue.”

  Tan also responded to questions on rising tension over Iran's nuclear program and said Ankara shared international concerns over Tehran's resumption of research and development activities in the nuclear field.

  “We do not disregard the fact that Iran should engage in full and transparent cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), take additional confidence-building measures to prove that its nuclear program is exclusively designed for peaceful purposes and resume negotiations with the EU trio,” he also said.

  Iran was one of the main issues on the agenda of visiting French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy. As a neighboring country, Turkey's role in conveying the international community's messages to Iran is important Douste-Blazy said after talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He, nevertheless, strongly urged the international community to display a firm and united stance against Iran's nuclear ambitions.  

© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc. www.turkishdailynews.com.tr

Anger Growing in Europe Over Controversial Cartoon Images

By Lisa Bryant  www.voanews.com
Paris 03 February 2006

Several more European newspapers have added to a growing controversy over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed by reprinting the caricatures of the Muslim prophet Friday. Anger over the images is not only growing in the Muslim world, but in Europe as well.

France's leftist Liberation newspaper joined others in Belgium and Italy Friday by reprinting the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first surfaced in a Danish newspaper last September. Media around Europe this week have decided to republish the images in the name of free speech.

But their decision has sparked uproar in the Muslim world - which continued to grow on Friday.

In Iraq, thousands of demonstrators protested against the cartoons following Friday prayer services. Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric joined other Muslim leaders in denouncing the cartoons. Similar protests erupted in the Palestinian territories, where an angry mob burned Danish flags in Nablus. Palestinian militants also lobbed a home-made bomb at the French cultural center in Gaza. Nobody was injured. The violence has prompted some Europeans to leave Gaza and the West Bank.

Demonstrations also took place in Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan Friday. Muslim politicians have also expressed their anger at the images, but in more diplomatic tones.

The United States has also denounced the cartoons as an unacceptable incitement to religious or ethnic hatred. State Department spokesman Justin Higgins said the "cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims."

The controversy has spread to Europe as well. In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw criticized the decision of a number of European publications to reprint the cartoons.

"I believe the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong," he said.

Mr. Straw praised the British media for showing what he called "considerable responsibility," and refraining from reprinting the cartoons. But BBC television briefly broadcast them on Thursday.

In France, President Jaques Chirac balanced the right of free speech with the need to respect the values of others. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin offered a similar reaction in remarks, Friday.

Mr. de Villepin said his country was founded on democracy and liberty. But he said respect is also necessary - and a concern for not needlessly doing harm particularly, when it came to religious convictions.

Like their counterparts elsewhere, a number of religious leaders in Europe have also denounced the reprinting of the cartoons.

Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, condemned acts and even words of violence from Muslims in reaction to the cartoons. But he also told British radio Friday that newspapers should have exercised better judgment.

"This is a situation that extremists will be looking to exploit and it is important that this row is defused and the way forward is for these newspapers to recognize the hurt they have caused and say so plainly," he said.

And in France, the Union of Islamic Organizations said it would press charges against the French newspapers that have published the images. French Catholic as well as Jewish leaders joined Muslims in criticizing the reprinting of the cartoons.

France's Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk told France Info radio that while he did not believe in either Christian or Muslim prophets, it would never occur to him to make fun of them. "Our societies need to learn respect," he said. But Rabbi Sitruk also said violence and threats in reaction to the cartoons cannot be justified either.

Protests Over Muhammad Cartoons Escalate

By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press
February 3, 2006|

Outrage over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad escalated in the Arab and Islamic world Thursday, with Palestinian gunmen briefly kidnapping a German citizen and protesters in Pakistan chanting "death to France" and "death to Denmark."

Palestinian militants surrounded European Union headquarters in Gaza, and gunmen burst into several hotels and apartments in the West Bank in search of foreigners to take hostage.

The protests spread to Indonesia on Friday, with Islamic hardliners barging into a building housing the Danish Embassy and burning the European country's flag. The Indonesian government had earlier condemned the drawings, as did Afghanistan.

In Iraq, Islamic leaders urged worshippers to stage demonstrations following weekly prayer services Friday. Iran summoned the Austrian ambassador, whose country holds the EU presidency.

The issue opened divisions among European Union governments. Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said EU leaders have a responsibility to "clearly condemn" insults to any religion. But French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said he preferred "an excess of caricature to an excess of censorship."

Sarkozy joined journalists in rallying around the editorial director of France Soir, who was fired by the newspaper's Egyptian owner. France Soir and several other newspapers across Europe reprinted the caricatures this week in a show of support for freedom of expression.

The cartoons were first published in September in a Danish newspaper, touching off anger among Muslims who knew about it. The issue reignited last week after Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark.

The Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, had asked 40 cartoonists to draw images of the prophet. The purpose, its chief editor said, was "to examine whether people would succumb to self-censorship, as we have seen in other cases when it comes to Muslim issues."

Islamic law, based on clerics' interpretation of the Quran and the sayings of the prophet, forbids depictions of the Prophet Muhammad and other major religious figures — even positive ones — to prevent idolatry. Shiite Muslim clerics differ in that they allow images of their greatest saint, Ali, the prophet's son-in-law, though not Muhammad.

Critics say the drawings were particularly insulting because some appeared to ridicule Muhammad. One cartoon showed the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb.

France's Grand Rabbi Joseph Sitruk said he shared Muslim anger.

"We gain nothing by lowering religions, humiliating them and making caricatures of them. It's a lack of honesty and respect," he said. He said freedom of expression "is not a right without limits."

In the Arab world, a Jordanian newspaper, Shihan, took the bold step Thursday of running some of the drawings, saying it wanted to show its readers how offensive the cartoons were but also urging the world's Muslims to "be reasonable." Its editorial noted that Jyllands-Posten had apologized, "but for some reason, nobody in the Muslim world wants to hear the apology."

About 70 hardline Muslims threw eggs at the building housing the Danish Embassy in Indonesia, pushed their way past security guards and briefly milled in the lobby. They then tore down the Danish flag from outside the building and set it on fire. The protesters also briefly stopped outside an Indonesian newspaper that ran one of the cartoons on its Web site Thursday to illustrate a story on the uproar.

The outrage Thursday was most tangible in the Palestinian territories, where Norway and Denmark closed diplomatic offices after masked gunmen threatened to kidnap foreigners in Gaza.

Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank searched several hotels, and a German citizen was briefly kidnapped by gunmen from a hotel in the city of Nablus. Palestinian police freed the German, a teacher, after less than an hour.

Foreign reporters either pulled out of Gaza on Thursday or canceled plans to go to the coastal strip.

Palestinian security officials said they would try to protect foreigners in Gaza. Nineteen foreigners have been kidnapped in Gaza in recent months; all were freed unharmed.

The protests in the Palestinian territories came a week after the Islamic militant group Hamas defeated the ruling Fatah Party in parliamentary elections.

In one unusual twist, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, visited a Gaza church Thursday and promised protection to Christians after Fatah gunmen threatened to target churches as part of their protests. Zahar offered to dispatch gunmen from Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al Qassam Brigades, to guard the church.

"You are our brothers," Zahar told Father Manuel Musallam of the Holy Family Church.

In Gaza City, a dozen gunmen linked to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' defeated Fatah Party surrounded the EU Commission's local office.

One of the militants, flanked by two masked men with assault rifles, said the governments of Germany, France, Norway and Denmark must apologize for the cartoons by Thursday evening. If no apology is issued, the gunmen said they would target citizens of the four countries and shut down media offices, including the French news agency.

"Any citizens of these countries, who are present in Gaza, will put themselves in danger," the gunman said.

About 10 armed Palestinians gathered later at the French cultural center in Gaza City and warned of a "tough response" to any further disparagement of Muhammad.

Only a few dozen foreigners from the targeted countries were in Gaza on Thursday. Many others pulled out in recent months, following a spate of abductions of foreigners by Fatah-linked gunmen.

Danish and French members of an international observer team at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt stayed away from Gaza on Thursday, and instead worked from the group's headquarters in the Israeli town of Ashkelon, said a spokesman, Julio de La Guardia.

Gunhild Forselv, spokeswoman for the international mission in the West Bank town of Hebron, said she was in touch with community leaders and was not concerned for the safety of the 72-member observer force, which includes 21 Norwegians and 11 Danes. "We don't feel threatened," she said.

The EU's election observers were winding down operations, as planned, said Mathias Eick, who is German. He said the Gaza office had been closed and that 49 observers were in Ramallah. "There were security risks even before the election and nothing has changed," he said.

Norway closed its representative office in the West Bank to the public because of the threats, but said the 23-member staff remained on the job.

The Danish Foreign Ministry in Copenhagen said all Danes, except for two diplomats, have left the West Bank and Gaza in recent days. The Danish representative office in the West Bank was to be closed Friday because of the threats, a diplomat said.

In Nablus, gunmen from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent Fatah offshoot, went to four hotels and told staff they must not host Europeans from the targeted countries. The gunmen said they searched two apartments for foreigners to kidnap, but didn't find any. Foreigners now have three days to leave town, the gunmen said in an impromptu news conference after their fruitless search.

Demonstrators protest Denmark over Prophet caricatures
Thursday, February 2, 2006

ANKARA - Turkish Daily News www.turkishdailynews.com.tr

  Protests against caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, first published in a Danish newspaper, spread to Turkey yesterday, as dozens of protesters from a small Islamic party staged a demonstration in front of the Danish Embassy.

  The publication of the caricatures in September in Denmark's largest broadsheet, Jyllands-Posten, including a portrayal of Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban and show him as a wild-eyed, knife-wielding nomad flanked by two women shrouded in black, have sparked fury and protests against Denmark in the Muslim world over the past weeks.

  The caricatures offended Muslims both because of their critical content and because Islam forbids representations of Muhammad out of concern that they could lead to idolatry.

  Tension appeared to be growing yesterday as several newspapers in Europe entered the fray by publishing some or all of the caricatures, including the French daily France-Soir, Germany's Die Welt, Italy's Corriere della Serra and La Stampa and Spain's Catalan daily El Periodico.

  In Ankara, protestors from the Saadet (Happiness or Contentment) Party (SP) chanted pro-Islamic slogans outside the Danish Embassy as about 200 riot police watched.

  Ambassadors of some 11 Muslim countries, including Turkey, issued last year a letter criticizing the publication of the cartoons. Their request for a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was rejected.

  Jyllands-Posten apologized on Monday, saying it regretted offending Muslims.

 

Protests Against Muhammad Caricatures Intensify in Muslim World; U.S. Calls Drawings 'Offensive'

By QASSIM ABDEL-ZAHRA Associated Press Writer

The Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Tens of thousands of angry Muslims marched through Palestinian cities, burning the Danish flag and calling for vengeance Friday against European countries where caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad were published. Angry protests against the drawings spread in the Muslim world.

In Washington, the State Department criticized the drawings, calling them "offensive to the beliefs of Muslims."

In Iraq, thousands demonstrated after Friday mosque prayers, and the country's leading Shiite cleric denounced the drawings. About 4,500 people rallied in the southern city of Basra and burned the Danish flag.

Muslims in Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia demonstrated against the European nations whose papers published the caricatures, including one depicting the Muslim prophet wearing a turban fashioned into a bomb.

The drawings first appeared in a Danish paper in September but were reprinted this week in papers in Norway, France, Germany and even Jordan after Muslims decried the images as insulting.

Dutch-language newspapers in Belgium and two Italian right-wing papers reprinted the drawings on Friday. The Italian papers also ran editorials criticizing European media for giving in to pressure over the drawings.

Islamic law, based on clerics' interpretation of the Quran and the sayings of the prophet, forbids depiction's of the Prophet Muhammad and other major religious figures even positive ones to prevent idolatry. Shiite Muslim clerics differ in that they allow images of their greatest saint, Ali, the prophet's son-in-law, though not Muhammad.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in a meeting with Egypt's ambassador, reiterated his stance that the government cannot interfere with issues concerning the press. On Monday, he said his government could not apologize on behalf of a newspaper, but that he personally "never would have depicted Muhammad, Jesus or any other religious character in a way that could offend other people."

While recognizing the importance of freedom of the press and expression, U.S. State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus said these rights must be coupled with press responsibility.

"Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable," Hironimus said. "We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices."

Early Friday, Palestinian militants threw a bomb at a French cultural center in Gaza City, and many Palestinians began boycotting European goods, especially those from Denmark.

"Whoever defames our prophet should be executed," said Ismail Hassan, 37, a tailor who marched through the pouring rain along with hundreds of others in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"Bin Laden our beloved, Denmark must be blown up," protesters in Ramallah chanted.

An imam at the Omari Mosque in Gaza City told 9,000 worshippers that those behind them should have their heads cut off.

"If they want a war of religions, we are ready," Hassan Sharaf, an imam in Nablus, said in his sermon.

About 10,000 demonstrators, including gunmen from the Islamic militant group Hamas firing in the air, marched through Gaza City to the Palestinian legislature, where they climbed on the roof, waving green Hamas banners and chanting "Down, Down Denmark!"

Thousands protested in Nablus and Jenin, burning Danish flags and dairy products.

Fearing violence, Israel barred all Palestinians under age 45 from praying at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third holiest site.

Nevertheless, about 100 men chanting Islamic slogans and carrying a green Hamas flag demonstrated outside Jerusalem's Old City on Friday afternoon. The crowd scattered when police on horseback arrived, and some of the protesters threw rocks.

In Iraq, both Shiite and Sunni preachers spoke out against the drawings during Friday prayers, with many calling for a boycott of Danish goods. In Baghdad's Sunni Arab stronghold of Azamiyah, about 600 protesters outside a mosque burned a Danish flag and boxes of Danish cheese.

The country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, decried the drawings but did not call for protests.

"We strongly denounce and condemn this horrific action," he said in a statement posted on his Web site and dated Tuesday.

Al-Sistani, who wields enormous influence over Iraq's majority Shiites, suggested militant Muslims were partly to blame. He referred to "misguided and oppressive" segments of the Muslim community and said their actions "projected a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love and brotherhood."

The drawings were first published in September in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. The issue reignited last week after Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark and many European newspapers reprinted them this week.

The Jyllands-Posten said it had asked cartoonists to draw images of the prophet "to examine whether people would succumb to self-censorship, as we have seen in other cases when it comes to Muslim issues."

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying the caricatures are an attack on "our spiritual values," adding they had damaged efforts to establish an alliance between the Muslim world and Europe. Hundreds of Turks emerging from mosques following Friday prayers staged demonstrations, including one in front of the Danish consulate in Istanbul.

In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, more than 150 hardline Muslims stormed a high-rise building housing the Danish Embassy and tore down and burned the country's white and red flag. The government ordered police to upgrade security at embassies across the capital.

Pakistan's parliament unanimously voted to condemn the drawings as a "vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign" that has "hurt the faith and feelings of Muslims all over the world." About 800 people protested in Islamabad, chanting "Death to Denmark" and "Death to France." Another rally in the southern city of Karachi drew 1,200.

Fundamentalist Muslims protested outside the Danish Embassy in Malaysia, chanting "Long live Islam, destroy our enemies."

In Europe, senior British, French and Italian officials criticized the drawings. Austria, which holds the European Union presidency, expressed concern over the escalating crisis.

"I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.

In London, hundreds of demonstrators converged on Denmark's Embassy and burned the Danish flag. Women wearing headscarves chanted and held banners proclaiming: "Kill the one who insults the Prophet."

Associated Press Writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad, Iraq; Selcan Hacaoglu in Ankara, Turkey; Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul, Turkey; Maria Sanminiatelli in Rome; Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Munir Ahmad in Islamabad, Pakistan; and Irwan Firdaus in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to this report.

Muslim outrage spreads; U.S. calls cartoons 'offensive'
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Outrage over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad erupted in a swell of protests across the Muslim world Friday, with demonstrators demanding revenge against Denmark and death for those they accuse of defaming Islam's holiest figure.

In Iraq, the leading Shiite cleric denounced the drawings first published in a Danish newspaper in September, one of which depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb. But the cleric also suggested militant Muslims were partly to blame for distorting the image of Islam.

Some European newspapers reprinted the caricatures this week, prompting protests Friday in Britain, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Palestinian areas. In Sudan, some even urged al-Qaeda terrorists to target Denmark.

"Strike, strike, Bin Laden," shouted some in a crowd of about 50,000 who filled a Khartoum square.

The U.S. and British governments criticized publication of the caricatures as offensive to Muslims, raising questions about whether the line between free speech and incitement had been crossed.

The Danish government tried to contain the damage. Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller called Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and said the Danish government "cannot accept an assault against Islam," according to Abbas' office.

On Monday, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said his government could not apologize on behalf of a newspaper, but that he personally "never would have depicted Muhammad, Jesus or any other religious character in a way that could offend other people."

Many Muslims consider the Danish government's reaction inadequate.

Clerics in Palestinian areas called in Friday prayers for a boycott of Danish and European goods and the severing of diplomatic ties. Tens of thousands of incensed Muslims marched through Palestinian cities, burning the Danish flag and calling for vengeance.

"Whoever defames our prophet should be executed," said Ismail Hassan, a tailor who marched in the pouring rain with hundreds of other Muslims in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "Bin Laden our beloved, Denmark must be blown up," the protesters chanted.

Foreign diplomats, aid workers and journalists began pulling out of Palestinian areas Thursday because of kidnapping threats against some Europeans.

In Iraq, about 4,500 people protested in the southern city of Basra, burning the Danish flag. Some 600 worshippers stomped on Danish flags before burning them outside Baghdad's Abu Hanifa Mosque, Sunni Islam's holiest shrine in Iraq. Demonstrators also burned Danish journalists in effigy and torched boxes of Danish cheese.

Iraq's leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, condemned the publications as a "horrific action."

But in remarks posted on his website, al-Sistani referred to "misguided and oppressive" segments of the Muslim community whose actions "projected a distorted and dark image of the faith of justice, love and brotherhood."

Islamic law, based on clerics' interpretation of the Quran and the sayings of the prophet, forbids any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad, even positive ones, to prevent idolatry.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw criticized European media for reprinting the caricatures. While free speech should be respected, Straw said "there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory."

The State Department called the drawings "offensive to the beliefs of Muslims" and said the right to freedom of speech must be coupled with press responsibility.

"Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable," State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus said.

In Damascus, Syria, entrances to the Al-Murabit mosque were strewn with Danish, Israeli and American flags so worshippers could trample them as they entered. Banners outside called for a boycott of Danish, European and U.S. products "until Denmark is brought to its knees, regretting this farce of freedom of expression."

Some 1,500 worshippers in Jordan marched in the northeastern city of Zarqa, demanding that Denmark prosecute the cartoonist who drew the caricatures.

Pakistan's parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning the cartoons as a "vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign."

And in Jakarta, Indonesia, more than 150 Muslims stormed a high-rise building housing the Danish Embassy and tore down and burned the country's flag. AP www.usatoday.com

U.S. Condemns Cartoons Depicting Prophet Mohammed

February 3, 2006 4:42 p.m. EST  Yvonne Lee - All Headline News Staff Reporter

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The U.S. government on Friday spoke out against caricatures of Islam's Prophet Mohammed that were published in Europen newspapers.

State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper says, "These cartoons are indeed offensive to the belief of Muslims. We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression, but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable."

Muslims worldwide have been protesting the publication of the cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper. One of them showed the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

Denmark refuses to apologize for the cartoons, and more European newspapers published the caricatures on Friday.

Hundreds of Islamic protestors in Indonesia ransacked the lobby of the Danish embassy in Jakarta.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians rallied in Ramallah and tore up a French flag. They held up signs that said "The assault on the Prophet is an assault on Islam."

Saturday, February 04, 2006

U.S. blasts European newspapers for printing Prophet caricatures

Egypt criticizes denmark's response as inadequate
Compiled by Daily Star staff  www.dailystar.com.lb

The United States on Friday blasted the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad as unacceptable incitement to religious hatred and Egypt criticized Denmark's response to the controversy as inadequate. In the first reaction to the furor sparked by the cartoons, a State Department spokesman said: "These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims." He added: "We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility."

"Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is unacceptable," he added.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with more than 70 ambassadors to detail the government's position and actions in the matter. He reiterated his stance that the government cannot interfere with issues concerning the press.

Egypt's Ambassador to Denmark, Mona Omar Attiyya, said after the meeting that she will urge diplomatic protests against the Scandinavian country to continue.

Attiyya said Denmark's response had not been enough.

"We are at the same square one," Attiyya said, adding that Fogh Rasmussen should have demanded a more forceful apology from the newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, which published the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in September.

Jyllands-Posten did apologize, but said it stands by the decision to publish the drawings as a matter of freedom of speech.

"Any prime minister, any government anywhere in the world would interfere just to ask for a clear apology from the newspaper so we can go to our population and say this newspaper already apologized, there is no reason to continue this," Attiyya said. "I mean, the government of Denmark has to do something about what is happening to appease the whole Muslim world."

The cartoons, which have been reprinted in newspapers in other European countries,   sparked Muslim anger across the Middle East and Asia after Friday prayers as crowds emerging from mosques torched European flags and vowed revenge.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Friday attacked European newspapers for reproducing the cartoons, while praising the British press for showing restraint.

"There is freedom of speech, we all respect that," Straw told a press conference in London with Sudan's visiting foreign minister Lam Akol.

"But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary. It has been insensitive. It has been disrespectful and it has been wrong." 

In Friday's meeting, Fogh Rasmussen urged diplomats to help calm the uproar and said the tense situation is threatening to "grow into a more global problem" as more countries reprint the cartoons.

Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, who also took part in Friday's meeting, said the government had reached out to political and religious leaders and trade associations in the Islamic world but also tried to speak to ordinary people via the news media "in order to explain the government's view." "We have tried to reach the 'Arab street' through interviews on satellite networks and the printed press in the Arab world," Moeller said.

In an interview with the Arab satellite network Al-Arabiyya that aired Thursday evening, Fogh Rasmussen said he was "deeply distressed that many Muslims have seen the drawings in a Danish newspaper as a defamation of the Prophet Mohammad."

Up to 300 hard-line Islamic activists in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta.

Shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), they smashed lamps with bamboo sticks, threw chairs, lobbed rotten eggs and tomatoes and tore up a Danish flag. No one was hurt.

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, hundreds of Palestinians attended a Hamas-organized rally, tearing up a French flag and holding up banners reading: "The assault on the Prophet is an assault on Islam".

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the protests in a television interview.

"I am totally shocked and find it unacceptable that - because there have been caricatures in the West - extremists can burn flags or take fundamentalist or extremist positions which would prove the cartoonists right," he said.

In Bahrain, several thousand protesters marched with banners that read: "Down, down with Denmark", "Down, down with France."

More than 1,000 worshippers at Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque also burnt the Danish flag and carried banners that read "Down with the enemies of Islam."

A Jordanian editor was sacked for reprinting them, despite saying his purpose had been only to show the extent of the Danish insult to Islam. "Oh I ask God to forgive me," Jihad Momani wrote in a public letter of apology.

Jordan's King Abdullah II said that insulting the Prophet was "a crime that cannot be justified under the pretext of freedom of expression," the king said in a statement carried by the official Petra news agency.

A former Vatican foreign minister also criticized the publication of caricatures of religious figures.

Cardinal Achille Silvestrini said in an interview published Friday in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera that Europe should not accept the practice of mocking religious symbols.

"Freedom is a great value, but it must be shared, it can't be unilateral," said Silvestrini, who no longer speaks for the Holy See.

Silvestrini did not advocate censorship, saying instead there should be more "self-censorship." - Agencies

Furor over prophet drawings exposes widening cultural struggle in Europe
 
By Jan M. Olsen www.signonsandiego.com
ASSOCIATED PRESS  12:09 p.m. February 3, 2006
COPENHAGEN, Denmark – The fury over caricatures of Prophet Muhammad published in European papers has exposed the widening cultural divide in Europe, where many Muslims are torn between their faith and the Western values of the countries they live in.

The drawings, including one of the prophet wearing a turban in the form of a bomb, offended Muslims around the world and set off angry protests Friday from London to Asia and in the Arab world.

The caricatures were first published by a Danish newspaper in September. Liberal-minded European editors, intent on making a point about freedom of speech, reprinted the drawings this week.

The U.S. and British governments defended the principle of free speech but criticized publication of the caricatures, raising questions over whether the newspapers may have crossed a line between freedom of speech and incitement.

Summing up the cultural rift between Islam and the West, imam Ahmed Abu Laban told worshippers at Friday prayers in a Copenhagen mosque: “In the West, freedom of speech is sacred; To us, the prophet is sacred.”

The Islamic reaction in Europe has been relatively muted compared to scenes of rage among Palestinians and in countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.

But many here wonder how long the calm can last. There is concern the controversy could further stoke cultural tensions between Europeans and the Muslim minority in their midst, already aggravated by last summer's bombings in London and last fall's riots in France.

Meanwhile, some Western media experts have taken up the cause of the caricatures – responding to Muslim anger by sending out a message about democracy: The right to offend is enshrined in free societies.

Robert Menard, secretary general of Reporters Without Borders, told The Associated Press that he was surprised by the “deafening silence” of the Arab press concerning their own freedom.

“The Arab press often complains about the censorship practiced by their own government, and they were the first to set their own limits. They were unanimous in supporting their governments' appeal to punish the Danish newspaper,” said Menard.

“What we are seeing is that many (Muslims) have no idea how democracy works,” he said.

More than a dozen European newspapers – including Germany's Die Welt and Spain's El Pais – have published the caricatures or their own drawings of the Prophet Muhammad.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw – whose government was forced by parliamentary defeat this week to water down a bill banning incitement to religious hatred – on Friday criticized European media for reprinting the caricatures.

While free speech should be respected, Straw said “there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory.”

The State Department called the drawings “offensive to the beliefs of Muslims” and said the right to freedom of speech must be coupled with press responsibility.

“Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable,” State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus said.

Islamic law forbids depictions of the Prophet Muhammad and other major religious figures – even positive ones – to prevent idolatry, and fundamentalist Muslim groups have been expressing outrage since the drawings were first published by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten.

However, the recent flare-up has forced many mainstream Muslims to weigh their own response to the issue. For many of Europe's Muslims, the controversy is a double blow – to their religious devotion and to their civil beliefs.

“Muslims in Norway feel violated twice in this case – first through the caricatures and then by the Norwegian flag being burned,” Norway's Islamic Council said.

Others said Muslims in the Middle East have taken the wrong tack in their protests.

“I'm not in favor of the boycott against European products. That's an excessive reaction where the innocents pay for the sinners,” said Felix Herrero of the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religion Organizations.

Authorities are worried the controversy will galvanize extreme rightist and anti-immigrant forces in Europe. The radical right-wing Dansk Front Network has called a demonstration for Saturday to protest the burning of Danish flags in the Middle East – the first large-scale plans for a rightist demonstration in the country in years.

“The right extremist forces in Denmark are trying to ... create a conflict situation and contribute to an increased polarization,” Denmark's Security Intelligence Service warned.

Associated Press reporters Doug Mellgren in Oslo, Jim Heintz in Stockholm, Mar Roman in Madrid, Maria Sanminiatelli in Rome and Paul Duke and Zoe Mezin in Paris contributed to this report.

Cartoons Force Danish Muslims to Examine Loyalties

By ALAN COWELL
COPENHAGEN, Feb. 2 — As a Danish citizen of Pakistani descent, a onetime television anchor and now a prominent author married to a Dane, Rushy Rashid has led what could be depicted as a high-profile life.

But, she said, nothing has forced her to define her attitude to fellow Muslims quite so much as Denmark's bitter dispute with much of the Islamic world over a newspaper's decision to print unflattering cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad — a dispute that has spread to many other European countries.

"For the first time I feel I have to stand up as a Muslim," she said in an interview on Thursday, referring to her concern that the voice of Denmark's 200,000 Muslim immigrants — a small minority in a land of 5.4 million — has been monopolized by what she depicted as a minority led by radical imams with ties in the Middle East.

"Up to now I have stood up as a woman, as a journalist, as a writer," she added. "But for the first time I have to stand up and say I don't like what's happening. I don't approve of the fact that one group of Muslims talk for the whole community."

Her sentiments reflected the nuances of immigrant societies across Europe, where the cartoons have produced raw anger among some and more complex feelings among others like Ms. Rashid.

Indeed, for those in the second and third generations of immigrants, the debate seems once again to have evoked the dual tug of parental homelands and adopted places, pitting faith against newer, secular loyalties.

When Palestinians burned the Danish flag in Gaza this week to protest the cartoons, Ms. Rashid said, "I was crying because it really hurt."

She said: "We live in this country. This is where our children will grow up. We have a responsibility for this country."

At the same time, she felt pulled to the argument of those who published the cartoons, that this was an issue of Denmark's vaunted freedom of expression, which has been possibly the most entrenched in Europe. Her support, though, was qualified.

"I will fight in the name of free speech," she said, "but not without respect for the consequences. Even if this freedom of speech is very broad, it is not unlimited. You have limits where your morals come in."

When she saw the cartoons first published here in September and republished in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain on Wednesday, Ms. Rashid, 37, said she asked herself, "Why is it necessary to provoke like this?"

"I have been brought up in the faith of Islam and you don't make pictures of the prophet," she said. "But when you decide to do that, you should show more respect. You cannot make a fool of someone who means much to so many people around the world."

Her remarks reflected a broader soul-searching — and perhaps some second thoughts — in Denmark as protests against the cartoons spread Thursday across the Islamic world, from the Middle East to North Africa, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Indeed, there have been threats of unaccustomed violence, unsettling many in this tranquil outpost of northern Europe, not least Carsten Juste, editor in chief of the newspaper Jyllands-Posten which first published the cartoons.

"If I had known that the lives of Danish soldiers and civilians would be threatened," Mr. Juste said, "if I had known that, as my finger hovered one centimeter above the send button for publishing the drawings, would I have hit it? No. No responsible editor in chief would have done."

Yet, the cartoons have come to be a milestone, for immigrants and their Lutheran hosts alike.

Tim Jensen, a professor of the study of religions at the University of Southern Denmark, said immigration began in the 1960's, was restricted in the 1970's and started up again in the 1980's as crises around the world sent refugees seeking safe havens.

"Denmark has been so remarkably homogeneous in terms of religion that the changes in the past 15 years have been as if they were something much bigger," he said in an interview.

With immigrants from Turkey, Pakistan, the Arab world, Afghanistan, Iran and, most recently, Somalia, he said, "There has been a very marked xenophobia and Islamophobia, not only because of Sept. 11, 2001. That was just the culmination."

Politically, this is shown in the rise of the right-wing Danish People's Party, which holds 13 percent of the seats in Parliament and whose support is vital for the survival of the coalition government.

In one way, Professor Jensen said, the dispute over the cartoons may help Muslims.

"They have managed to prove that they want to be respected," he said. "They don't want to be second-class citizens. They don't want people to say just what they like about Muslims." Indeed, after the publication of the cartoons, there is talk — some of it divisive — of spending public money on a grand new mosque to show Danes' respect for Muslims.

At the Betty Nansen Theater here, a show running since last month titled "The Headscarf Monologues" seeks to explore the experience of 80 Muslim women living in Denmark, distilled into 18 monologues.

One speech, said Anne Marie Helger, one of three actors in the show, reflects the experience of an unidentified Iranian woman who came to Denmark from Tehran to escape religious pressure in the 1980's, only to discover that, in Copenhagen, "she is insulted on the street as an immigrant."

Some monologues, said Vibeka Bjelke, the show's director, discuss anger among non-Muslim immigrants at Muslim counterparts who do not wish to abandon their Islamic roots and traditions in favor of social integration.

"It's a picture of the discussion going on among women," she said. In making the show, she said, "we have all been confronted with prejudices we did not know we had."
New York Times February 4, 2006
>>

February 4, 2006 New York Times

U.S. Says It Also Finds Cartoons of Muhammad Offensive

By JOEL BRINKLEY and IAN FISHER
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The Muslim world erupted in anger on Friday over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in Europe while the Bush administration offered the protesters support, saying of the cartoons, "We find them offensive, and we certainly understand why Muslims would find these images offensive."

Streets in the Palestinian regions and in Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia were filled with demonstrators calling for boycotts of European goods and burning the flag of Denmark, where the cartoons first appeared.

While a huge rally in the Gaza Strip was peaceful — and many leaders warned against violence — some of the oratory was not.

"We will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible," one preacher at Al Omari mosque in Gaza told worshipers during Friday Prayer, according to Reuters. Other demonstrators called for amputating the hands of the cartoonists who drew the pictures.

Many Muslims consider it blasphemy to print any image of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, let alone a cartoon that ridicules him.

The set of a dozen cartoons has outraged Muslims as being provocative and anti-Muslim, while many Europeans have defended their publication under the right to free speech.

One cartoon depicts Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb. Another shows him at the gates of heaven, arms raised, saying to men who seem to be suicide bombers, "Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins." A third has devil's horns emerging from his turban. A fourth shows two women who are entirely veiled, with only their eyes showing, and the prophet standing between them with a strip of black cloth covering his eyes, preventing him from seeing.

Since being published in Denmark in September, they have been reprinted in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Hungary, as well as in Jordan. They are also on the Internet. Editors at the papers in France and Jordan were fired.

The United States has been trying to improve its image in the Arab world, badly damaged by the Iraq war and American support for Israel.

The State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, reading the government's statement on the controversy, said, "Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images," which are routinely published in the Arab press, "as anti-Christian images, or any other religious belief."

Still, the United States defended the right of the Danish and French newspapers to publish the cartoons. "We vigorously defend the right of individuals to express points of view," Mr. McCormack added.

At the United Nations, Secretary General Kofi Annan also criticized the publication of the cartoons, but urged Muslims to forgive the offense and "move on."

"I am distressed and concerned by this whole affair," he said. "I share the distress of the Muslim friends, who feel that the cartoon offends their religion. I also respect the right of freedom of speech. But of course freedom of speech is never absolute. It entails responsibility and judgment."

For the Bush administration, talking about the uproar represented a delicate balancing act. A central tenet of the administration's foreign policy is the promotion of democracy and human rights, including free speech, in countries where they are lacking. But a core mission of its public diplomacy is to emphasize respect for Islam in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Major American newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The Chicago Tribune, did not publish the caricatures. Representatives said the story could be told effectively without publishing images that many would find offensive.

"Readers were well served by a short story without publishing the cartoon," said Robert Christie, a spokesman for Dow Jones & Company, which owns The Wall Street Journal. "We didn't want to publish anything that can be perceived as inflammatory to our readers' culture when it didn't add anything to the story."

In a midafternoon meeting on Friday, editors at The Chicago Tribune discussed the issue but decided against publishing the cartoons. "We can communicate to our readers what this is about without running it," said James O'Shea, the paper's managing editor.

Most television news executives made similar decisions. On Friday CNN ran a disguised version of a cartoon, and on an NBC News program on Thursday, the camera shot depicted only a fragment of the full cartoon. CBS banned the broadcast of the cartoons across the network, said Kelli Edwards, a spokeswoman for CBS News.

Only ABC showed a cartoon in its entirety, lingering over the image for several seconds during Thursday's evening news broadcast and on "Nightline." "We felt you couldn't really explain to the audience what the controversy was without showing what the controversy was," said Jeffrey Schneider, a spokesman.

In France, where rioting broke out last year among its sizable Muslim population, President Jacques Chirac released a statement on Friday defending free speech but also appealing "to all to show the greatest spirit of responsibility, of respect and of good measure to avoid anything that could hurt other people's beliefs."

In Gaza, a pamphlet released by gunmen at the European Union office threatened harm to "churches."

Hamas leaders, showing how their role has changed since their election success last week, quickly and publicly reacted to calm fears of Gaza's small Christian population, only 3,000 people. On Thursday a top Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, visited the only Catholic church in Gaza to condemn any threats against Christians.

"He said he is protecting us not because he is Hamas," said the Rev. Manuel Musallam of the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church, who said he has long and friendly relations with Hamas. "But he is protecting Christians and our institutions as the state of Palestine and as a government."
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Cartoon controversy spreads

Governments across Europe, the Middle East and Asia were reluctantly sucked into the Danish cartoon row on Friday as hundreds of thousands of Muslims took to the streets to protest.

The dispute spread to London for the first time. More than 500 people, led by the extremist group al-Ghuraba, formerly al-Mujahiroun, marched to the Danish embassy in Knightsbridge carrying banners calling on Muslims to "massacre" those who insult Islam and chanting: "Britain, you will pay, 7/7 on its way."

Pakistan and Turkey condemned publication of the satirical drawings of the prophet Muhammad, originally published in a Danish newspaper. Underlining the extent of the international divide over the issue, the German government pointedly defended the right of papers across Europe to publish the cartoons, including four in Germany. But the British government, in an unusual divergence from the rest of Europe on such issues, sided with Pakistan and Turkey.

Fearful of reprisals, Germany and other European countries stepped up security at their embassies across the Middle East. The German move came after gunmen briefly kidnapped a 21-year-old German on Thursday from a hotel in Nablus. Palestinian gunmen threw a pipebomb into a French cultural centre in Gaza City in the early hours of Friday. Later, 300 demonstrators rampaged through the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta.

The cartoons were first published in a Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, in September. The Danish government initially ignored complaints from the country's Muslims, who then took their campaign to the Middle East and Asia.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, made a belated attempt on Friday to end the row by calling in about 70 ambassadors, including those from Muslim-dominated countries. But Mona Omar Attia, the Egyptian ambassador, said she would recommend that diplomatic action against Denmark should continue.

Pakistan's Parliament unanimously passed a resolution on Friday criticising the newspapers publishing the cartoons for conducting a "vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign".

The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was quoted in the Turkish press saying: "Caricatures of prophet Muhammad are an attack against our spiritual values. There should be a limit of freedom of press."

Jack Straw, the British Foreign Ssecretary, denounced the decision to republish the cartoons, saying press freedom carried an obligation not "to be gratuitously inflammatory". Straw, at a press conference in London, said that while he was committed to press freedom, "I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong". He praised the British press, which up to Friday had not published the cartoons, for showing "considerable responsibility and sensitivity".

By contrast, Wolfgang Schauble, the German Home Minister, defended the decision by four German newspapers to publish the cartoons: "Why should the German government apologise? This is an expression of press freedom."

On Saturday a New Zealand newspaper, the Dominion Post, became the first in that country to publish the cartoons. Its editor, Tim Pankhurst, said: "We do not want to be deliberately provocative, but neither should we allow ourselves to be intimidated."

The British Foreign Office's private view is that the decisions to publish elsewhere in Europe verge on Islamophobia. Straw's comments were later echoed by the US government, which described the cartoons as "offensive to the beliefs of Muslims" and criticised the European press. A US state department spokesperson, Janelle Hironimus, said: "Inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner is not acceptable."

Outside the Danish embassy in London, demonstrators burned the Danish flag before ripping it apart. Scuffles broke out at Hyde Park Corner, as marchers clashed with a motorcyclist who called them "extremists". He was protected by police as some demonstrators surrounded him.

Anjem Choudhary, one of the leaders of the demonstration, refused to condemn the threat of another suicide attack in London on the scale of the July 7 bombings as a result of the perceived insult to Islam. "I am not in the business of condoning or condemning," he said. "The fact is that 7/7 was brought upon the people of London and Britain by the foreign policy of Tony Blair. There is no reason why there should not be more suicide bombings in London."

Passersby stopped police officers to ask why the marchers were being allowed to carry banners threatening further suicide attacks in the city. One police officer replied: "Don't worry. We are photographing them."
February 4, 2006  Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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DW staff (jam) | www.dw-world.de | © Deutsche Welle.

Turks in Germany Decry Firestorm Around Mohammed Cartoons

There will likely be no flag burning in Germany

The leader of Germany's Turkish community on criticized Islamic extremists who have urged retaliation against Europeans after newspapers published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

 

"That is pointless," Kenan Kolat said of the threats of violence against Europeans in the Middle East amid the uproar over the caricatures, in an interview with the Internet newspaper Netzeitung.

 

He said that criticism of religion should be tolerated but he also asked the media to take into account the sensitivity of Muslims, who have reacted with indignation since the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten first published caricatures of their prophet in September.

 

"We need a proper discussion on how to treat sensitive issues in the media," Kolat said.

 

In the same article, a leading deputy from the opposition Greens urged Muslims to recognize and defend freedom of expression in Germany.

 

"Muslims should be able to endure satire in the same way that Christians and Jews do," Volker Beck said.

Nadeem Elyas, chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, on Friday appealed to Muslims not to resort to violence. "I call on Muslims to retain their balanced approach," Elyas said. At the same time, Elyas criticized the drawings as being both a provocation and a debasement.

 

Ignited outrage

 

The cartoons -- which include one depicting Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban on his head -- have been reprinted by a dozen publications across Europe.

 

It has provoked a firestorm in the Muslim world, as Islam forbids any likeness of Mohammed.

Extremist Islamic groups such at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have threatened retaliation against citizens from the countries in which the cartoons appeared.
>>

Muslim leaders in Germany seek to calm storm
By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin
Published: February 3 2006 13:21 | Last updated: February 3 2006 13:21

Muslim representatives, journalists and politicians in Germany have sought to calm the waters, appealing to editors’ responsibility in the exercise of the freedom of the press and condemning some of the more extreme reactions to the controversial cartoons.

Die Welt, the conservative daily, reprinted a drawing of Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban on its front page on Wednesday as part of what Roger Köppel, its editor, told the FT was a “journalist’s duty to report the debate.”

Kenan Kolat, chairman of the Turkish community, which makes up the bulk of Germany’s 3.2m Muslims, told the Netzeitung online daily he was “not in agreement with the shape the protest has assumed in some Muslim groups,” singling out death threats as unacceptable.

Other organisations, including the Islamic Council for the Federal Republic of Germany and the moderate Central Council of Muslims, which have all condemned the reprinting of the cartoons, have also rejected incitements to violence.

In an interview with Die Welt published on Friday, Wolfgang Schäuble, the German interior minister, dismissed calls for the government to apologise on behalf of the press, stressing that editors and journalists were sole responsible for their decisions.

“It is the media’s responsibility to deal with the consequences of what it does,” he said. “Government interference would be the first step towards restricting the freedom of the press.”

Michael Konken, head of the DJV journalists’ union, has staged a robust defence of Die Welt and other newspapers that have reprinted the cartoons, saying they were “a necessary contribution to the debate and in no way aimed at hurting religious sensitivities.”

A spokesman for the DJV had caused confusion earlier this week when he said the publications were in breach of the German journalism code of conduct, which bans “written or visual content that could harm religious sensibility.”

Several opposition and majority politicians have also come out in defence of Die Welt, part of the Berlin-based Springer publishing empire. Volker Beck, manager of the Green parliamentary group, said “Muslims must accept criticism and satire just as Christians and Jews do.”

Surprisingly, the most virulent attacks on the publications have come from newspapers themselves. “Provocation is not the right way to address radical Islam,” the centre-right Süddeutsche Zeitung daily wrote in an editorial on Friday. “It prompts precisely the kinds of attacks against which freedom must be defended.”
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Global Muslim outrage gathers pace

By Bertrand Benoit in Berlin and FT Reporters
Financial Times
Updated: 10:11 p.m. ET Feb. 3, 2006
 
Angry protests over newspaper cartoons of the prophet Mohammad continued to spread globally on Friday as Muslim leaders and politicians in Europe expressed mounting concern that the outrage could destabilise the multicultural continent.

In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, protesters stormed the lobby of the Jakarta high-rise building housing the Danish embassy. Other incidents and protests were reported from Pakistan to the Darfur region of Sudan and the Palestinian territories, where European Union observers evacuated Danish and French nationals after gunmen had briefly held a German man in the West Bank on Thursday night.

In London, hundreds of Muslims marched from the Regent's Park mosque, one of the biggest Islamic centres in Europe, to the heavily protected Danish embassy, bearing placards declaring "Behead the one who insults the prophet" and "Free speech go to hell".

The most serious religious clash since the 1989 Salman RushdieThe tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused. affair erupted last September when Denmark's Jyllands-Posten published 12 caricatures of Mohammad, the seventh-century founder of Islam, in protest at what it called "the rejection of modern, secular society" by some Muslims.

The debate only boiled over last month when European newspapers began reprinting the cartoons, considered blasphemous by many Muslims, sparking a fresh wave of protests in the Muslim world, including boycotts of Danish products and the recalling of ambassadors to Copenhagen.

Islamik Trossamfund, a small Danish Muslim organisation, has been accused of throwing petrol on the fire after its leaders toured the Middle-East circulating highly offensive pictures of Muslims that had never appeared in the Danish press.

Jyllands-Posten wrote in a leader article on Friday that regretted underestimating the strength of Muslim reaction over the drawings but declined to apologise for publishing them.

In Europe, the wave of indignation has triggered a debate about the freedom of the press, responsibility and self-censorship at a time of rising tension between Christian majorities and large, and growing, Muslim minorities.

Community leaders, journalists and politicians in Germany yesterday called on editors to show responsibility in the exercise of free speech while condemning the more extreme reactions to the controversial cartoons.

Die Welt, a conservative daily, reprinted a portrait of Mohammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban on its front page this week in what Roger Köppel, editor, told the FT reflected a "journalist's duty to report."

Wolfgang Schäuble, interior minister, rejected calls for the government to apologise on behalf of the press, saying "here in Europe, governments have nothing to say about which paper publishes what."

The debate has assumed a particular resonance in Germany, where racist cartoons were often used by the National-Socialist press to incite hatred of the Jews and cement prejudice in the population ahead of Hitle's rise to power in 1933.

Kenan Kolat, chairman of the Turkish community, which makes up the bulk of Germany's 3.2m Muslims, told the FT: "Any attempt at muzzling the press should be condemned. But editors must also be sensitive in their approach to minorities. There is still a lot of ignorance around about Islam."

Mr Kolat urged all sides not to "play in the hands of extremists". The debate, he said, was "a godsend for Islamists and anti-Muslims everywhere. All should be done to stop the escalation now."

Cebel Kücükkaraca, an academic and head of the Turkish Community in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, said "We must try harder not to give extremists an open flank."

Highlighting the risk of escalation, the German extreme-right Republican party said in a statement yesterday that the outrage marked "the beginning of open war between cultures in Europe," adding: "the door is now open for blackmail by the Mohammedans."

In Paris, president Jacques Chirac met with Dalil Boubakeur, head of the French Muslim Council and rector of the Paris mosque, to discuss the growing outrage. The French government has given mixed messages over the crisis, defending free speech while condemning any provocative content.

Massoud Shadjareh, the head of the British Islamic Human Rights Commission, distanced his organisation from yesterday's London march, which he said had been organised by "extremists". A larger demonstration by mainstream Muslim groups is scheduled for today.

The US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations said yesterday: "Intentionally provocative attacks on Islam should be rejected in the same way that credible media outlets quite rightly decline to publish anti-Semitic materials."

Journalists have come under fire too in parts of the Muslim world. In Jordan, the editor of the Shihan weekly was sacked for reprinting cartoons, while Rakyat Merdeka, an Indonesian tabloid, was forced to remove one of the Danish caricatures from its website yesterday.

"We deplore all the media, including the Indonesian media, that expose (that cartoon)," said Din Syamsuddin, head of Muhammadyah, one of Indonesia's biggest mainstream Islamic groups.

Abdul Rahman al Noaimy, a lawyer and professor from Qatar university, told the FT on a visit to Cairo that he planned to sue each newspaper that had published the cartoons in their respective European countries.

Additional reporting by Shawn Donnan in Jakarta, Chris Conlon in Budapest, Martin Arnold in Paris, Jimmy Burns in London, William Wallis in Cairo, Pavi Munter in Stockholm and Edward alden in WashingtonEnds

Copyright The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
 


Establishment of a Cultural Project by OIC to Introduce Islam
2006-2-2 - 13:25 - CHN

In response to the outrageous act of the Danish media against Islamic values, OIC is to introduce the reality of Islam through establishment of a cultural project.

Tehran, 16 January 2006 (CHN) -- In response to the outrageous act of the Danish media against Islamic values, Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) has announced that it is going to establish a cultural project to introduce the reality of Islam to western countries and to create a real conception of Middle Eastern countries.

According to the closing declaration of the latest session of OIC meeting in the holly city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, OIC announced that all religions must be respected and all nations must respect each other’s beliefs. Furthermore, representatives of the OIC member countries expressed their concern at rising hatred against Islam and Muslims and condemned the recent incident of desecration of the image of the Holy Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in the media of certain countries and stressed the responsibility of all governments to ensure full respect of all religions and religious symbols and the inapplicability of using the freedom of expression as a pretext to defame religions.

OIC has asked all its members and cultural organizations to participate in this cultural project to introduce the real image of Islam and to prevent such unpleasant issues in the future.

Recently, a caricature was published in one of Denmark’s newspapers in which it has insulted Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). This event roused protests in Islamic communities throughout the world and many Islamic associations officially condemned such an outrageous act.

Press/BRUSSELS, Belgium

By CONSTANT BRAND
Associated Press Writer

EU backs Denmark in caricature dispute

JAN. 30 12:31 P.M. ET The European Union backed Denmark Monday in a diplomatic dispute with Muslim countries over Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, saying that any retaliatory boycott of Danish goods would violate world trade rules.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said an EU foreign affairs ministers meeting condemned Saudi Arabia's call to boycott Danish goods and all threats made against Danish, Swedish and Norwegian citizens in recent days.

"They are of the same feelings as we are, a boycott against our merchandise will be against the World Trade Organization rules if they are instigated," Moeller told reporters.

Ministers said in a statement that the EU "rejects any threats by militant factions against EU citizens." Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country holds the EU presidency said the 25-nation bloc had been informed about the threats at Monday's talks. "We strongly reject these threats," said Plassnik. "We have to the core of the matter expressed our feeling of solidarity with our Nordic colleagues."

Stig Moeller said the Danish foreign ministry was putting up a special Web Site in Arabic to explain what he said were misunderstandings about drawings published in a Danish newspaper of Prophet Muhammad. He said reports being spread in some Muslim countries of the Danish government putting up similar posters was not true.

"There are very, very many things that are not correct," said Stig Moeller. "I read ... that the Danish government put up posters against Mohammad. We have not put up any posters concerning Mohammad or against any other people."

The 12 drawings -- published in September by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and republished in a Norwegian paper this month -- included an image of the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet, even respectful ones, out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.

The caricatures has led to a diplomatic row between Denmark and Saudi Arabia, which recalled its ambassador to Denmark last week. Libya closed its embassy in Copenhagen.

On Monday, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson warned Saudi Arabia that the bloc would take action at the WTO if it found that it su