Bloomberg News
Denmark's biggest newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, rejected criticism from the country's leading business group that it is responsible for a breakdown in trade relations between Denmark and parts of the Middle East.
The director of the Confederation of Danish Industries, Hans Skov Christensen, wrote an open letter saying that Jyllands-Posten should be made to answer for the "obvious consequences" of its decision last September to run 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, including one cartoon showing him wearing a bomb in place of a turban.
Islamic religious leaders and media in Saudi Arabia called for a boycott of Danish goods in protest against the cartoons.
The Saudi Arabian ambassador to Denmark, Mohammed Ibrahim Al-Hejailan, was recalled to Riyadh on Jan. 26.
Jyllands-Posten "cannot and will not" apologize for the cartoons, its editor in chief, Carsten Juste, said in comments published on the Aarhus-based newspaper's Web site today.
"The situation is uncomfortable, but the fact that there are now also economic interests involved doesn't change anything. If we were to apologize for having published the cartoons, we'd be letting down generations who have fought for freedom of speech."
Published January 29, 2006, AZ Central
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0129denmark0129.html
