Islam Online
Additional Reporting by Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent
PARIS, February 1, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Adding fuel to the already growing fire, newspapers across Europe, citing press freedom, Wednesday published cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to explain -- and in some cases take sides in -- a raging dispute over the right to lampoon religion.
The caricatures, which have caused anger across the Muslim world since they were published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten last September, were reprinted in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, among other countries, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The media watchdog body Reporters Without Borders said the reaction in the Arab world "betrays a lack of understanding" of press freedom as "an essential accomplishment of democracy."
"All countries in Europe should be behind the Danes and Danish authorities to defend the principle that a newspaper can write what it wishes to ... even if it offends people," its secretary general Robert Menard told AFP.
He said Arab regimes "do not understand there can be a complete separation between what is written in a newspaper and what the Danish government says."
Published last September by the Danish mass-circulation Jyllands-Posten, the 12 cartoons included portrayals of the Prophet wearing a time-bomb shaped turban and showed him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.
Initially passing with little comment, they were later reprinted in a Norwegian magazine, prompting an international uproar and calls for an apology from leading Muslim scholars and politicians alike.
The Danish newspaper apologized for offending Muslims by publishing the cartoons, saying, “These cartoons were not in violation of Danish law but have irrefutably offended many Muslims, and for that we apologize.”
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen expressed alarm Tuesday at the wave of anger in the Muslim world prompted by the caricatures.
"We are up against uncontrollable forces. It will take a huge effort to calm things down," he told Danish media after the offices of the paper which first published the controversial cartoons were evacuated following a bomb scare.
Front-Page
In Berlin, the conservative daily Die Welt reprinted the turban-bomb image on its front page and three other pictures inside.
"The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical," it wrote in an editorial.
"When Syrian television showed drama documentaries in prime time depicting (Jewish) rabbis as cannibals, the imams were quiet."
In Rome, La Stampa published the cartoons Wednesday, as did Corriere della Sera Monday.
In the Netherlands, deputy editor Arie Elshout of Volkskrank daily said his paper had published the pictures in November and again Wednesday to illustrate the debate, and that there had been no negative reaction.
In an editorial Tuesday it branded the outcry a "sordid affair" reflecting badly on countries which did not support Denmark.
Geert Wilders, a lawmaker and outspoken critic of Islam, said he would post the offending picture on his Web site as a show of support for their authors.
Switzerland's Blick newspaper published two of the cartoons Tuesday, while the Tribune de Geneve said it would do so in its next edition Thursday.
Paris daily France Soir said it had decided to reprint them "not from an appetite for gratuitous provocation, but because they constitute the subject of a controversy on a global scale which has done nothing to maintain balance and mutual limits in democracy, respect of religious beliefs and freedom of expression.”
“Now they want an apology from a society characterized with freedom of expression and religion at a time when they deny their peoples the right to free speech.”
It continued: “We will give no heed to their objections and insist on drawing pictures of Muhammad, Jesus and Buddha, which has everything to do with the freedom of expression we do enjoy in our society.”
Punishment
The furor in the Arab and Muslim worlds after the apology is far from being over with Arab interior ministers saying Denmark should punish the newspaper.
"We ask the Danish authorities to take the necessary measures to punish those responsible of this harm and to take action to avoid its repeat," the ministers said in a statement carried by Reuters.
The statement came at the end of two-day meeting in Tunis to discuss ways of strengthening cooperation against terrorism in the region.
Muslim scholars and other opinion leaders in the Muslim world also asked for the newspaper to be punished to avoid the publication of a similarly offensive material in future.
Diplomats said it would be a political blunder for the ministers who are at the forefront of the fight against extremists to avoid the issue of the Danish cartoons and appear unenthusiastic defenders of Prophet Muhammad.
Arab commentators dismissed the argument that Danish traditions of tolerance and respect for press freedoms barred the government from taking action against the newspaper.
"Why do they talk about democracy and freedom of expression just when the issue concerns Islam? If it concerns other religions the facts will change", said Amr Moussa, the Arab League chief, who attended the gathering.
Malaysian Protest
Also an influential Malaysian Muslim organization Wednesday urged the government to protest to Denmark over the caricatures.
The Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia, which claims 100,000 members, also called on Copenhagen to apologize over the 12 cartoons.
"As a Muslim country we do find this kind of thing is insulting our feelings," said Noor Nirwandy Noordin, project coordinator from the group which spearheaded a high-profile boycott of Thai goods over the treatment of its Muslim minority.
"We want the Malaysian government, our prime minister, to send a protest to Denmark," he told AFP.
"Denmark has to send through their embassy a formal apology letter to the Muslim community in Malaysia ... it is necessary for them to apologize to every Muslim country in the world."
An apology will "send a message or signal to other countries to respect other religions," added Noordin.
The Muslim world's two main political bodies -- the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League -- said Sunday, January 29, they were seeking a UN resolution, backed by possible sanctions, to protect religions in response to the furor.
Danish embassies in the Middle East have been the scenes of protests, a Danish flag was burnt by angry Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza and Gulf retailers pulled Danish products off their shelves.
Published February 01, 2006, Islam Online
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2006-02/01/article02.shtml
