More outrage over Prophet cartoons

British Muslims were expected to protest at the Danish embassy in London today over the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.

One organiser of the demonstration planned to take place at the building in Sloane Street, west London, said he expected hundreds of Muslims to take part.

The cartoons were first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September. They were then run in several other European newspapers and one in Jordan, which later sacked its editor.

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They have caused fury around the Muslim world for pejoratively caricaturing Muhammad.

Some editors defended the decision to publish the cartoons - one of which showed the prophet declaring that paradise had run out of virgins for suicide bombers - on the grounds of free speech.

In an overnight incident, Palestinian militants threw a pipe bomb at the French cultural centre in Gaza City and gunmen opened fire on the building. Yesterday, a grenade was thrown into the building. No one was hurt in the attacks.

There were expected to be more protests in the Palestinian territories later today. Armed factions last night threatened to kidnap Europeans unless their governments apologised for publishing the cartoons. A German teacher was briefly kidnapped by gunmen in Nablus, while gunmen in Gaza stormed the EU building.

In Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country, protesters broke into the lobby of the building housing the Danish embassy today, pelting part of it with eggs.

Islamic groups, angry because their religious tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry, have called for protests to be held in Iraq and Egypt as Muslims go to Friday prayers.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1701518,00.html

LONDON, February3 , 2006 (IslamOnline.net ) – With British media shying away from further fueling Muslims' fury, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Friday, February3 , called the decision by certain media to reproduce cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed "insulting", "insensitive", "disrespectful" and "wrong".

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

"But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory," he said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong."

Straw also praised the British media for showing "considerable responsibility and sensitivity" in its approach to the issue.

The British press opted against reprinting the pictures, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper last September and have prompted demonstrations by Muslims across the world, particularly after they were reproduced in many European papers this week.

Responsible Media

In editorials, British newspapers debated Friday the conflict between upholding free speech and the uproar any publication of the cartoons would cause.

Even Britain's normally "provocative" newspapers have refused to publish the cartoons that have outraged the Muslim world, prompting some commentators to question whether they have become too politically correct, according to Reuters.

The best-selling tabloid Sun said it had chosen not to print the cartoons out of respect for its Muslim readers while other papers said it was important not to inflame religious tensions in the country.

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http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-02/03/article04.shtml

CAIRO, February3 , 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) has called worldwide Muslim protests Friday, February3 , in protest of the blasphemous cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) published by several European newspapers.

"Let us make Friday, February3 , a day for worldwide Muslim protests over the insulting campaigns against Allah and His Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), all messengers and religious sanctities," IUMS said in a statement e-mailed to IslamOnline.net Thursday, February2 .

"Let all Muslim scholars and preachers in all mosques make their sermons focus on the issue," said the IUMS, headed by prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.

Last September, Denmark's Jyllands-Posten published twelve drawings that included portrayals of a man assumed to be the Prophet wearing a time-bomb shaped turban and showed him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.

Several European newspapers, in the name of freedom of the press, reprinted some or all of the blasphemous cartoons, including the French daily France-Soir and Germany's Die Welt.

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http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-02/03/article01.shtml

CAIRO, February2 , 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by a Danish daily and other European newspapers are risking to trigger acts of violence around the world, officials and commentators warn.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned that the insistence of European newspapers on printing the cartoons risked provoking what he termed as "a terrorist backlash", Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Thursday, February2 .

"The president warned of the near and long term repercussions (of the) campaign of insults against the noble Prophet," Mubarak's spokesman said in a statement in English.

"Irresponsible management of these repercussions will provide further excuses to the forces of radicalism and terrorism," the statement said.

Last September, Denmark's Jyllands-Posten published twelve drawings that included portrayals of a man assumed to be the Prophet wearing a time-bomb shaped turban and showed him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.

Several European newspapers, in the name of freedom of the press, reprinted some or all of the blasphemous cartoons, including the French daily France-Soir and Germany's Die Welt.

Deadline for Apology

On Thursday, two armed Palestinian resistance groups threatened to target Danish, French and Norwegian nationals in the occupied Palestinian territories unless their governments apologize for insulting cartoons.

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http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-02/02/article07.shtml

I have lived in Denmark for over 35 years. During most of this time, I have enjoyed all the great traditions of this lovely country that I used to call my second home. I have always appreciated values which have made Denmark famous all over the globe — democracy, humanism, solidarity with the underprivileged, human rights, respectful dialogue, and non-violent protests. On top of all this, one quality which I have most benefited from, without fear or harassment, is the freedom of expression.

During most of the 25 years of my political work, the process of criticizing the powerful and the mighty, then being criticized in return, went on until 2003 when Ekstra Bladet carried out a deliberate character assassination campaign against me, through front page lies and manipulation of words. It was that horrible experience that made me realize the power of the media and how the noble concept of freedom of expression was being monopolized by some arrogant and unprincipled journalists who had no scruples in destroying an individual's lifetime work.

I could see that an irresponsible section of the media succeeded in creating a poisonous atmosphere in public debates. The Danish People's Party's Islamophobic attitudes and statements, as well as the society's acceptance of racist utterances, were dutifully transmitted under the banner of the freedom of expression. It created conflicts and hatred against most ethnic groups, especially Muslim communities. The more one explained, the more xenophobic response one felt and saw.

I was so disheartened with the situation that I moved many years of struggle for the rights of ethnic minorities in Denmark to elsewhere in the EU. Since that time, I have traveled all over the European continent, giving lectures, speaking at conferences, organizing NGOs, and interacting with EU institutions. This work has come to fruition. International media, EU politicians, educational institutions, European organizations, and the ordinary public now know what is happening in Denmark.

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http://islamonline.net/English/EuropeanMuslims/Community/2006/02/01.SHTML

February 07, 2006


IRAN'S largest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust in response to the publishing in European papers of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
"It will be an international cartoon contest about the Holocaust," said Farid Mortazavi, the graphics editor for Hamshahri newspaper - which is published by Teheran's conservative municipality.

He said the plan was to turn the tables on the assertion that newspapers can print offensive material in the name of freedom of _expression.

"The Western papers printed these sacrilegious cartoons on the pretext of freedom of _expression, so let's see if they mean what they say and also print these Holocaust cartoons," he said.

Iran's fiercely anti-Israeli regime is supportive of so-called Holocaust revisionist historians, who maintain the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as well as other groups during World War II has been either invented or exaggerated.

Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted international anger when he dismissed the systematic slaughter by the Nazis of mainland Europe's Jews as a "myth" used to justify the creation of Israel.

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http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18066746-1702,00.html?from=rss

" IRAN'S largest selling newspaper announced today it was holding a contest on cartoons of the Holocaust"

Once again demonstrating that "anti-Zionism" turns out, far too many times, to simply be a guise for antisemitism.

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