Muslim protests over cartoons spread
Indonesians demonstrate outside Danish Embassy - Feb. 3, 2006
JAKARTA, Indonesia (CNN) -- About 200
Muslims demonstrated Friday outside the Danish Embassy to protest
caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed originally published in a Danish
newspaper, Danish Ambassador Neils Erik Andersen told CNN.
About
a dozen of the demonstrators, members of Defenders of Islam, or FPI,
broke through security and, once on the embassy grounds, demanded to
meet with Andersen, who agreed to do so.
During the meeting,
Andersen reiterated an apology made earlier by Jyllands-Posten, the
Danish newspaper, whose publication last September of the caricature
offended some Muslims. Afterward, he described the meeting as
productive.
The issue emerged last fall, when the illustrator of
a Danish book on the life of Mohammed demanded to remain anonymous,
since the cover depicted the prophet.
In an article last
September about the issue, Jyllands-Posten published 12 of the
drawings. Other newspapers picked up the story and followed suit,
including France's Le Monde and Italy's La Stampa.
On Wednesday,
two European newspapers -- Die Welt in Berlin and France Soir in Paris
-- also reprinted them, characterizing the publication as a matter of
free speech.
Outrage has spread widely in the Muslim world, with Morocco and Tunisia confiscating copies of France Soir.
Demonstrations were slated to be held Friday outside the Danish Embassy in London.
On
Thursday, Palestinian gunmen shut down the European Union's office in
Gaza City, demanding an apology for the cartoons' publication in
Europe. (Full story)
Masked
members of the militant groups Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Al Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinians' former ruling
party, Fatah, fired bullets into the air, and a man read the group's
demands. (Watch masked gunmen demand an apology -- 2:48)
Depicting the picture of the prophet is prohibited under Sharia law.
The
publication of the cartoons in Shihan, a weekly tabloid newspaper in
Jordan, resulted in the firing of its editor. Shihan published the
drawings with an editorial urging Muslims to "be reasonable." It is
illegal in Jordan for a publication to defile religion and disturb
civil order.
A spokesman for the paper said editor Jihad Momeni, a former member of the Jordanian Senate, had been fired.
In
his editorial, Momeni asked, "Who offends Islam more? A foreigner who
endeavors to draw the prophet as described by his followers in the
world, or a Muslim with an explosive belt who commits suicide in a
wedding party in Amman or elsewhere?"
A suicide bombing last
November killed 57 people at a wedding party in Amman, which is the
capital of Jordan. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for that
attack.
Some supermarkets in Jordan pulled Danish butter and
dairy products from their shelves, and several firms in Jordan with
foreign-sounding names bought newspaper ads declaring they aren't
Danish.
French editor fired
The
French newspaper Le Monde reported that, after the cartoons were
published in France Soir, its publisher, Raymond Lakah, fired France
Soir's director, Jacques Lefranc. (Full story)
Le
Monde described Lakah as "Franco-Egyptian" and said he had issued a
statement saying he had fired Lefranc in "a strong sign of respect to
the intimate convictions and beliefs of each individual."
The
statement continued: "We present our regrets to the Muslim community
and to all people who have been shocked or made indignant by this
publication."
Le Monde said that distribution of the edition of France Soir had been blocked in Morocco and copies were seized in Tunisia.
'Incomprehension' over firing
The
journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders voiced
"incomprehension" at the decision by France Soir's owner to fire his
editor.
The group said a statement by Lakah referring to the need
to "respect the beliefs and convictions of each individual" is
"particularly inopportune at a time that the newspaper is being
censored in Tunisia and Morocco and French citizens are being
threatened as a result of the publication of the cartoons," the press
freedom organization said.
Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of
Jyllands-Posten, told CNN that the ongoing violence in the Middle East
has "very little to do with the cartoons we've printed."
He said
the initial uproar "came right after ... radical imams from Denmark
traveled to the Middle East, deliberately lying about these cartoons,
and deliberately lying about the context."
The imams "were saying
that my newspaper was owned by the Danish government, they were saying
that we are preparing a new version of the Koran, a new translation of
the Koran in Denmark, censoring the word of Allah, which is a grave sin
according to Islam," Rose said. "This is a lie."
Still, he
apologized for the publication of the cartoons, saying the newspaper
did not mean to offend Muslims and said the cartoons had to be
understood in context.
Another paper publishes cartoons
Both
France Soir and Die Welt said they were publishing the cartoons in
solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, which they said has the right to
publish the cartoons in a free society with a free press. France Soir
published the cartoons under the headline, "Yes, one has the right to
caricature God."
On Friday, the French newspaper Liberation
published two of the cartoons, on page 3. At the French television
network TF1, the main newscast broadcast at least one of the cartoons
in a full-screen graphic, and the BBC has also been showing them.
CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.
The Arabic-language news channel Al-Jazeera broadcast a report with the cartoons heavily distorted.
One of the images showed Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse.
CNN's Kathy Quiano contributed to this story.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5181082
Caricatures of Muhammad: From Insult to Crisis
by Shibley Telhami
All Things Considered, January 31, 2006 ·
A Danish newspaper has apologized for publishing caricatures of the
prophet Muhammad amid protest in the Arab Muslim world. Four months
ago, the newspaper ran 12 cartoons, including one showing Muhammad
wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Ever since then, protests against Denmark
have been building in the Arab Muslim world.
Commentator Shibley
Telhami says the protests reflect Arab suspicion and mistrust of the
West -- and also how easily an insult can escalate into a crisis.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://religiousfreaks.com/UserFiles/Image/muhammed.caricatures/burn.french.flag.jpg&imgrefurl=http://religiousfreaks.com/muslim-response-to-muhammad-cartoons/&h=344&w=271&sz=79&hl=en&start=21&um=1&usg=__b-TFppavVzVLpggQpPciUUGCWbw=&tbnid=lil_US97j1ZIVM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfebruary%2B3,%2B2006%2B-%2Bmuslims%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DNMuslim Response To Muhammad Cartoons
UPDATE Feb 13, 2006: HAMSHAHRI HOLOCAUST CARTOONS HERE
The response to the twelve Muhammad cartoons
from Muslims worldwide has been massive, relentless, and utterly
shameful. Countless incidents of vandalism and arson shed light on the
barbaric course that the religion of Islam has taken. Many Muslims have
voiced their outrage at my site. My question to you is simple, "why
don’t you express outrage at the ever increasing number of fanatics in
your religion?" The militant Muslims in Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Syria,
and elsewhere are far more insulting and dangerous to Islam than any
cartoon about Mohammad.
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