Muslims protest cartoons of Muhammad

Protest in the Muslim world over cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad is escalating after newspapers in France, Germany, Spain and Italy reprinted the cartoons.

The newspapers claimed they reprinted the cartoons, originally shown in a Danish newspaper, as a defence of freedom of speech and the right to publish.
But outrage from Muslim leaders in France and Germany and the threat of economic boycotts in the Middle East have prompted European leaders to ask for restraint from the press.

"We are ... a society that likes tolerance and I think it has to be in our understanding that we have a sensitivity for other religious communities," said European Union External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, according to Reuters.

The managing editor of France Soir, a Paris daily, has been fired over his decision to run the cartoons on Wednesday. The owner of France Soir, Raymond Lakah, said he fired the editor to show "a strong sign of respect for the beliefs and intimate convictions of every individual."

Islamic tradition prohibits any depiction of the prophet, even a respectful one, on the grounds that it could promote idolatry.

The caricatures include drawings of Muhammad wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise was running short of virgins for suicide bombers.

Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first printed the cartoons last September, has apologized for any hurt it might have caused, but not for publishing the cartoons. A reprint of the cartoons in a Norwegian paper in January sparked a fresh wave of protest.

Arab newspapers denounced the drawings as blasphemous and called for sanctions against the newspapers that had published them. "Freedom of expression does not justify insulting people's feelings and beliefs," said Saudi Arabia's Al-Riyad.

Syria and Saudi Arabia have recalled their ambassadors to Denmark and there have been boycotts of Danish products throughout the Middle East.

The dispute continues to rage in the European press, with newspapers that used the images standing by their right to publish. Le Temps in Geneva and Budapest's Magyar Hirlap ran some of the offending cartoons on Thursday, bringing more European nations into the dispute.

France Soir defended its right to publish in an editorial, saying religious freedom gives people the right to practise their faith, but not to impose the rules of their religion on all of society.

Berlin's Die Welt argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire.

Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said the reaction in the Muslim world "betrays a lack of understanding" of how essential a free press is to democracy. The call for European governments to use sanctions against newspapers shows a misunderstanding of the relationship between the press and the state, it said.

Initially Muslim anger had centred on Denmark, but now the dispute encompasses most of Europe. On Thursday, Palestinian gunmen briefly surrounded European Union offices in the Gaza Strip demanding an apology for the cartoons.

Denmark has warned its citizens in Muslim countries to be cautious after militant groups made threats.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the issue had gone beyond a row between Copenhagen and the Muslim world and now centred on Western free speech versus taboos in Islam. Islam is the second religion in many European countries.

"We are talking about an issue with fundamental significance to how democracies work," Rasmussen told the Copenhagen daily Politiken. "One can safely say it is now an even bigger issue."

Copyright ©2006 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation - All Rights Reserved

Michael McCafferty comments:

Muslimns have to learn that in democracy there is free speech and freedom of the press and that they have no excuse for violence because they are upset over cartoons of Muhammad.

If Muslims wish to live in western democracies they must accept freedom of the press !