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Offending Cartoons Reprinted
European Dailies Defend Right to Publish Prophet
Caricatures
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, February 2, 2006; A17
PARIS, Feb. 1 -- Newspapers across Europe reprinted cartoons Wednesday
ridiculing the prophet Muhammad, saying they wanted to support the right of
Danish and Norwegian papers to publish the caricatures, which have ignited
fury among Muslims throughout the world.
Germany's Die Welt daily newspaper published one of the drawings on its
front page and said the "right to blasphemy" is one of the freedoms of
democracy.
Muslims pray outside of Copenhagen's city hall as tensions
mounted after the publication of anti-Muslim cartoons.
(By John Mcconnico -- Associated Press)
"The appearance of 12 drawings in the Danish press provoked emotions in the
Muslim world because the representation of Allah and his prophet is
forbidden," the French afternoon newspaper France Soir wrote. "But because no
religious dogma can impose itself on a democratic and secular society, France
Soir is publishing the incriminating caricatures."
The newspaper's front-page headline declared: "Yes, We Have the Right to
Caricature God," accompanied by a new cartoon depicting religious figures from
the Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Christian faiths on a cloud. The Christian is
shown saying, "Don't complain, Muhammad, we've all been caricatured here."
France Soir paired its story and caricatures with a column by French
theologian Sohaib Bencheikh, who admonished: "One must find the borders
between freedom of expression and freedom to protect the sacred." He added,
"Unfortunately, the West has lost its sense of the sacred."
Italy's La Stampa newspaper and the daily El Periodico in Spain also
published some of the drawings Wednesday.
Islam considers any artistic renditions of Muhammad blasphemous. In many
Muslim nations, English-language newspapers are so reverential that any
mention of his name is followed by the letters PBUH, for "peace be upon him."
Outrage over the appearance of the cartoons in Danish and Norwegian
newspapers -- one of which depicted Muhammad as an apparent terrorist with a
bomb in his turban -- has ignited demonstrations from Turkey to the Gaza
Strip, prompted a boycott of Danish products throughout the Middle East, and
spurred calls for a religious decree to attack Danish troops serving in Iraq.
The newspapers also have riled Muslim populations in their home countries.
Many of Western Europe's estimated 15 million Muslims feel alienated by
cultural barriers and job discrimination and stigmatized by anti-immigration
movements and anti-terrorism laws that they believe unfairly target members of
their faith.
Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, said
the French newspaper's decision to publish the offensive cartoons was an act
of "real provocation towards the millions of Muslims living in France."
The conservative Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, which first published the
caricatures in September, this week apologized for offending Muslims but
defended its right to publish the cartoons. Two offices of the newspaper were
evacuated this week after receiving bomb threats.
The controversy began when the newspaper asked 12 artists to draw
caricatures of Muhammad in response to an author who complained that he could
not find an artist willing, under his own name, to illustrate a book about the
prophet.
Three weeks ago, a small, evangelical Christian newspaper in Norway,
Magazinet, reprinted the cartoons.
Government ministers from 17 Arab nations have asked the Danish government
to punish the Jyllands-Posten newspaper for what they called an "offense to
Islam."
The French-based Carrefour grocery chain pulled Danish products from its
shelves in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar in response to a
boycott the company said was costing it $2.4 million a day, about 8 percent of
its global revenue.
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The essays are Extracted
from Washington Post, published on February 02, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/01/AR2006020102234.html
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Apologise for what? On
Caricatures of Mohammad
Maryam Namazie
The repeated calls for an unreserved apology for
publishing 'offensive' and 'insulting' caricatures of Mohammad reminds me of
the apologies that should be made to me and many like me.
I'd like the offended Islamists � from the Islamic Republic of Iran to
Islamic Jihad to the Saudi government... � to apologise; not for their
backward and medieval superstitions and religious mumbo jumbo but for their
imposition of these beliefs in the form of states, Islamic laws and the
political Islamic movement. If any of them want to apologise for the mass
murder of countless human beings in Iran and the Middle East, and more
recently in Europe, for veiling and sexual apartheid, for stoning,
amputations, decapitations, Islamic terrorism and for the recent brutal
attack on Tehran bus workers and so on and so forth, just email me direct.
On a more serious note, though, of course no apology is due them.
As if.
If the Jyllands-Posten has naively apologised it is only because the
Islamists demands are always followed with bomb scares and death threats -
even after the apology has been made!
Jyllands-Posten should know better. Poking fun at or critiquing beliefs and
religions are not only permissible but a necessity given the havoc religion
is wreaking today.
In defence of free speech, secularism, and 21 century values, I too am
reprinting the caricatures here in line with the daily France-Soir which
carried the headline "Yes, We Have the Right to Caricature God"...
I urge everyone to do the same.
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