Minsk City Court in Belarus have imprisoned Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, an editor at the now-shuttered independent weekly Zgoda (Consensus) newspaper, for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006. Sdvizhkov was charged with “incitement of religious hatred” and sentenced to three years in a high-security prison.

Sdvizhkov was arrested on November 18 and his trial began on January 11 in Minsk, according to local news reports. He was tried behind closed doors.

Aleksei Korol, Zgoda’s former editor-in-chief, told CPJ he was shocked by the sentence given to his former colleague. The court ruling is disproportionate to his actions, said Korol, adding that Zgoda’s staff apologized to the Belarusian Muslim community at the time.

Belarusian Islamic leader Ismail Voronovich said he wanted authorities to reprimand the journalist, not jail him. I thought that this case was closed and the newspaper was back working.

Sdvizhkov reprinted the controversial cartoons in Zgoda in February 2006, prompting authorities to begin an investigation into possible “incitement of religious hatred”; a month later, the paper was shuttered. Sdvizhkov fled Belarus to avoid imprisonment and returned last November to attend his father’s funeral. While in the country, the Belarusian Security Service arrested him.

Denmark's national library is to risk re-opening an international political storm by housing the cartoon images of the prophet Muhammad that provoked violent convulsions throughout the Islamic world two years ago.

The royal library in Copenhagen has declared the drawings to be of historic value and is trying to acquire them for "preservation purposes".

The library, widely acknowledged as the most significant in Scandinavia, has agreed to take possession of the caricatures on behalf of the museum of Danish cartoon art, a spokesman told the Art Newspaper.

Negotiations with the artists behind the 12 cartoons are said to be at an advanced stage. Several have agreed to donate the works for nothing but the museum may have to buy some of them. One has already been sold to a private buyer.

Jytte Kjaergaard, a spokeswoman for the library, said they were unlikely to be displayed publicly and insisted the decision was not intended to be controversial: We are not interested in an exhibition, we are interested in them being kept safe for future generations because they have created history in Denmark. This is the obvious place to keep them because we have all the security measures in place.

It would be very difficult for a private person to come in and sabotage them because to see them for research purposes you will need a letter of consent from your university professor. They will be treated like any rare book.

The library does not expect to have to pay large sums for the cartoons, after Denmark's main auction houses declined to handle any proposed sale.

However, another Danish museum has expressed interest in including the cartoons in an exhibition about freedom of expression. Ervin Nielsen, the director of the Danish media museum in Odense, said: If the library acquires them, we would like to show them together with media reports about the publication and the protests against it.

He said the feature would also cover the violent aftermath of the cartoon controversy. As we would document the incidents around the publication and not simply show the works, I do not expect strong reactions. We do not want to provoke, but inform.

Kasem Said Ahmad, spokesman for the Danish Muslim Society, which headed the original campaign against the cartoons, called the library's decision a "provocation" but said his organisation would ignore it as part of its new strategy. We will not be holding any demonstrations as we got nothing from the Danish courts when we tried to sue the newspapers. We will ignore all provocations in future.

The "Danish Cartoon Riots" were a shock to the world. Many newspapers republished the cartoons in defense of freedom of speech and to inform the public. Others decided it was unnecessary and inappropriate. In Canada, the Western Standard magazine chose to do the former. Whether the decision was appropriate or not, it was entirely in its right to do so.

However, a Saudi Imam was so enraged that he called the police to arrest the publisher of the magazine. His 911 call was dismissed. The Imam then turned to the Alberta Human Rights Commission and argued that Ezra Levant, the publisher of the Western Standard, had undermined his human rights. In Canada, where separation of Church and State and the individual's freedom of speech are cherished, one would think this Imam would have been laughed out of court.

However, the state-funded Commission has taken upon itself to be the arbiter of what is proper and politically correct speech, and the scarier part is that they have the power to punish individuals for speech they consider "illegal". Of course, certain hate-speech laws are necessary, for instance, speech that calls for murder, incites a riot, or speech that harmfully libels an individual should be monitored. Levant, however, did none of these things.

The Commission decided that the mere fact that the Imam was offended is grounds for forcing a private citizen, who was practicing his democratic right, to defend himself before their joke-of-a-court.

Thanks to Levant's video postings of his interrogation on YouTube, which have received about half a million hits, his case has received considerable media attention. The absurdity of this kangaroo court becomes clear when his unabashed interrogator has the audacity to question him on his political motives in publishing the cartoons, to which he unapologetically answers "whatever you find offensive".

Maybe if this was an isolated event it would seem like an absurdly embarrassing, but insignificant episode in Canada's proud history of personal liberty. However, the state has also inserted itself between another high-profile Canadian journalist, Mark Steyn, and the public, due to his publication in MacLean's Magazine titled The Future Belongs to Islam.
He too is scheduled for a court date with the Canadian thought police this summer where he
will go before the so-called Canadian Humans Rights Commission.

Among these journalists are many other less known figures whose basic right of free speech is being questioned by thuggish state institutions. Many journalists, inside and outside of Canada, are watching the proceedings with disbelief.

Freedom of speech is not negotiable in Canada and it is not the government's right to decide which religion or creed may or may not be insulted or criticized in public.

Update: Complaint Withdrawn

3rd March 2008

See response from Syed Soharwardy who withdrew his complaint

Denmark’s three main newspapers will take the provocative step today of reprinting a cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammad wearing a turban bomb after the arrest yesterday of three suspected Islamic terrorists for plotting to murder the artist.

The cartoon by Kurt Westergaard was one of 12 depicting the prophet which triggered riots around the world in 2005.

Westergaard was back at work yesterday to draw a self-portrait for today’s editions. It shows him still clutching his pen and a Danish flag, but he is obscured by a dark and bloody cloud featuring Arabic script which declares: “Glorious Koran.”

Muslim leaders in Denmark appealed for calm last night as police interviewed a Danish citizen of Moroccan descent and two Tunisians about plans for the “terror-related killing” of Kurt Westergaard, 73, who said that he expected to live the rest of his life under threat of death.

Westergaard’s image of Muhammad, which he intended to show how Islam was being used by terrorists, was regarded by some Muslims as one of the most offensive of the cartoons published in his Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Unfortunately, the matter shows that there are in Denmark groups of extremists that do not acknowledge and respect the principles on which Danish democracy is built, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, said. In Denmark we have freedom not only to think and talk, but also to draw.

Jyllands-Posten and two other Danish papers, Politikenand Berlingske Tidende, said that they would reprint the original cartoon as part of their news coverage today. Jyllands-Posten posted it on the front page of its website yesterday. This shows that terror is not only despicable, but also at the end powerless, said Toeger Seidenfaden, Politiken’s chief editor.

The Islamic Faith Community, a religious Muslim organisation at the centre of the controversy, condemned the plot and urged that all disagreements should be handled through legitimate channels: We want to appeal to reason in both politicians and the media to not use this miserable example to feed the flames or use it for their own profit. No one in Denmark deserves to live in fear.

The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said that yesterday’s arrests near Aarhus in western Denmark were made after lengthy surveillance. It expected the 40-year-old Danish citizen to be released pending further investigation. The Tunisians would remain detained while deportation proceedings were brought against them.

Update: Solidarity

14th February 2008

It is reported that 17 Danish publications reprinted the turban bomb Mohammed cartoon including the 3 main dailies. This action was to mark the arrest of muslim men arrested for plotting to murder the cartoonist.

Chanting "Death to the cartoonist", dozens of Islamist students burned the Danish flag in southern Pakistan on Thursday after the republication of a caricature of Prophet Mohammad.

In Kuwait, several parliamentarians called for a boycott of Danish goods. The government has to take action against Denmark, said Waleed al-Tabtabai, a member of parliament.

The sons of dogs published drawings that are offensive to the Prophet. Kuwait's deputy prime minister Faisal al-Hajji said the Gulf Arab country would make an official complaint.

There was also a peaceful protest outside the Danish embassy in Tehran where the ambassador was summoned to the Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday to receive a formal protest.

Up to 50 youths from the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, a right-wing anti-government Islamist party, protested in the Pakistan city of Karachi.

Grouped outside the Karachi Press Club, the students held up banners reading We strongly condemn the act of insulting the Prophet by the Denmark Press and Prime Minister of Denmark and the Pope should apologise to the Muslim community.

Hundreds of Danish Muslims have been demonstrating in Copenhagen against the reprinting of a turban bomb cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad they consider offensive.

All major Danish newspapers decided to republish it after Danish intelligence said it had uncovered a plot to kill one of the cartoonists.

Protestors marched in the capital's streets shouting God is Great! and Freedom of speech is like a plague!.

Many carried the black and white flags of Hizb ut-Tahrir, the radical Islamic party that calls for the creation of a caliphate.

Earlier, at Friday prayers, Danish Muslims from many backgrounds expressed frustration that one of the cartoons they find so offensive could have been printed again. Many said they simply could not understand the motive unless it was hatred for Islam. But the overwhelming mood was not so much anger but weary resignation; a sense that they have been through this crisis once before and nothing has been learnt.

See full article from the Scotsman

A man sized talking rabbit appeared on television in Gaza yesterday to denounce Danish newspapers over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that offended Muslims.

The latest in a line of cartoon-inspired characters that take the message of the Hamas Islamist movement to Palestinian children, the actor in the Bugs Bunny-style outfit also railed against "Zionist filth" and Israel's control of Jerusalem.

The show Tomorrow's Pioneers on Hamas's al-Aqsa channel has become a weekend fixture for pre-teens.

The head of the biggest Islamic organization has warned that the reprinting of blasphemous cartoons in Danish newspapers could lead to more confrontations between Muslims and Christians.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said that by reprinting the cartoons we are heading toward a bigger conflict and that shows that both sides will be hostages of their radicals.

The Jeddah-based OIC is the world's largest all-Islamic body, with 57 countries as members:

It is not a way of improving your rights and exercising your freedoms when you use these rights for insulting the most sacred values and symbols of others and inciting hatred, he said: This is a very wrong, provocative path - unacceptable.

Hundreds of people in the Gaza Strip joined a Hamas rally on Friday against newspapers that reprinted the cartoon. On Thursday, Hamas condemned the newspapers and called for those responsible to be put on trial.

Speaking to the crowd in the northern town of Jabaliya, Hamas MP Yussef Sharafi called on the Danish government to "apologize to Muslims for the offence to the prophet".

Hundreds rallied in Pakistan as well, burning an effigy of the Danish premier Friday in protest at the cartoon's reprinting. Chanting Death to the cartoonist, protesters in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and other locations demanded that the Pakistani government cut diplomatic relations with Denmark and boycott Danish goods.

The punishment for blasphemy in Islam is death, Islamic leader Hafiz Hamidullah told a student rally in northwestern Peshawar, where about 500 students demonstrated.

In the port city of Karachi, students staged a rally outside a medical college while another rally by a religious party later burned the effigy of Danish Premier Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Dozens of students from the Jamaat-i-Islami party thrashed a dummy of the cartoonist and then set it ablaze at a demonstration in the central city of Multan, joined by about 150 local traders.

The participants chanted slogans against US President George W. Bush and criticized the government of President Pervez Musharraf for not taking up the issue with Danish authorities.

See full article from Gulf News

Danish Police arrested 50 people after groups of youths set fires to schools, cars and trash bins in a sixth consecutive night of violence - mostly in immigrant neighbourhoods of Danish cities - police officials said on Saturday.

The spate of vandalism started last weekend and some believe it intensified with the reproduction of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers on Wednesday, motivating the publication as a statement for free speech.

Police spokesman Jan Marker said the overnight violence was spread across all of Denmark, with arrests made in Copenhagen, Aarhus, Ringsted, Slagelse and other cities.

See full article from the BBC

Danish MPs have cancelled a trip to Iran after Tehran demanded they apologise for the republication of cartoons deemed offensive to Islam.

Two days before the scheduled trip, Tehran demanded the MPs condemn the cartoon on their arrival in Iran.

A condemnation and apology would help convince the Iranian people that Denmark's authorities had distanced themselves from the action, Iran's parliament said in a letter to Danish MPs.

Nine members of Denmark's foreign affairs committee were due to arrive in Iran on Monday for a three-day trip focusing on human rights and the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme.

We are not the ones to apologise, said Villy Soevndal, the leader of Denmark's Socialist People's Party: If anyone needs to apologise for freedom of speech, human rights, imprisonments, executions and lack of democracy, it is the Iranians.

Egypt has banned the sale of four western newspapers for printing pictures it deems offensive to Islam and summoned the Danish ambassador, the latest backlash in a row over cartoons that have enraged the Muslim world.

Under a decree issued by Information Minister Anas al-Fiqi, Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt, Britain's Observer and the US Wall Street Journal will not be sold, the official MENA news agency reported.

Any newspaper or magazine which publishes anything offensive to the prophet... and reprints the offensive caricatures of the prophet or anything offensive to the three heavenly religions will be banned, Fiqi said.

The foreign ministry said the Danish ambassador had been summoned to express Egypt's rejection of the Danish press's attempt to repeat the offence to feelings of Muslims and their holy symbols around the world.

Earlier on Tuesday, thousands of Egyptian students protested on the campus ground of Assiut University in southern Egypt calling for a boycott of Danish products. On Monday, the Danish Football Federation (DBU) said that Egypt had cancelled two youth internationals against Denmark over the cartoons.

Free speech should respect religions, says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, regarding the reprints of Prophet Mohammad's cartoons.

The Secretary-General  strongly believes that freedom of expression should be exercised responsibly and in a way that respects all religious beliefs, his spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Wednesday.

See full article from the Antara

Hundreds of people rallied outside the Danish and Dutch embassies in Indonesia to protest the recent publication of cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad by newspapers in the two European countries.

We heard they have reprinted the cartoons to defend the freedom of speech while in fact they have thereby clearly and seriously insulted the Prophet Muhammad and Islam, and this has happened several times, a spokesman of Muslim organization Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia said.

He continued that his organization demanded that those responsible for the defamation be given the death penalty and called on members of the Muslim community to defend the honor of the Prophet Mohammed and condemn all forms of insults against Islam.

See full article from The News

The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) has announced to observe “day of protest” on Friday 22nd February against re-publishing of blasphemous caricatures in Danish newspapers.

A press statement said that demonstrations would be held outside various mosques in Karachi against the brazen and recurring irresponsible activity in a section of the European press.

The re-publishing of blasphemous cartoons by certain European newspapers had once again proved the hypocritical and acrimonious attitude of the West towards Islam and its followers, it said:

On the one hand the Western powers advocate the policy of inter-faith dialogue but on the other its media outlets commit blatant acts of blasphemy in total disregard of the cause of religious harmony.

Such condemnable acts were being deliberately repeated by the European media in order to provoke and antagonise Muslims all over the world.

Muslims protested in two Indonesian cities on Saturday over cartoons in Denmark portraying the Prophet Muhammad, with some predictably calling for the artist to be put to death.

Muslims in the crowd outside the Danish consulate shouted Death sentence for the cartoonist!

Protesters also gathered in Medan, Indonesia's third largest city.

See full article from Indian Muslims

Jordan's trade unions have urged their government to sever economic ties with Denmark.

In a letter to Prime Minister Nader Dahabi, Trade Unions Council Chairman Saleh Armouti also called on the government to summon the Danish ambassador and relay to him a strongly worded protest that reflects our absolute rejection of such offenses.
Armouti contended that the pictures, which were reprinted by a dozen of Danish newspapers last week, represented an unprecedented defiance of the feelings of Arabs and Muslims.

Palestinians demonstrated in the Gaza Strip yesterday against Danish newspapers. They gathered in the southern town of Rafah on the Egyptian border in response to a call from the mini-Parliament, an organ of the Fatah party of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Children burned Danish, American and Israeli flags and a banner read to hell with Denmark. We will accept nothing less than an apology and a trial.

In Khartoum, around 200 Sudanese demonstrated against Denmark. Angry Muslim men dressed in traditional white robes marched through closed-off streets followed by fellow protesters driving at a snail's pace in air-conditioned cars, under the close watch of security forces. The crowd called for Sudan to end diplomatic relations with Denmark and boycott Danish products.

Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir is threatening to expel Danish organisations, snub its officials and boycott the country's products, the presidential palace and state news agency said.

Al Bashir met with the leaders of his ruling National Congress Party on Saturday to devise a response. The president has directed that all Danish officials and diplomats should not be received by Sudanese officials and that all Danish organisations operating in the country should be expelled and all Danish goods boycotted, the state-run Suna news agency said.

See full article from the Times of India

One of the world's most prominent Sunni religious scholars called on Muslims to boycott Danish products.

Sheik Youssef e-Qaradawi, a hardline Egyptian cleric based in Qatar, urged Muslims on Friday to repeat their boycott, warning them that the world would view them as weak if they didn't react strongly.

Regrettably, Muslims start potently with these issues, then they relax gradually as the strong (supporters) get weaker and the enthusiastic (supporters) get lazy, said el-Qaradawi during a press conference aired by Al-Jazeera television.

See full article from The Post

More than 200 Islamists and students of religious seminaries Friday staged a demonstration at the call of Jamaat Ahl-i-Sunnat to express their resentment and to condemn the reprinting of blasphemous cartoons in Danish and other European newspapers.

The demo was led by Allama Farooq Khan Saeedi, who vowed to continue their protest against this blasphemous act. The participants chanted slogans against President Musharraf and US President George Bush and criticised the government for not taking up the issue with Danish authorities.

Syed Riaz Hussain Shah a central leader of Jamaat Ahl-i-Sunnat told newsmen that resolutions against this sacrilegious act were adopted in all the mosques of the country Friday and religious scholars delivered their speeches on this issue.

Danish foreign minister in a phone conversation with his Iranian counterpart says his country respects Islam and the world Muslims.

We differentiate between freedom of speech and blasphemy, Denmark's top diplomat, Per Stig Moeller, said.

Pointing to the reprinting of the blasphemous cartoons of Mohammad, he said that such incidents could affect the relations between the European countries and the Muslim world.

Iran's Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, for his part expressed regret that some newspapers are permitted to publish the insulting cartoons.

Mottaki called for initiatives to prevent such incidents: The EU states should pass rules at the national and the Union levels to prevent any insult against 1.5 billion Muslims of the world.

Based on an article from The News

Leaders of various religious groups in Pakistan have demanded that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should be moved to try Danish authorities and media people who wilfully committed the act of blasphemy by re-publishing sacrilegious cartoons in their newspapers.

They were speaking at a convention titled “Inter-religion harmony and blasphemy” organised by Jamaat-e-Islami’s (JI). The representatives demanded that diplomatic and trade relations with Denmark should be immediately severed in order to penalise the European nation whose irresponsible and repetitive act of blasphemy fanned ire and adverse feelings among the Muslims against the Western world.

Presiding over the meeting, JI Karachi Amir Muhammad Hussain Mahanti said that the European media responsible for publishing the blasphemous caricatures in their newspapers should be taken to task and penalised for their wilful criminal act and in this regard the United Nations and Organisation of Islamic Conference had to play their due role.

Bishop Ejaz Inayat said the case of blasphemy committed again by the European press should be tried at the ICJ at The Hague. Denmark, UNO, and Pakistan should be made parties to the case.

The Belarusian Supreme Court has ordered the early release of Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, former deputy editor of the now-shuttered independent newspaper Zgoda, who was sentenced in January to three years in a high-security prison for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006.

We’re relieved at the Belarusian Supreme Court’s decision to grant early release to Aleksandr Sdvizhkov, but he should not have been jailed in the first place, CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. We remain concerned that the court did not overturn this politically motivated conviction.

Sdvizhkov’s lawyer, Maya Aleksandrova, told CPJ that the court cut the sentence to three months after reviewing the journalist’s appeal on Friday. The journalist, arrested in November, had already served that length of time. Aleksandrova said the court reduced Sdvizhkov’s sentence due to “exceptional circumstances,” citing the journalist’s deteriorating health, his good behavior in prison, and his elderly mother’s poor health.

Sdvizhkov’s paper reprinted the controversial cartoons in Zgoda in February 2006, prompting authorities to begin an investigation into possible incitement to religious hatred. But journalists said the prosecution was motivated less by religious sensitivity than a desire to silence a critical newspaper in the weeks before a presidential election.

President Omar al-Bashir vowed on Wednesday to ban Danes from Sudan and called for a Muslim boycott of Denmark before a crowd of tens of thousands denouncing the country at a government-backed protest against a cartoon satirizing the Prophet Muhammad.

The rally outside al-Bashir's palace in Khartoum was the biggest protest in the Muslim world since Danish papers reprinted the cartoon, seen by many Muslims as insulting to their religion's most revered figure. The demonstration raised fears that renewed protests over the cartoon — so far small and scattered — could grow.

We urge all Muslims around the world to boycott Danish commodities, goods, companies, institutions, organizations and personalities, al-Bashir told the crowd.

Down, down, Denmark! shouted the protesters. Al-Bashir vowed that not a single Danish foot will from now on desecrate the land of Sudan.

It was not clear whether al-Bashir would expel the two dozen Danes who work in Sudan, mostly in aid organizations and as peacekeepers in southern Sudan and Darfur. The Danish Charge d'Affaires in Khartoum, Karin Soerensen, said her mission had not been notified of any order for Danes to leave and would not comment whether there were any plans to evacuate them.

Khartoum began enforcing a ban on Danish products Tuesday.

Khartoum's protest was peaceful Wednesday, ending after several hours. The rally failed to muster the 1 million participants sought by the organizers, the Popular Front for the Defense of Faith and Religion, which backs al-Bashir's ruling National Congress party.

See full article from Deutsche Welle

Wolfgang Schaeuble C'mon, if you think you're hard enough

More European newspapers should publish the hotly disputed Mohammed cartoons, said German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble as violent protests broke out in Sudan over the recent reprinting of the caricatures.

All European newspapers should print the [Mohammed] caricatures with the explanation, 'We also think they're pathetic, but the use of press freedom is no reason to resort to violence, Schaeuble told the weekly edition of Die Zeit.

The minister added that he "respected" the decision of 17 Danish newspapers earlier this month to reprint a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed with a turban that resembled a bomb with a lit fuse. The re-publication came a day after Danish authorities uncovered and foiled a plot to murder the cartoonist whose drawing first appeared in 2005.

Based on an article from The News

Protest rallies were taken out and demonstrations staged in Pakistan on Friday against the blasphemous caricatures of Mohammed.

Participants of a massive protest rally chanted slogans against Denmark and the Danish newspapers for publishing the blasphemous caricatures and called for severing diplomatic ties with Denmark.

On the occasion, the JUP leaders vowed to continue protest in this respect till an apology is tendered and punishment awarded to those responsible for the act. They said Muslims were ready to sacrifice their lives and would not allow such heinous crime of blasphemy.

Meanwhile, activists of the Jamiat Ulema Islam, including students of religious seminaries, staged a demonstration outside the press club. Qari Kamran, Taj Muhammad Nahion and others led the demonstration. The protestors set ablaze the flag of Denmark to register their protest.

Hundreds of demonstrators set Danish and Dutch flags ablaze in northern Afghanistan to protest the reprint of Prophet Muhammad cartoons in Denmark and an upcoming Dutch film criticizing the Quran.

Clerics and madrassa students gathered in front of Afghanistan's largest shrine in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif to demand the government shut down the Danish and Dutch embassies in Kabul.

We don't want our government to have any diplomatic relations with these two countries, said Maulawi Abdul Hadi, one of the clerics organizing Sunday's protest. We don't want Danish and Dutch troops in Afghanistan. They should be kicked out of the NATO forces here.

Denmark has 780 troops in Afghanistan as part of NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the Netherlands has 1,650.

The crowd swelled to about 700 before dispersing, said a police spokesman adding that the protest was peaceful.

The Vatican joined Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Sunni world in condemning the reprinting of a controversial cartoon of Muhammad in Denmark.

Both sides vehemently denounce the reprinting of the offensive cartoon and the attack on Islam and its prophet, officials from both religious bodies said in a statement.

Concluding a two-day meeting of their joint interfaith committee in Cairo, the two sides also denounced any insult to any religion.

We call for the respect of faiths, religious holy books and religious symbols, read the statement.

The two sides urged Muslim and Christian religious leaders, intellectuals and educators to instil such respect in society: Freedom of expression should not become a pretext to insult religions and defaming religious sanctities.

The two-day meeting is the first between the two religious bodies in two years.

Comment: Respect Should be Earned

From MediawatchWatch

As Flemming Rose points out, al-Azhar university does not permit Jews or Copts to enroll for their courses in medicine, economics, or agriculture. So much for their “respect of faiths”.

Authoritarians seeking to extend repression have always drawn innocents into manufactured crises. None was more innocent than Jacques Barrot, who, in 2005, helped trigger a wave of death when he entered France's annual pig squealing contest at the Pyrenean village of Trie-sur-Baïse.

An Associated Press photographer snapped him wearing a plastic snout standing at the microphone and put it on the news wires.

The next time it appeared, someone had doctored the picture and added the caption: 'Here is the real image of Mohammed'. Two radical imams, whom Denmark had foolishly welcomed as asylum seekers, included it in a dossier they were hawking round the dictatorships of the Middle East, on how Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten had insulted Muslims.

...Read the full article

Yemen’s most prominent governmental figures want an international law against the defamation of Mohammed and other religious figures, after the reprinting of an infamous cartoon in Denmark and a call to reprint it again throughout Europe by Germany’s Minister of the Interior.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Mujawar and Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi are asking for international cooperation to draft a law against mocking religious figures. Is unclear what organization or organizations would be able to effectively draft and enforce any such law.

Some members of Parliament like Mansour Al-Zindani of the Islah party have called for a boycott of Danish products and asked the Minister of Industry and Trade, Yahya Al-Mutawakel, to create an embargo forbidding the import and export of Danish goods.

However, the government has not and likely will not call for an officially- sanctioned boycott.

Prime Minister Al-Mujawar spoke to a crowd hundreds of men at Al-Iman University about defending Mohammed’s reputation: The republication [of the cartoon] show the ignorance of those who attack religion, said Mujawar: Such behavior begets hatred and creates an unstable relationship between Islamic countries and other nations.

There are 82 Kurt Westergaards living in Denmark but only one of them is the man who life is under daily threat because of his caricatures of the founder of Islam.

However, some of other 81 "Kurts" scattered across Denmark have also received mistaken identity death threats because they share the same name as the illustrator.

One, a businessman from the Danish town of Aabenraa, has been offered protection by Denmark's intelligence agency, the PET, after receiving multiple death threats.

The worst thing was that they also called my three children. They wanted to kidnap my family and murder me, he said.

Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta said on Wednesday that the reprinting of a cartoon in Danish paper depicting Prophet Mohammed, was unacceptable and intolerable for Afghanistan.

His comments came a day after Afghan members of the parliament also condemned the reprint of cartoons and asked the Afghan government to summon the Danish envoy to Afghanistan to express the Afghan people's anger.

For Afghanistan it is intolerable and unacceptable that the religious belief and faith of one billion people is subjected to disrespect, Spanta said, adding that those who print these kinds of insulting cartoons, they are pioneers in cultural clashes, ... and they are against peace and friendship of human beings.

Thousands of people also took to street Wednesday in Puli Alam, the capital of southern Logar province, chanting slogans against the Danish paper and an upcoming film in the Netherlands criticizing Islam's holy book.

The protesters also demanded the Afghan government expel Dutch and Danish soldiers deployed in Afghanistan as part of NATO-led peacekeeping forces.

Similar demonstrations were also reported around the country.

The Tunisian Supreme Islamic Council has condemned the recent republishing of Danish cartoons blaspheming Muhammad.

In a press release, the council voiced much resentment and concern over such a disgraceful and irresponsible act that provoked the religious sentiments of hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide.

The council urged judicious and wise people worldwide to exert more efforts to spare humanity fatal fanaticism manifestations that are fueled by such attempts to mock religions and clergymen, an unprovoked matter which is tabooed by all heavenly religions.

However, it also asked all Muslims across the world to do their utmost to correctly promote the benevolent religion of Islam.

And Pakistan's obliged by 'benevolently' calling for the death of the cartoonist

Based on an article article from The News

Demonstrations were held in all the country’s main cities on Friday to protest against the republication in Danish newspapers of a cartoon caricaturing Muhammad.

Angry protesters torched effigies of the Danish premier and his country’s flag. They marched through streets across the country after Friday prayers, demanding the government snap diplomatic relations with Denmark

Rallies were held in Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore, Multan and Quetta, where speakers demanded that the “blasphemers” be punished and Danish products be boycotted.

In Lahore, at five different points, hundreds of university and college students, joined by political leaders and workers of religious parties, held demonstrations, witnesses said. The protesters sprinkled petrol on an effigy of the Danish prime minister wrapped in his country’s flag and set it alight amid chants of Hang the cartoonist and Expel the Danish ambassador.

In Multan, angry protesters also chanted slogans against Dutch filmmaker Geert Wilders for producing an anti-Islam film. We demand the Danish authorities punish the blasphemers, or we will take revenge ourselves, a 'benevolent' Islamist leader, Mufti Hidayatullah, told some 400 students in Multan,.

Thousands of people in Afghanistan have been protesting against the reprinting of cartoons in Danish newspapers they say are insults to Islam.

These protests are believed to be the biggest since 2006, when cartoons of Muhammad were first published.

At the scene of the biggest protest, in the western city of Herat, police say more then 10,000 people took to the streets to denounce Denmark. They also condemned the planned release of a Dutch film critical of the Koran.

They burned Dutch and Danish flags, and called for their troops to be removed from the Nato force in Afghanistan.

One of the protesters, Mir Farooq Hussaini, blamed the US and its allies for what he saw as blasphemy against Islam: We are here today to show our anger for what happened in Denmark, and to all infidels in the leadership of criminal America for what is going on in the world. If next time our beliefs are insulted, we will give a lesson to America and its allies the way we gave a lesson to Russia when they had occupied our country."

More than 600 Muslims gathered in front of the Danish embassy in Bangkok on Wednesday to protest 17 Danish newspapers for reprinting cartoons mocking Mohammad.

The Muslims are also displeased with the Danish government for ignoring the matter as it cited that this is the freedom of expression of the press.

A few hours later, the protesters dispersed peacefully. They said they would present a letter to Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama on this issue.

They also urged Muslims around the world to boycott products from Denmark.

About half a dozen people were injured as thousands of Pakistani Islamists held demonstrations for the fourth consecutive Friday to protest the republishing of cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed in Danish newspapers.

Almost all the commercial markets remained closed and the public transport remained off the road in the southern port city and the commercial hub of the country, Karachi, on the general strike call by the fundamentalist Islamic organizations like Sunni Movement and Jamaat Islami (JI).

Hundreds of protesters held rallies in various parts of the cities and set ablaze the Denmark flags and chanted slogans like Death to Danish government.

Angry young muslims set on fire six buses and minibuses and at least six people were injured as the protesters faced resistance from the secular Muttaheda Qaumi Movement part during their attempt to close some markets by forces on Friday afternoon.

Similar demonstrations were held in the eastern city of Lahore and other areas of the country outside the main mosques after the Friday noon prayers.

Update: Sheikpura

24th March 2008

Pakistan's protest continue with the latest on 23rd March at Sheikpura

Jordan’s general prosecutor is expected to issue a verdict within days in a defamation case brought by a coalition of media outlets against the editors of Danish newspapers who reprinted cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Mohammed and sparked fury in the Muslim world.

Lawyers representing the coalition, which also includes four members of parliament, have argued the editors violated international and Jordanian laws by reprinting the cartoons, one of which showed the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

Some independent lawyers, however, are sceptical that the lawsuit, filed last month, would have any effect in Denmark, where the constitution allows for freedom of speech without restrictions or censorship.

The coalition launched a campaign three months ago called The Prophet Unites Us, after 17 Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoons that led to several demonstrations and the burning of the Danish flag in Amman. The coalition claimed the cartoons were part of an orchestrated campaign to sow seeds of discord between Islam and the West.

The Danish media, however, maintains the cartoons were reprinted to show solidarity with Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist, who was subjected to death threats after the Jyllands-Posten published his original drawings three years ago.

Lawyers representing the coalition have argued that publishing the cartoons violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which both Jordan and Denmark are signatories to, and several articles of the Jordanian Penal Code Law, which can imprison those who slander the prophet for up to three years.

Osama Bitar, one of the lawyers arguing on behalf of the coalition said: We hope this lawsuit … will pave the way for an international law that would incriminate anyone who slanders Islam and the prophet, including other religions, through electronic means.

Ghassan Mouammar, a lawyer who specialises in international law, cast doubt that Denmark would take any action against the editors if the court in Jordan found them guilty

The editors could be convicted according to Jordanian laws for publishing cartoons on the internet as if the crime was commited on Jordanian territory. But the judges cannot even ask for the extradition of Danish editors to Jordan to enforce the law because there is no extradition treaty between both countries, Muammar said: And, if the conduct is not a crime in both countries it will not be an extraditable offence. Most likely they [Danes] will not do anything about it.

The court’s ruling, expected Sunday or Monday, would only be a preliminary one and could be overturned by the court of cassation, Jordan’s equivalent of a supreme court.

In Pakistan, at least eight persons were killed and 24 injured in a massive car bomb attack outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad yesterday.

The explosive device was hidden in a car. The blast created a four-foot deep crater on the road and could be felt several kilometres away. It is the second blast in three months targeting foreigners in the capital.

A security guard of the embassy and two policemen were among the dead. The condition of 15 injured is reported to be critical. The blast caused extensive damage to the front of the private building in which the Danish embassy is housed.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast but security officials said the attack could be linked to the blasphemous caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed published in Danish newspapers.

A Jordanian organisation wants to prosecute the Danes responsible for the publication of cartoons considered blasphemous to the Islamic Prophet Mohammed.

According to Danish media reports, 11 Danes have been summoned to appear before the Jordanian public prosecutor to answer charges of blasphemy and threatening the national peace.

Those facing legal action include the cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons and editors from 10 of the 17 newspapers that reprinted them.

The Danish media reports said the group behind the announcement is called The Prophet Unites Us, a union of Jordanian media organisations, groups and private individuals.

The public prosecutor decided to summon the Danes for a series of criminal offences. Now the Danes have to meet in Jordan, said Zakaria al-Sheikh, the group's general secretary, to Politiken newspaper. He said that the country's public prosecutor would ask the Danish embassy for help in contacting officials to arrange a meeting of the editors.

Osama al-Bettar, the group's lawyer, reportedly said that if the Danes did not appear, the next step will be to inform Interpol and seek their arrest.

However, the Danish foreign ministry said deportation was not a possibility. It would require that the printing of the Mohammed cartoons is punishable in Denmark, which is not the case.

The case is being brought under changes made to the Jordanian Justice Act in 2006. The changes make it possible for Jordanian officials to prosecute crimes committed outside the country if it affects the people of Jordan by electronic means.

A delegation of Pakistani lawmakers and government officials are off to Belgium to ask the EU to destroy free speech by preventing the publication of cartoons that mock the prophet as well as deny filmmakers like Geert Wilders the freedom to market their work:

A six-member high-level delegation comprising officials from the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Law would leave Islamabad  for the EU headquarters in Brussels and explain to the EU leadership the backlash against the blasphemous campaign in the name of freedom of expression.

The delegation, headed by an additional secretary of the Interior Ministry, will meet the leaders of the EU countries in a bid to convince them that the recent attack on the Danish Embassy in Pakistan could be a reaction against the blasphemous campaign, sources said.

They said that the delegation would also tell the EU that if such acts against Islam are not controlled, more attacks on the EU diplomatic missions abroad could not be ruled out.

Sources said that the delegation would also hold discussions on inter-religious 'harmony' during its meetings with the EU leaders.

A Danish appeals court has rejected a lawsuit against the newspaper that first printed controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, saying the cartoons were not intended to insult Muslims.

The Western High Court in the city of Aarhus said that it had no proof that the purpose of printing the cartoons in the newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, in 2005 was to depict Muslims as criminals or terrorists.

The decision upheld a ruling last year by a lower court, which rejected claims by Danish Muslims that the 12 drawings were meant to insult the Prophet Muhammad and make a mockery of Islam.

One of the most controversial drawings published in the Danish newspaper showed Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a burning fuse. Islamic law forbids any depiction of the prophet.

The court ruled that terror acts had been carried out in the name of Islam and that it was not illegal under Danish law to make satirical drawings to illustrate that.

We are very disappointed and sad about the outcome, said Muhammad Nehme, a spokesman for Islamic Faith Community, one of seven groups that appealed the lower court ruling. Nehme said the group had not yet decided whether to appeal to the Danish Supreme Court.

The Muslim groups filed the defamation suit in March 2007 after the top prosecutor in Denmark declined to press criminal charges, saying the drawings did not violate laws against racism or blasphemy.

Update: More Nonsense

28th June 2008

Danish Muslims are planning to take Denmark's Jyllands-Posten daily to Europe's highest human rights court over the publication of satirical drawings of Muhammad.

[Danish] Muslim organizations intend to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, Muslim leader Mohammed Khalid Samha told IslamOnline.net

Denmark's justice ministry have rejected another bid by seven Muslim lobby groups to take the Jyllands-Posten to the Supreme Court for publishing controversial cartoons of Muhammed.

The judicial commission, which decides if cases can be heard by the Supreme Court, rejected the groups' claim without giving reasons. It was the third attempt by the group to take the case to the Supreme Court.

The case had already been defeated in Denmark's Court of Appeal in June this year, which upheld a lower court ruling from October 2006. In its ruling, the Court of Appeal said the caricatures did not aim to insult followers of Islam, as the claimants alleged.

The court emphasized that terrorist acts have been committed in the name of Islam, and it is not illegal for these acts to be made the object of satirical representation.

The seven groups say they will continue their legal action by pursuing the case at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Denmark's prime minister was appointed the new Nato chief following a bit of brinkmanship and bitter dispute over religion and liberty that risked turning the western military alliance into the hostage of a clash with Islam.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen was named Nato secretary-general after President Barack Obama intervened in a row between the Dane and President Abdullah Gul of Turkey, which had earlier vetoed the appointment.

As the single big Muslim country within Nato, Turkey had refused to yield on the appointment of Rasmussen because of his defence of free speech during the Danish cartoons crisis three years ago and because Denmark is host to a Kurdish rebel TV station broadcasting to Turkey.

Rasmussen was supported by most leading European states, with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, his keenest advocate.

Turkey yielded at the very end after the summit was extended by two hours and heads of state and government met alone to try to strike a deal. A European foreign minister told the Observer that Turkey backed down when it was promised membership of the European Defence Agency, increasing Ankara's clout in the EU's defence affairs.

The Turkish leader had complained that Rasmussen had spurned his pleas during the 2006 cartoon crisis to make a gesture to defuse the tensions with the Islamic world. How can those who made no contribution to peace at that time contribute to peace now?

Due Apologies

Based on article from blogs.abcnews.com

Despite reports in Turkish media suggesting that new NATO Secretary General and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen would apologize for his freedom of speech stance during the 2006 controversy surrounding the publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, Rasmussen made no such apology in Istanbul Monday at a meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations.

During a panel discussion in Istanbul, Rasmussen said that, I would never myself depict any religious figure, including the Prophet Mohammed, in a way that could hurt other people's feelings. I respect Islam as one of the world's major religions. My position is clear before, during and after the crisis. I condemn action that aims to demonize people on their religious or ethnic background.

Rasmussen also asserted that: all kinds of censorship are the enemy of dialogue and enhance prejudice. All kinds of prejudice have to confronted, not ignored. That is why freedom of expression is a precondition for open dialogue.

Media reports have also speculated that Rasmussen had promised to shut down Kurdish ROJ TV, which broadcasts in Denmark, because of its alleged ties to the Kurdish terrorist group PKK. But at a press conference in Istanbul, Rasmussen merely said that he would commission a study to see if such ties exist and if so, then he would take action.

Prints of the Danish cartoon depicting Islam's Prophet Mohammed as a suicide bomber in 2005 -- much to the chagrin of the international Muslim community -- will now be sold by the Denmark Free Press Society for $250 each. One thousand copies are to be printed and sold, with each having a designated number and signature by the artist, Kurt Westergaard, who has been in hiding due to numerous death threats.

As the AFP notes here, Westergaard has never apologized or expressed regret for the drawings. And indeed, he enjoys the backing of free speech and free press advocates around the globe in this regard.

A notable example of one such advocate, just this week, is NATO Secretary General and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who defended the drawings in 2006 and who forewent any diplomatic gesture or apology in Turkey this week at the Alliance of Civilizations meeting, despite earlier reports that said an apology was forthcoming.

A day after the mainstream media reported that the Denmark-based International Free Press Society was selling 1,000 signed prints of Kurt Westergaard’s iconic turban bomb cartoon, their website was hit by a denial of service attack and remains unavailable.

Two alternative sites have been set up at Wordpress and Blogspot, which are unlikely to collapse at the hands of zealous Turkish script-kiddies.

As is usual with such crude attempts at censorship, the actual effect is the opposite of the intended effect. Lars Hedegaard, President of the International Free Press Society said it had the effect of increasing support for our activities as the word spread that we were being threatened.

Westergaard said The contemptible attempts to close us down will not succeed. The enemies of free speech will soon realize that their hacker attack on the IFPS website has only made us all the more determined to get our messages out. I take great comfort from the fact that so many people have already bought my cartoon. It’s good to know that freedom of expression has defenders all over the world.

Signed prints of the cartoon will set you back US $250 (188 Euros), including postage.

The Watercolour works of Kurt Westergaard
Galleri Draupner, Skanderborg, Denmark
From 29th August 2009

A Danish gallery has decided to exhibit a caricature of Muhammad that unleashed a wave of protests in the Muslim world against Denmark in 2006.

The controversial caricature will be part of a larger exhibition dedicated to the watercolor works of the artist-caricaturist Kurt Westergaard at the Galleri Draupner in Skanderborg.

The caricature—one of twelve satiric drawings published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten—represents Muhammad wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb with a lit fuse.

The seventy-four-year-old Westergaard had words of praise for the gallery director, Erik Guldager. [He] is the first to dare to exhibit my works, even if my watercolors are not political.

In May 2008, Westergaard received the Sappho Prize from the Society for the Protection of the Freedom of Expression of the Press and the Right to Criticize Religion.

It’s not all that surprising that Yale University Press would be wary of reprinting notoriously controversial cartoons of Muhammad in a forthcoming book...But in a book telling the story of the cartoons?

Yale University and Yale University Press consulted two dozen authorities, including diplomats and experts on Islam and counterterrorism, and the recommendation was unanimous: The book, The Cartoons That Shook the World, should not include the 12 Danish drawings that originally appeared in September 2005.

What’s more, they suggested that the Yale press also refrain from publishing any other illustrations of the prophet that were to be included, specifically, a drawing for a children’s book; an Ottoman print; and a sketch by the 19th-century artist Gustave Doré of Muhammad being tormented in Hell, an episode from Dante’s Inferno that has been depicted by Botticelli, Blake, Rodin and Dalí.

The book’s author, Jytte Klausen, a Danish-born professor of politics at Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass., reluctantly accepted Yale University Press’s decision not to publish the cartoons. But she was disturbed by the withdrawal of the other representations of Muhammad. All of those images are widely available, Ms. Klausen said by telephone, adding that Muslim friends, leaders and activists thought that the incident was misunderstood, so the cartoons needed to be reprinted so we could have a discussion about it.

Reza Aslan, a religion scholar and the author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, is a fan of the book but decided to withdraw his supportive blurb that was to appear in the book after Yale University Press dropped the pictures. The book is a definitive account of the entire controversy, but to not include the actual cartoons is to me, frankly, idiotic.

This is an academic book for an academic audience by an academic press. There is no chance of this book having a global audience, let alone causing a global outcry. It’s not just academic cowardice, it is just silly and unnecessary.

The book is due out in November.

Yale University Press will publish The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Jytte Klausen, this November. The Press hopes that her excellent scholarly treatment of the Danish cartoon controversy will be read by those seeking deeper understanding of its causes and consequences.

After careful consideration, the Press has declined to reproduce the September 30, 2005 Jyllands-Posten newspaper page that included the cartoons, as well as other depictions of the Prophet Muhammad that the author proposed to include.

The original publication in 2005 of the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad led to a series of violent incidents, and repeated violent acts have followed republication as recently as June 2008, when a car bomb exploded outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing eight people and injuring at least thirty. The next day Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the bombing, calling it revenge for the "insulting drawings."

Republication of the cartoons -- not just the original printing of them in Denmark -- has repeatedly resulted in violence around the world. More than two hundred lives have been lost, and hundreds more have been injured. It is noteworthy that, at the time of the initial crisis over the cartoons in 2005-2006, the New York Times, Washington Post, and Boston Globe declined to print them, as did every major newspaper in the United Kingdom.

The publishing of the book raised the obvious question of whether there remains a serious threat of violence if the cartoons were reprinted in the context of a book about the controversy. The Press asked the University for assistance on this question.

The University consulted both domestic and international experts on behalf of the Press. Among those consulted were counterterrorism officials in the United States and in the United Kingdom, U.S. diplomats who had served as ambassadors in the Middle East, foreign ambassadors from Muslim countries, the top Muslim official at the United Nations, and senior scholars in Islamic studies. The experts with the most insight about the threats of violence repeatedly expressed serious concerns about violence occurring following publication of either the cartoons or other images of the Prophet Muhammad in a book about the cartoons.

Ibrahim Gambari, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and senior adviser to the secretary-general, the highest ranking Muslim at the United Nations, stated, You can count on violence if any illustration of the Prophet is published. It will cause riots I predict from Indonesia to Nigeria.

Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed, dean of the Under-Secretaries-general, under-secretary-general of the United Nations, and special adviser to the secretary-general, informed us, These images of Muhammad could and would be used as a convenient excuse for inciting violent anti-American actions.

Marcia Inhorn, professor of anthropology and international affairs and chair of the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale, said, I agree completely with the other expert opinions Yale has received. If Yale publishes this book with any of the proposed illustrations, it is likely to provoke a violent outcry.

Given the quantity and quality of the expert advice Yale received, the author consented, with reluctance, to publish the book without any of these visual images.

Yale and Yale University Press are deeply committed to freedom of speech and expression, so the issues raised here were difficult. The University has no speech code, and the response to hate speech on campus has always been the assertion that the appropriate response to hate speech is not suppression but more speech, leading to a full airing of views. The Press would never have reached the decision it did on the grounds that some might be offended by portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad. Indeed, Yale University Press has printed books in the past that included images of the Prophet. The decision rested solely on the experts' assessments that there existed a substantial likelihood of violence that might take the lives of innocent victims.

A firm of Saudi lawyers, purportedly acting on behalf of descendants of the Prophet Mohammed, has demanded printed and multi-lingual apologies from Danish newspapers who re-printed cartoons of the Prophet, as well as undertakings that all Internet pictures of the caricatures be removed in perpetuity.

The demand from the Saudi Arabian legal firm of A.Z. Yamani, is contained in letters sent to about a dozen Danish editors-in-chief and gives the end of September as a deadline for compliance.

The Danish Newspapers Association said at the weekend that it plans to contact the Danish foreign and justice ministries to discuss the issue after finding out exactly how many newspapers had received the letter in question.

Demands in the letter from the Yamani lawyers require newspapers who reproduced the cartoons to print an unconditional apology in Danish, Arabic, French and English for having offended alleged descendants of the Prophet Mohammed, as well as undertaking never again to reproduce similar drawings or material. The demand includes a requirement that a front page reference to the apology must also be made.

The Danish Newspaper Association says it doubts that newspapers will comply.

US prosecutors have said that they had broken up an international terror plot, codenamed the Mickey Mouse Project, against the Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

Two men from Chicago who went to military school in Pakistan face terrorism charges for allegedly targeting the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which 'outraged' Muslims by publishing the 12 cartoons in 2005.

The men allegedly planned to kill Flemming Rose, the cultural editor, and Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist. The editor of Jyllands-Posten, Jorn Mikkelsen, said that the alleged plot was very unpleasant for the employees and we are all affected by these threats.

David Headley, a US citizen who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006, was arrested at O'Hare International airport, Chicago, on October 3. Court papers say that he hatched the plot in 2008 and posted a message about the cartoons on an internet discussion group, saying: I feel disposed toward violence for the offending parties.

After his arrest Headley allegedly told FBI agents that he began receiving training in 2006 from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan terror group. Court papers said that Mr Headley told FBI agents that he went to Denmark in January and July this year to carry out surveillance on the newspaper's offices in Copenhagen and Århus in preparation for an attack to be carried out by persons associated with Kashmiri and Individual A.

Headley stated that he proposed that the operation against the newspaper be reduced from attacking the entire building in Copenhagen to killing the paper's cultural editor, Flemming Rose, and the cartoonist who drew the cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, Kurt Westergaard, whom Headley felt was directly responsible for the cartoons, court papers said.

Headley is charged with conspiracy to commit terrorist acts involving murder and maiming outside the US, which carries a life sentence.

A letter has been delivered to Yale university chastising it for not standing up for free speech in the face of imaginary threats of violence.

The letter was signed by sixteen organisations:

• American Association of University Professors
• American Civil Liberties Union
• American Federation of Teachers
• American Society of Journalists and Authors
• Center for Democracy and Technology
• Center for Inquiry
• College Art Association
• First Amendment Lawyers Association
• First Amendment Project Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
• International Publishers Association
• Modern Language Association
• National Coalition Against Censorship
• National Council of Teachers of English
• National Education Association
• People For the American Way Foundation

The statement, written by National Coalition against Censorship Executive Director Joan Bertin, argues that by capitulating to threats of violence, Yale has fed a climate in which people will be afraid to speak and publish freely. Yale's decision drew widespread criticism and debate from professors, students and alumni in the past three months.

The situation is extremely disturbing because Yale is a very prominent university, and their doing something like this might justify other institutions doing so, Bertin said. This action compromised the book, the press and an important principle: not only should academics be able to discuss these things among themselves, but in this country we're entitled to talk about and view the images.

Index on Censorship today carries an interview with Jytte Klausen, the author of The Cartoons That Shook The World. The theme of the interview is Yale's cowardly act of pre-emptive self-censorship in deciding to publish the book without the cartoons which were its subject.

Guess what? In a cowardly act of pre-emptive self-censorship, Index on Censorship decided to publish the interview without the cartoons which were its subject.

The decision, accepted by editor Jo Glanville, was made by the board, chaired by Jonathan Dimbleby:

To summarise our common view: re-publication of the cartoons would put at risk the security of our staff and others which, on balance, could not be justified on freedom of expression grounds alone.[...]

[...] We have a greater vision and purpose, which is to reach out to those in the United Kingdom and elsewhere who are not yet aware of how vital freedom of expression is to an open society and how easily and rapidly it can be eroded.

One notable dissenter on the board is Kenan Malik, who is understandably furious at the decision. He makes clear that IoC's position is untenable:

The question that now arises is this: what should Index do when the next Jewel of Medina comes along? After all, we cannot in good conscience criticise others for taking decisions that we ourselves have taken and for the same reasons. So, does Index now believe that it was right for Deutsche Oper, Random House, Yale University Press (and myriad others) to censor?

Danish police have shot and wounded a man at the home of Kurt Westergaard, whose cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad sparked an international row.

Westergaard was at home in Aarhus when a man broke in armed with a knife. Police arrived and shot the man after Westergaard pressed a panic alarm.

Police said he was shot in the knee and the shoulder after threatening officers who tried to arrest him. Preben Nielsen of Aarhus police, said the man was seriously hurt but his life was not in danger.

Danish officials said the intruder was a 28-year-old Somali linked to the radical Islamist al-Shabab militia.

Police said the man had entered Westergaard's house armed with a knife and had shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill him.

Westergaard said he had grabbed his five-year-old granddaughter and run to a specially designed panic room where he raised the alarm.

He has now been taken to a safe location, but said defiantly that he would be back, the newspaper reported.

Update: Charged

3rd January 2010. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

A Somali man has been charged with trying to kill a Danish artist whose drawing of the Prophet Mohammed sparked riots around the world.

The suspect, who was shot by police outside cartoonist Kurt Westergaard's home in the city of Aarhus on Friday, was carried into court on a stretcher.

Police say he broke into the house armed with an axe and a knife.

The suspect, who denies the charge, was remanded in custody. Police say he has links with Somali Islamist militants.

The radical al-Shabab group in Somalia hailed the attack.

Kurt Westergaard Sept 2006 I locked myself in our safe room and alerted the police. He tried to smash the entrance door with an axe, but he didn't manage Kurt Westergaard

Al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Ali Muhamud Rage told AFP news agency: We appreciate the incident in which a Muslim Somali boy attacked the devil who abused our prophet Mohammed and we call upon all Muslims around the world to target the people like him.

Update: Mohammed Cartoons Reprinted

9th January 2010. Based on article from theaustralian.com.au

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has published reproductions of controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed by Kurt Westergaard, the victim of attempted murder last week.

In an article on Westergaard, the daily printed small versions of six out of the 12 drawings by the Danish cartoonist that had infuriated Muslims around the world when Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten first published them in 2005.

Several of the drawings were seen as linking Islam and the Prophet Mohammed to terrorism and suicide bombings, including the turban bomb cartoon.

Update: Cartoon Apologist

1st February 2010.  Based on article from mediawatchwatch.org.uk

Pakistan's Daily Mail carries a story claiming that the Norwegian ambassador to Pakistan has strongly regretted the re-publication of the Turbomb Motoon in the pages of Aftenposten.

Robert Kvile allegedly is of the view that the Norwegian government would strive to reform understandings and to devise a strategy to stop such practices in future.

Kvile had been summoned to the office of the Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Hamid Saeed Kazmi.

Details of trucks filled with explosives and European terror networks emerge in Jyllands-Posten newspaper plot case.

US citizen David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen and native of Pakistan, are already in police custody for their alleged roles in the plot against the newspaper in retribution for its printing of the Mohammed cartoons.

Additional conspiracy charges were recently filed against Ilyas Kashmiri, who has been identified as a leader of terrorist organisation Harakat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI) in Pakistan and Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a retired major in the Pakistani military. Neither man is in police custody.

According to documents released by US authorities, Headley met Rehman and members of the Lashkar terrorist group in Pakistan. Rehman is said to have introduced Headley to Kashmiri who allegedly came up with the idea of the truck bomb. Kashmiri is also reported to have put Headley in contact with various associates in a number of European countries who could provide Headley with money, weapons and manpower for the newspaper attack.

A Danish art auctioneer has rejected a painting by Kurt Westergaard which was to be auctioned to fund the relief effort in Haiti.

Lauritz.com had called for submissions for various celebrities for their charity campaign, but Westergaard's innocuous painting was deemed too risky, simply because it was by him.

A spokesman said: We must recognise that the terror threat is still of such a character that we can't predict the consequences of a sale. We value the safety of our employees quite highly, which is why an eventual risk assessment was used in our consideration.

The decision was condemned by Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen who said: that people should not live their lives "in the shadow of fear."

Fortunately a more principled gallery has stepped in and accepted Westergaard's watercolour. Galleri Draupner, which has previously exhibited his work, are inviting bids on their website. The current high bid stands at $22,000.

A teenage girl who made a fan video proclaiming her love and support for elderly cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has received a number of threats in recent days.

Nikoline Astrid Nielsen, 17, is studying media at high school and uploaded a video of herself singing her support for Westergaard to the tune of the Lady Gaga pop song, Bad Romance.

The song, Farlig Romance med Kurt Westergaard (Dangerous Romance with Kurt Westergaard), includes lines in Danish such as I want your belly it's so hot. You can draw, so draw a six pack. Nielsen also sings about how she's willing to share his fame, despite the Middle East not leaving him in peace.

The video is quickly reaching the heights of notoriety in Denmark, similar to that of the viral internet hit by Obama Girl during the US Presidential election.

Nielsen said she created the video in support of Westergaard after one of his watercolour paintings was banned from a charity auction in aid of Haitian earthquake victims. Lauritz.com auction house refused to accept the donation over safety fears for their staff.

Galleri Draupner stepped in and offered to auction the painting and has had more than 50,000 visitors to their auction website in just 24 hours. The highest bid stands so far at 45,000 kroner for the painting, which features dragons and fairy tale images.

The owner of the gallery is the stepfather of Nielsen's best friend, which inspired her to write her song of support for the cartoonist.

But following its rounds on the internet in the last few days, a hate group opposing Nielsen was set up on social networking site Facebook. Some had published photos of accident scenes, with Nielsen's face superimposed on that of the person being carried on a stretcher.

Nielsen has now forwarded the threatening emails and screen dumps of the offending messages and images to the police, who are investigating the case.

Last week in Norway, Abid Q. Raja (Liberal Party) voiced his concern about a link on the PST (Police Security Service) Facebook page to a cartoon portraying Muhammad as a pig writing in the Koran.

He said he received phone-calls from Muslims who were deeply and intensely insulted and sad about it. He said he thinks it's a scandal the PST did not realize the explosiveness in this cartoon and was afraid that it could cause violence in both Norway and Pakistan.

Abid Q. Raja called on the PST heads and justice minister Knut Storberget to take complete responsibility for it and to apologize that the cartoon was available through the PST site. He said he was afraid of the consequences if they don't, but that he and other liberal Muslims would do everything they could to calm down the community...BUT...he said, Norwegians shouldn't be naive. Think when this reaches the closed communities. Think when the mullahs see this. They'll tear out their beards.

Later at he weekend, a thousand Muslim taxi drivers parked their cars in the small hours in the center of Oslo in protest of Dagbladet's printing of the Muhammad cartoon. The protested proceeded peacefully.

On Wednesday Dagbladet published a caricature of the prophet Muhammad on its front page, as an illustration to a story about the PST linking to the controversial cartoons on its website. Muslim taxi drivers in the capital responded harshly to the newspaper's reprinting of the cartoon: We're reacting to the abuse of freedom of speech. What we're doing isn't any violent planning, but we want to show that we're against our values being abused, says one of the drivers, Rashad Munir to VG Nett.

Based on article from islamineurope.blogspot.com

Conservative Party politician on the Oslo council Aamir Sheikh, who is himself a Muslim, took the initiative to arrange an hour long meeting between Malana-hafiz Mehboob ur-Rehman, who is the imam at the Islamic Cultural Centre - one of Norway's biggest mosques, and Dagbladet's acting editor Lars Helle.

The goal was to find a solution to the conflict which arose after Dagbladet printed a Muhammed cartoon as an illustration to an article last weke.

The imam had hopped Helle would apologize for Dagbladet printing a Muhammed caricature last week: I was very glad when Dagbladet wanted to have this meeting, but am very disappointed because Dagbladet want to stand their ground, Mehboob-ur-Rehman told VG Nett.

In an improvised press conference after the meeting, imam Mehboob ur-Rehman predictably said he can't take responsibility for what comes next in response to the Muhammed cartoon in.

About 2,500 people marched through downtown Oslo in a protest Friday against a Norwegian newspaper that printed a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad.

The demonstrators chanted God is great in Arabic and waved placards calling for a boycott of the Dagbladet daily.

On Feb. 3, the newspaper published a photograph showing a man in front of a computer screen with a depiction of Muhammad as a pig. The picture accompanied an article that said users were posting offensive material about Muslims and Jews on the Facebook page of Norway's security police.

We have done nothing to anybody. We want to live here in peace. Norway is our home. Our children live here. Why should they (Norwegian media) hurt us like this? said Naradim Muhammad, a school teacher who helped organize the demonstration.

The demonstration was peaceful, except for a firecracker that was apparently thrown by a protester onto a restaurant patio. It caused burn damage to a patio sofa, but nobody was injured. After the blast, organizers ordered the crowd to disperse, encouraging them to go home or to a local mosque to pray.

Mohyeldeen Mohammed, a spokesman for the Volunteers group which organised the demo, said: If this will be allowed to continue in the end it will be too late. Then we'll get a September 11th and a June 7th on Norwegian soil. This is not a threat, but a warning.

Attack from Turkey

Dagbladet was last night also hit by a distributed denial of service attack which left the site offline for two and a half hours.

Turkish hacker group 1923TURK has claimed responsibility for the attack: Dagbladet's attack against our prophet is disrespectful, Norwegians have no respect for anything. Therefore we attack the paper.

A Pakistan wide protest day was observed on Friday against publication of supposedly blasphemous Mohammed caricatures in the European press and the US court verdict against Dr Aafia Siddiqui prosecuted on terror charges.

Called by Tehrik Hurmat Rasool (THR), a platform of over two dozen religious parties,  porotests were held across the country, condemning the hatred of Islam in the European media, European leadership and the US judiciary.

In Lahore, demonstrators carried placards and banners demanding death to the perpetrators of blasphemy and immediate release of Dr Aafia Siddiqui. They were shouting slogans against Norway, Denmark, the United States and Switzerland.

Charged youth were demanding the death of the printer, publishers and cartoonists of blasphemous sketches, particularly the heads of the Norwegian paper, Dagbladet, which printed a cartoon of Muhammad with his name on a pig.

Addressing a gathering in front of the press club, Maulana Ameer Hamza vowed to continue movement against the blasphemers and for the release of Dr Aafia. He said the THR had sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI demanding his active role in stopping continuous blasphemies by his followers in Europe. He said peaceful protests would continue until the government of Pakistan expelled Norwegian ambassador from the country. He also urged the nation to boycott all Norwegian products and activities of the Norwegian Embassy.

Qari Yaqoob Shaikh said those committing blasphemy of Muhammad are liable to death, adding that all such blasphemers were destroyed by Allah. Norway and Denmark were inciting wrath of Allah by insulting His beloved Muhammed, and if they failed to change course, they would vanish from the face of the earth.

A Danish newspaper was accused of betraying the freedom of the press after it apologised to Muslims for offence caused by its reprinting a cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban.

Politiken, a leading Danish newspaper, had printed the cartoon as a gesture of solidarity after three people were arrested for planning to kill the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard.

It broke ranks with its rivals to issue the apology after settling with a Saudi lawyer who is representing eight Muslim groups that complained after the cartoon was reprinted by eleven Danish newspapers.

Jørn Mikkelsen, the editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, which is owned by the same media company as Politiken, said: Politiken's pathetic prostrating before a Saudi lawyer takes the first prize in stupidity. It is a sad day for Danish media, it is sad for freedom of expression and it is sad for Politiken.

The Prime Minister, expressed surprise at Politiken's move, saying he was worried that the Danish media was no longer standing shoulder to shoulder on the issue.

Tøger Seidenfaden, the Politiken editor-in-chief, said: We apologise for the offence which the reprint has caused. That is what we apologise for.

The apology was welcomed, however, by Muslim leaders in Denmark. It is beyond any doubt that they have offended some people. It is a nice and human gesture that the newspaper apologises, said imam Abdul Wahid Petersen.

38 staff members of the Danish daily Politiken issued a letter on Saturday saying they are against the newspaper's apology for offending Muslims by reprinting the turban bomb Mohammed cartoon.

In a letter published in the newspaper, the editorial staff said Politiken has nothing to apologize for. The settlement gives the impression that we regret our journalism, something there is no basis for whatsoever, they wrote, saying democratic journalism entails describing reality as precisely as possible and to encourage social debate. They also said they fear the settlement could interfere with their editorial freedom.

Politiken, which has around 200 staff members, last week apologized for offending Muslims with the 2008 reprint but did not apologize for reprinting the cartoon.

The Danish minister of justice has called on the European Commission to put a stop to a lawsuit by a Saudi lawyer who is using the UK's famously libel-happy courts to go after Danish newspapers for their publication of cartoons of Mohammed.

It's fundamentally reasonable that judgments in the EU can often be exercised across borders, the minister, Lars Barfoed, said according to the Berlingske Tidende newspaper.

But it would be taking it to the extreme if a UK court could rule against the Danish media and then require compensation and court costs to be paid.

Britain is said to be the libel tourism capital of the world. In English and Welsh courts, the burden of proof is borne by the accused rather than the complainant, and as a result they have become the jurisdiction of choice for oligarchs and mafiosi, Saudi billionaires and even totalitarian governments.

On Monday, the Danish government said that they had had enough. Danish justice minister Lars Barfoed demanded that Brussels step in to prevent lawyer Faisal Yamani from suing the Danish papers for damages in British courts on behalf of 95,000 descendents of Mohammed who claim they and their faith have been defamed.

In August 2009, Yamani asked 11 Danish publications to take down the Mohammed cartoons from their websites. While most papers have refused to do so, the left-leaning daily Politiken, finally agreed to do so in February. Rebuffed by the Danish publications, Yamani has moved his fight to UK jurisdiction, where even publication on the internet in a foreign country in another language is considered as good as published domestically.

 David Headley, a U.S. citizen of partial Pakistani descent, has pleaded guilty in a Chaicago court to a dozen federal terrorism charges, admitting that he participated in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, as well as later planning to attack a Danish newspaper.

Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende reports David Headley planned a suicide attack against one of Jyllands-Posten's offices in Copenhagen, including decapitating the employees responsible for the Muhammed cartoons.

Regarding the Denmark terror plot, Headley admitted that in early November 2008, he met with a Lashkar member in Karachi, Pakistan, and was instructed to conduct surveillance of the Copenhagen and Aarhus offices of the Danish newspaper Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten in preparation for an attack in retaliation for the newspaper's publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

In January 2009, Headley traveled from Chicago to Copenhagen to conduct surveillance of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus and scouted and videotaped the surrounding areas.

In late January 2009, Headley met separately with Abdur Rehman and a Lashkar member in Pakistan to discuss the planned attack on the newspaper and provided them with videos of his surveillance.

The Grenaa City Hall decided to remove a painting down from their Easter exhibition after complaints.

The painting's motif is a veiled woman and a pig looking at a picture of Kurt Westergaard with a bomb in his turban - exactly like in his own controversial caricature of Muhammed.

Mayor Jan Petersen said: But I agree with the decision, that we shouldn't have pictures hanging at city hall, which some people feel offends their religious feelings.

Hans Christian Sorensen, a leisure artist, was very surprised by the city hall's decision to take the picture down. He says it's humorist and denies that the picture is a provocation. He was at the exhibition for several days and he only got positive comments from the public. He says the picture is surreal and funny.

Art should be original and not copy anything. We can all paint flowers, but people see so much of it. Art should be debated, that the point of it. That's the difference between art and decoration, he says.

The 20th May is Draw Mohammed Day. This is a call to respond to censorship by death threat as inspired by the censorship of the recent South Park episodes featuring Mohammed in teddy bear suit.

There is a Facebook group, called Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! highlighting the event.

Now Pakistan has joined in support for publicising the event by blocking the Facebook page.

Update: Street protests in Pakistan

20th May 2010. Based on article from nation.com.pk

Supposedly blasphemous caricatures on the Facebook website sparked protests throughout Pakistan on Wednesday.

Thousands of people staged protests in major cities including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Multan to vent their anger over the blasphemy.

Different political and religious parties, students, traders, labour organisations staged protest demonstrations demanding a permanent ban on Facebook.

In Lahore, students of University of Engineering and Technology staged a protest demonstration-cum-sit-in outside the Press Club against Facebook. The students sat on the road in scorching heat to block traffic and chanted slogans against the website operator and demanded of the young generation to boycott the said website. They also demanded of the government to end diplomatic relations with the countries involved in publication of the Mohammed caricatures.

Update: Facebook banned entirely in Pakistan until 31st May

20th May 2010. Based on article from dailymail.co.uk

A Pakistani court has ordered the government to block the popular social networking website Facebook over an online competition inviting users to submit images of Mohammed.

In an attempt to respond to domestic criticism, the Pakistani government ordered Internet service providers in the country to block the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! page on Facebook.

But a group of Islamic lawyers went one further - and asked the Lahore High Court to order the government to fully block Facebook itself.

This was because the site had allowed the page to be posted in the first place, said the deputy attorney general of Punjab province, Naveed Inayat Malik.

The court complied with the request by the Islamic Lawyers Forum and ordered the government to temporarily block the site until May 31, Malik said.

Update: YouTube banned entirely in Pakistan

21st May 2010. Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

On Wednesday a Pakistani court ordered internet service providers to block customers from Facebook. The following day, YouTube was taken down in its entirety along with individual pages of Wikipedia and more than 450 websites that referred to the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! protest group.

However, that did not stop Facebook members elsewhere in the world posting photographs and cartoons.

One showed a photograph of a pig with a speech bubble saying: Peace be upon me and my armies. Another showed Mohammed with a long beard, holding a bomb in one hand and a decapitated head in the other, wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend: I love Jihad.

Organisers said the page was set up to promote freedom of speech.

Update: Facebook page taken down

21st May 2010.

The Facebook page Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! is currently offline!

There is back up though:

Everybody draw muhammed day May 20th (back up)

Update: More street protests in Pakistan

22nd May 2010. Based on article 22nd May & article 21st May from thenews.com.pk

Angry protests continued on Thursday across Pakistan against the percieved blasphemy by Facebook, as a number of rallies and demonstrations were held demanding the Muslim rulers to either wage jihad against the blasphemers to stop this crime or resign.

Thursday saw a number of rallies, demonstrations and meetings in every big and small city and town where leaders held Muslim rulers responsible for the ongoing trend of blasphemies and asked them to display their love of Mohammed by taking concrete action to stop this ugly trend.

The Hizb ut Tahrir staged a demonstration outside Lahore Press Club. The participants were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans like: O Pak Army! Rise and deliver a teeth-shattering response to the blasphemers by establishing the Khilafah,

Addressing the protesters, the speakers said that the Western rulers were completely protecting and supporting the deliberate attacks on Islam and Mohammed. The criminal silence of the Muslim rulers encouraged an insignificant organization like Facebook to play with the emotions of one billion Muslims of the world. Had Muslim rulers mobilised their armies against Denmark in the past, there would not have been such an event today.

Pakistanis continued protests against blasphemy on Friday, the second day of two-day countrywide demonstrations, as religious leaders demanded the Muslim rulers to ensure international legislation for death punishment to blasphemers or step down.

Addressing rallies, clerics rejected an apology to the Muslim world by US cartoonist Molly Norris who initiated a blasphemous cartoon contest on Facebook and called for death punishment to her.

They also called for Jihad against blasphemers as the only way to stop recurrence of the crime by the West.

Update: Dreams of a sense of humour

22nd May 2010. Based on article from newstime.co.za

South African Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes, confirmed that he was standing by the Zapiro cartoon which appeared in the newspaper on Friday.

Asked whether in hindsight he would not have published the cartoon Dawes stated that the decision was an important part of freedom of speech in South Africa.

The Muslim Judicial Council and others have condemned the cartoon. According to Islam, it's blasphemous to depict the Prophet Mohammed in any way.

An urgent application for an injunction against the M&G publishing their Friday print edition, was brought by the Council of Muslim Theologians, but refused by a South Gauteng High Court Judge on Thursday evening. Judge Mayat, who is a Muslim, found that the cartoon was already in the public domain on the M&G website.

The cartoon depicts the Prophet on a psychiatrist's couch bemoaning the fact that all the other prophets have followers who have a sense of humour. It is drawn by award-winning satirist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) in the M&G on Friday as part of a Facebook page campaign called everybody draw Muhammad day.

Zapiro has been receiving death threats while the newspaper has been flooded with angry calls.

Update: Facebook Page Restored

23rd May 2010. Based on article from yesbuthowever.com

On Thursday afternoon, during the middle of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!, Facebook removed the page from its website.

What was thought to be an act of self-censorship by Facebook, under the fear of retaliation from Muslims, may in fact have been the act of an individual moderator of the group.

As of 7:00 am this morning the group's page is back up on Facebook with the following statement:

Back. This page was removed two days ago, after one of our moderators had his email and skype hacked. His personal data was revealed. He then got scared and deleted the page, the blog and the emails. The rest of us, are now back without him after he backed out. This is another scare tactic from the Islamic extremists. We won't fall.

Update: 800 Related Links Blocked

23rd May 2010. Based on article from groundreport.com

Pakistan has blocked an extra 800 pages and links related to the supposedly blasphemous Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

Update: Another call for the UN to adopt a global blasphemy law

29th May 2010. Based on article from ptinews.com

Demanding a permanent ban on Facebook, over two dozen Pakistani religious groups working under the umbrella of the JuD have decided to contact the UN for enacting a global law against blasphemy of prophets and awarding death penalty to violators.

The decision to contact the UN and envoys from Muslims and non-Muslim states was made at a meeting of clerics belonging to the JuD, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, Tanzeem-e-Islami, Markaz-e-Ahlesunnat, Muslim Conference, Jamat-e-Ahlehadis, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Pakistan Ulema Council and International Katham-e-Nabuwat.

The ambassadors of Muslim and non-Muslim states will be told that blasphemy against prophets not only hurts the feelings of one religion but also sows a seed of hatred against the people of other religions, the meeting observed.

Offsite: Zapiro's response to the Prophet Mohammed controversy

29th May 2010. Based on article from timeslive.co.za

Cartoonist Jonathan Zapiro Shapiro drew himself on the same therapist's couch as he put the prophet Muhammad on last week and poured his heart out on the difficulties of censorship on religious grounds, in his latest Mail & Guardian cartoon.

Tough week? asks the therapist, while Zapiro lying on a couch replies: You have no idea.

...Read full article

Update: YouTube partially restored

30th May 2010. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

Pakistan has partially unblocked the YouTube video sharing website, but hundreds of its links to blasphemous content remain barred, officials say.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says that YouTube is now working again, although internet downloads have been slower than usual.

Our correspondent says that the Facebook website remains completely out of action.

We have lifted the ban on only that part [of YouTube] which is not displaying any sacrilegious or profane material, Naguibullah Malik, Secretary of Information Technology and Telecom, told the Reuters news agency.

The 20th May is Draw Mohammed Day. This is a call to respond to censorship by death threat as inspired by the censorship of the recent South Park episodes featuring Mohammed in teddy bear suit.

There is a Facebook group, called Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! highlighting the event.

Now Pakistan has joined in support for publicising the event by blocking the Facebook page.

Update: Street protests in Pakistan

20th May 2010. Based on article from nation.com.pk

Supposedly blasphemous caricatures on the Facebook website sparked protests throughout Pakistan on Wednesday.

Thousands of people staged protests in major cities including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar and Multan to vent their anger over the blasphemy.

Different political and religious parties, students, traders, labour organisations staged protest demonstrations demanding a permanent ban on Facebook.

In Lahore, students of University of Engineering and Technology staged a protest demonstration-cum-sit-in outside the Press Club against Facebook. The students sat on the road in scorching heat to block traffic and chanted slogans against the website operator and demanded of the young generation to boycott the said website. They also demanded of the government to end diplomatic relations with the countries involved in publication of the Mohammed caricatures.

Update: Facebook banned entirely in Pakistan until 31st May

20th May 2010. Based on article from dailymail.co.uk

A Pakistani court has ordered the government to block the popular social networking website Facebook over an online competition inviting users to submit images of Mohammed.

In an attempt to respond to domestic criticism, the Pakistani government ordered Internet service providers in the country to block the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! page on Facebook.

But a group of Islamic lawyers went one further - and asked the Lahore High Court to order the government to fully block Facebook itself.

This was because the site had allowed the page to be posted in the first place, said the deputy attorney general of Punjab province, Naveed Inayat Malik.

The court complied with the request by the Islamic Lawyers Forum and ordered the government to temporarily block the site until May 31, Malik said.

Update: YouTube banned entirely in Pakistan

21st May 2010. Based on article from telegraph.co.uk

On Wednesday a Pakistani court ordered internet service providers to block customers from Facebook. The following day, YouTube was taken down in its entirety along with individual pages of Wikipedia and more than 450 websites that referred to the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! protest group.

However, that did not stop Facebook members elsewhere in the world posting photographs and cartoons.

One showed a photograph of a pig with a speech bubble saying: Peace be upon me and my armies. Another showed Mohammed with a long beard, holding a bomb in one hand and a decapitated head in the other, wearing a T-shirt bearing the legend: I love Jihad.

Organisers said the page was set up to promote freedom of speech.

Update: Facebook page taken down

21st May 2010.

The Facebook page Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! is currently offline!

There is back up though:

Everybody draw muhammed day May 20th (back up)

Update: More street protests in Pakistan

22nd May 2010. Based on article 22nd May & article 21st May from thenews.com.pk

Angry protests continued on Thursday across Pakistan against the percieved blasphemy by Facebook, as a number of rallies and demonstrations were held demanding the Muslim rulers to either wage jihad against the blasphemers to stop this crime or resign.

Thursday saw a number of rallies, demonstrations and meetings in every big and small city and town where leaders held Muslim rulers responsible for the ongoing trend of blasphemies and asked them to display their love of Mohammed by taking concrete action to stop this ugly trend.

The Hizb ut Tahrir staged a demonstration outside Lahore Press Club. The participants were carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans like: O Pak Army! Rise and deliver a teeth-shattering response to the blasphemers by establishing the Khilafah,

Addressing the protesters, the speakers said that the Western rulers were completely protecting and supporting the deliberate attacks on Islam and Mohammed. The criminal silence of the Muslim rulers encouraged an insignificant organization like Facebook to play with the emotions of one billion Muslims of the world. Had Muslim rulers mobilised their armies against Denmark in the past, there would not have been such an event today.

Pakistanis continued protests against blasphemy on Friday, the second day of two-day countrywide demonstrations, as religious leaders demanded the Muslim rulers to ensure international legislation for death punishment to blasphemers or step down.

Addressing rallies, clerics rejected an apology to the Muslim world by US cartoonist Molly Norris who initiated a blasphemous cartoon contest on Facebook and called for death punishment to her.

They also called for Jihad against blasphemers as the only way to stop recurrence of the crime by the West.

Update: Dreams of a sense of humour

22nd May 2010. Based on article from newstime.co.za

South African Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes, confirmed that he was standing by the Zapiro cartoon which appeared in the newspaper on Friday.

Asked whether in hindsight he would not have published the cartoon Dawes stated that the decision was an important part of freedom of speech in South Africa.

The Muslim Judicial Council and others have condemned the cartoon. According to Islam, it's blasphemous to depict the Prophet Mohammed in any way.

An urgent application for an injunction against the M&G publishing their Friday print edition, was brought by the Council of Muslim Theologians, but refused by a South Gauteng High Court Judge on Thursday evening. Judge Mayat, who is a Muslim, found that the cartoon was already in the public domain on the M&G website.

The cartoon depicts the Prophet on a psychiatrist's couch bemoaning the fact that all the other prophets have followers who have a sense of humour. It is drawn by award-winning satirist Jonathan Shapiro (Zapiro) in the M&G on Friday as part of a Facebook page campaign called everybody draw Muhammad day.

Zapiro has been receiving death threats while the newspaper has been flooded with angry calls.

Update: Facebook Page Restored

23rd May 2010. Based on article from yesbuthowever.com

On Thursday afternoon, during the middle of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!, Facebook removed the page from its website.

What was thought to be an act of self-censorship by Facebook, under the fear of retaliation from Muslims, may in fact have been the act of an individual moderator of the group.

As of 7:00 am this morning the group's page is back up on Facebook with the following statement:

Back. This page was removed two days ago, after one of our moderators had his email and skype hacked. His personal data was revealed. He then got scared and deleted the page, the blog and the emails. The rest of us, are now back without him after he backed out. This is another scare tactic from the Islamic extremists. We won't fall.

Update: 800 Related Links Blocked

23rd May 2010. Based on article from groundreport.com

Pakistan has blocked an extra 800 pages and links related to the supposedly blasphemous Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

Update: Another call for the UN to adopt a global blasphemy law

29th May 2010. Based on article from ptinews.com

Demanding a permanent ban on Facebook, over two dozen Pakistani religious groups working under the umbrella of the JuD have decided to contact the UN for enacting a global law against blasphemy of prophets and awarding death penalty to violators.

The decision to contact the UN and envoys from Muslims and non-Muslim states was made at a meeting of clerics belonging to the JuD, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, Tanzeem-e-Islami, Markaz-e-Ahlesunnat, Muslim Conference, Jamat-e-Ahlehadis, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Pakistan Ulema Council and International Katham-e-Nabuwat.

The ambassadors of Muslim and non-Muslim states will be told that blasphemy against prophets not only hurts the feelings of one religion but also sows a seed of hatred against the people of other religions, the meeting observed.

Offsite: Zapiro's response to the Prophet Mohammed controversy

29th May 2010. Based on article from timeslive.co.za

Cartoonist Jonathan Zapiro Shapiro drew himself on the same therapist's couch as he put the prophet Muhammad on last week and poured his heart out on the difficulties of censorship on religious grounds, in his latest Mail & Guardian cartoon.

Tough week? asks the therapist, while Zapiro lying on a couch replies: You have no idea.

...Read full article

Update: YouTube partially restored

30th May 2010. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

Pakistan has partially unblocked the YouTube video sharing website, but hundreds of its links to blasphemous content remain barred, officials say.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says that YouTube is now working again, although internet downloads have been slower than usual.

Our correspondent says that the Facebook website remains completely out of action.

We have lifted the ban on only that part [of YouTube] which is not displaying any sacrilegious or profane material, Naguibullah Malik, Secretary of Information Technology and Telecom, told the Reuters news agency.

Update: A Blockage in Bangladesh

31st 2010. Based on article from news.bbc.co.uk

Bangladesh has joined the Pakistan tirade against the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! campaign and blocked Facebook

One man has been arrested and charged with spreading malice and insulting the country's leaders with the images, an official told the AFP news agency.

Officials said the ban was temporary and access to the site would be restored once the images were removed.

A spokesman for the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (BTRC) told AFP Facebook had hurt the religious sentiments of the country's majority Muslim population by carrying offensive images of Mohammed.

Some links in the site also contained obnoxious images of our leaders including the father of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the leader of the opposition, said the commission's acting chair, Hasan Mahmud Delwar.

The Mohammed cartoon artist, Kurt Westergaard, was supposed to appear in an interview on ZDF's popular Markus Lanz Show, but the interview with the Danish cartoonist has come to nothing.

The German media company decided to drop the footage due to fear for their employees lives and safety during and after the show, reports gallery owner Erik Guldager, who was also supposed to have participated in the program.

ZDF are supposedly under pressure by one or more groups. It's another example of censorship and self-censorship for fear of violent reprisals, which I deeply regret. The future looks darker than before in regard to openness, freedom and debate, says Erik Guldager of the Draupner Gallery in Skanderborg.

He thinks that violence and threats are increasingly making an impression in the debate on censorship, self-censorship and freedom of speech. So much so that the debate is often silenced.

The Jyllands-Posten don't mention it in this article, but Westergaard has meanwhile been forced to go on vacation from Jyllands-Posten for security reasons.

Update: Rescheduled

31st May 2010. Based on article from earthtimes.org

Kurt Westergaard is to appear on German talk show after all. He said he believes that complaints from television viewers helped lead to his appearance on a German talk show.

German broadcaster ZDF had earlier this month planned an interview with Westergaard, known for his caricature of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban, but then cancelled the appearance on the talkshow Markus Lanz.

ZDF cited editorial reasons for not conducting the interview. Westergaard called it self-censorship at the time.

Viewers reportedly were upset over the decision and their protests helped sway ZDF, Westergaard told the Danish news agency Ritzau.

Pakistan has lifted a ban on Facebook after the social networking site apologised for a page deemed offensive to Muslims and removed its contents.

Two weeks ago Facebook was blocked after a group used the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day! page to encourage people to post images of the Prophet Mohamed.

In response to our protest, Facebook has tendered their apology and informed us that all the sacrilegious material has been removed, said Najibullah Malik, from the information technology ministry. But at least 1,000 sacrilegious web pages that were also blocked will remain inaccessible.

Impossible Demands

Based on article from weeklyblitz.net

A highly placed source in the Bangladeshi government told media that, the present government is considering lifting the ban if Facebook authorities can give assurance that no one will be allowed to upload any content against Islam or any of the leaders of the ruling party in the country.

We are willing to ensure freedom of expression...BUT...at the same time, we cannot tolerate abuse of such freedom by any individual, said the source.

Another source at Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission told Weekly Blitz that, they have sent email to Facebook authorities on Monday [May 31, 2010] asking the site to remove anti Islamic and objectionable contents from it in order to help Bangladesh authorities in lifting the ban. We all know that Facebook is a popular social networking site, but we cannot afford to allow them continuing anti-Islamic or blasphemous campaign to hurt the religious sentiment of Muslims, said the source.

Update: Facebook restored to Bangladesh

9th June 2010. Based on article from mashable.com

Bangladesh ended its ban on Facebook today after the social networking company agreed to block access to the images that the government deemed offensive, according to the AFP.

Facebook blocked access to the controversial images for users within Bangladesh, but they remain accessible for users in other countries — except Pakistan.

The Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad and caused outrage in the Muslim world has announced his retirement. One has to stop at some point, Kurt Westergaard said yesterday, adding that he had been working since the age of 23, first as a teacher and then as an artist. He turns 75 on 13 July.

Westergaard said he hoped his retirement might help to lower the terror threat against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper where he has been working for the past 27 years.

Westergaard's cartoon, which he said took him 45 minutes to draw, was considered by many Muslims the most offensive of the 12 drawings. He has rejected calls to apologise to Muslims, insisting that poking fun at religious symbols is protected by Denmark's freedom of speech.

He said he was quitting his profession with a good conscience.

Following publication of what Pakistan's government and religious leaders regard as blasphemous images on the Internet, the authorities successfully shut down Facebook access throughout the country. They are now moving to do the same with such sites as YouTube and Google. Last month more than 10,000 sites were banned on pretext of blasphemy.

On May 31st a High Court judge, Justice Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry, ordered the government to take action in respect to alleged blasphemy on Facebook. On June 11th in consequence of this order, the Deputy Attorney General authorised and initiated the first stage of investigation and prosecution of Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.

The Deputy Attorney General on June 11th lodged with police a First Information Report (FIR) against the owner of Facebook.

A FIR is the document that Police register when a case is lodged against anyone. This document then becomes the prime source of evidence and on the basis the legal case will move.

The FIR refers to section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, which reads Use of derogatory remarks, etc., in respect of the Holy Prophet. Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.

The actual FIR details the charge in respect of an offense under Section 295-C Pakistan Penal Code and punishment under this offense is death penalty or rigorous life imprisonment

The next hearing is scheduled for 12th July 2010. It is highly likely that this prosecution will be initiated in time for the 12th July hearing. At that point arrest papers may be issued and Zuckerberg will become a wanted felon.

Denmark's top prosecutor has charged a Somali man with terrorism for allegedly trying to kill a cartoonist who caricatured Muhammad.

Joergen Steen Soerensen said that the man, who cannot be named under a court order, wanted to seriously frighten the population and destabilize Denmark in the attack on cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

The man allegedly broke into Westergaard's home in January, armed with a knife and an axe. Police shot him in the arm and leg.

A muslim cleric has placed the Seattle cartoonist who launched Everybody Draw Mohammed Day on an execution hitlist.

The Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki  singled out artist Molly Norris as a prime target: A soul that is so debased, as to enjoy the ridicule of the Messenger of Allah, the mercy to mankind; a soul that is so ungrateful towards its lord that it defames the Prophet of the religion Allah has chosen for his creation does not deserve life, does not deserve to breathe the air created by Allah and enjoy a life provided for by Allah. Their proper abode is Hellfire.

In Inspire, an English language Al Qaeda terrorist mag, Awlaki damns Norris and eight others for blasphemous caricatures of Muhammed. The 67-page magazine is seen by terrorism experts as a new attempt to reach and recruit Muslim youth in the West. The other cartoonists, authors and journalists in Awlaki's crosshairs are Swedish, Dutch and British citizens.

Norris initially grabbed headlines in April when she published a satirical cartoon on her Web site that declared May 20th Everybody Draw Mohammed Day as a way to mock Viacom and Comedy Central's decision to censor an episode of South Park that showed Mohammed dressed in a bear suit.

David Gomez, the FBI's assistant special agent in charge of counter-terrorism in Seattle, said Norris and others were warned of the very serious threat. We understand the absolute seriousness of a threat from an Al Qaeda inspired magazine and are attempting to do everything in our power to assist the individuals on that list to effectively protect themselves and change their behavior to make themselves less of a target.

The upcoming publication of an autobiography of Danish Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has been reported worldwide.

The book will include (inside, not on the cover) the iconic turban bomb Mohammed cartoon.

The cover illustration will be Kurt Westergaard's farewell drawing in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper when he retired earlier this year.

A leading U.S. terrorism expert has warned of renewed tensions between the Muslim world and Denmark in connection with plans by Jyllands-Postens Culture Editor Flemming Rose to release a book in which caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed are reprinted.

In his The tyranny of silence Rose studies the 12 controversial caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, which were first published in Jyllands-Posten in 2005.

If I were him, I would seriously consider the consequences of reprinting the drawings, says U.S. terrorism expert Evan Kohlman, who has worked for the FBI and the U.S. administration on terrorism issues. Kohlman says that while he understands the issue of freedom of speech, every time the drawings are reprinted, there are riots and demonstrations and there will be bloodshed.

The author insisted in an interview with Jylland-Posten competitor Politiken that he was not trying to be provocative, stressing that he simply wanted to tell the story of the 12 drawings and put them into a context of (other) pictures considered offensive.

I am sure that a lot of people don't know what I think of these drawings. My concerted wish is to explain myself. I have nothing but words to do so, but once people have read the book ... maybe they will be able to see the broader context, he said.

The spokesman for the Islamic Society in Denmark Imran Shah says that Flemming Rose is beyond reach and says that Danish Muslims will probably react by shrugging their shoulders.