And still it continues:
Danish Muslim organisations are planning to take the daily Jyllands-Posten to the European Court of Human Rights over controversial cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
The decision was announced Monday (9 January) by Kasem Ahmad, leader of Danish Islamic religious body Islamsk Trossamfund, uniting various Muslim organisations, following an announcement that a Danish local attorney general had rejected their case.
Islamsk Trossamfund had sued the daily for the publication of drawings of the prophet Mohammed for blasphemy, as the Koran forbids all visual depictions of the prophet.
Meanwhile, as reported at Brussels Journal, a Norwegian paper has published the cartoons in an act of solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, and another has put them up on its website:
“We cannot tolerate this in a democratic society,” said Selbekk [the editor of Magazinet]. Asked if he was himself afraid of reprisals he said: “We have gone astray if we begin to concede on this issue out of fear. Many have already done much to prevent this problem from being hushed up. We hope that by publishing the cartoons we can do our bit.”
This latest move has, predictably enough, been condemned by the Muslim World League as part of a hate campaign:
The Muslim World League yesterday expressed its resentment over the cartoons published by a Norwegian magazine offensive to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).
“The cartoons published in the magazine’s Tuesday issue are offensive to the Prophet and they deliberately chose Eid day to launch a sinister campaign,” WML Secretary-General Dr. Abdullah Al-Turki said in a statement.
He warned of the negative consequences that might follow.
“This will not affect international relations but give rise to hatred in the Muslim world for such countries,” he said and reminded the consequences that followed when a Danish newspaper published 12 offending cartoons some years [??] ago.
“Such incidents anger over 1.5 billion Muslims who want to live in peace and harmony the world over,” he said and urged cultural and social institutions across Europe to halt the hate campaign against Islam forthwith.
There seems to be a simple confusion here, between launching hate campaigns and being offensive. A hate campaign is when demagogues call for the murder or hatred of a group of people on account of their race or religion. Being offended is something you just have to learn to live with in this imperfect world, and despite the best intentions of our government, the right to offend is central to the idea of freedom of expression.
Any chance of a UK paper publishing the cartoons? I’m not holding my breath.
Leave a Reply