Posted on 02/02/2006 6:08:23 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
European leaders tried to contain the controversy over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed on Thursday, as the international dispute escalated into a consumer boycott and risked the gravest cultural clash with the Muslim world since the Salman Rushdie affair.
Publication of the cartoons in Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands triggered condemnation in the Muslim and Arab world, where consumers turned their anger on Danish companies.
Arla, the dairy company based in Denmark, where the cartoons were first published, admitted on Thursday its sales in some Middle East countries had fallen to zero. Carrefour, the French retailer, said it had removed Danish products from shelves in its Middle East operations.
Other Danish companies targeted in the boycott include Lego, the toymaker, and Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceuticals company.
As popular protests spread, the leaders of Egypt and Afghanistan warned the cartoons had offended millions of Muslims and could be exploited by terrorists in their war against the west.
“Any insult to the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) is an insult to more than 1bn Muslims and an act like this must never be allowed to be repeated,” said Hamid Karzai, Afghan president, strong western ally and moderate Muslim leader.
Gunmen in Gaza surrounded the local European Union office and threatened to kidnap citizens of countries where newspapers had published the cartoons.
In an effort to calm Muslim anger, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, was set to appear last night on the al-Arabiya satellite news channel to explain his government’s position. He also called a meeting of all foreign ambassadors in Copenhagen for today as the debate in Europe polarised defenders of press freedom and religious groups.
Ursula Plassnik, foreign minister of Austria, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said she understood the offence Muslims felt, adding that EU leaders needed to “clearly condemn” acts that insult religion.
Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, said he believed “freedom of the press should always be exercised in a way that fully respects the religious beliefs and tenets of all religions”.
The dispute began on September 30, when Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s biggest newspaper, published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, a move considered blasphemous in Islam. One of the cartoons showed the Prophet with a bomb under his turban. The Danish newspaper later apologised but the row escalated this week after several European newspapers reprinted the cartoons to assert the right to free speech.
The BBC on Thursday used footage of newspapers carrying the cartoons in its 1pm television news bulletin and on BBC News 24, the rolling news channel, and ITV News said it would show similar footage “in the context of it being a news story”.
Most daily UK newspapers decided not to reproduce the cartoons on Thursday. One cartoon appeared on The Spectator’s website but was quickly taken down.
The French government criticised France Soir, the first French newspaper to reprint the images. In Germany, religious and minority representatives sought to calm after Die Welt, the conservative daily, reprinted the cartoons on Wednesday.
Again!?
Gah!
Mohamed only ate pork after he had sex with it.
Get over it!
How about that Kofi?
Reprint them every day in every Western newspaper. Their collective heads would blow and we would finally have some peace.
ROFLOL! Hhahahahahah, I think you just made a hilarious, two panel cartoon!
With allies like these....
This is the message that needs to be conveyed to the muzzies over and over until they die of apoplexy.
Not quite as quick as nuclear weapons....but still effective.
Nothing sparks islamist rage or arab rage. It is just there. All the time.
Well said.
Modern Islam = terrorism at it's worst and anti-freedom intimidation at best.
Stop! Stop! We're out of virgins!
LOL!!!
"Sparking Islamic rage" ... Yeah that's a hard thing to do. </sarc>
Just as with "Kids say the darndest things", there ought to be a "Muslims are offended at the darndest things" as well.
These people don't seem to care about worldwide muslim orchestrated terror, but get ants in their pants about a stinkin' cartoon drawn at the hands of people that the same ones being offended have threatened, and tried, to kill.
Yes. It must be repeated. All due respect to Karzai. The Holy Prophet (may he be buggered daily in Hell by Satan) has left his legacy, and human beings have the right to comment on it without fear of violence.
I don't have a problem with boycotts. They are legitimate exressions of outrage, and if the Muslims want to boycott and can carry it off, more power to 'em.
But we in the West must claim OUR right to express outrage at Muslim barbarism, and we must NEVER allow ourselves to be intimidated in to silence by threats of psychotic Islamic thuggery.
P.S. Did I mention Buggered Daily in Hell By Satan?
bookmark -- illustrations of mohammed
I can't tell at first blush, but if it does, then I condemn them both.
Just to recap, I condemn both this cartoon...
And this cartoon...
Both are equally outrageous and offensive.
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