Free Republic

Sweden's largest direct marketing company has joined the national postal service in refusing to distribute a political newspaper containing a caricature of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Earlier this week Posten decided not to distribute SD-Kuriren - a newspaper produced by the far-right Sweden Democrats - in Svedala in southern Sweden. As the newspaper contained a reproduction of Lars Vilks's controversial illustration of Muhammad as a dog, the postal service said that to distribute the publication would constitute a security risk. "We want to protect the safety of our mail carriers. This illustration has provoked reactions that have led to death...

This week Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called elections for November 13, and today Danish People’s party announced that they will place election posters around the country with a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. They do not hide that they are inspired by the cartoon crisis in 2006 that put Denmark in the headlines around the world. Demonstrations and violence in the Muslim world erupted. The cartoon is drawn from a portrait of the prophet from a book about Islam by Alexander Ross published in 1683. Ross was behind the first translation of the Koran into English (1649)....

HOGANAS, Sweden (CNN) -- Swedish artist Lars Vilks... 1 of 3 Al Qaeda has put a $100,000 price on his head and offered an extra $50,000 for anyone who murders him by slitting his throat after the eccentric artist and sculptor drew a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog. One Swedish Muslim woman who lives just an hour-and-a-half drive from Vilks said she hopes to make good on the al Qaeda threat and slaughter Vilks like a lamb.http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/10/16/artist.controversy/?iref=mpstoryview

Sweden's Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, has met ambassadors from 22 Muslim countries in an effort to defuse a row about a Prophet Muhammad cartoon. The cartoon, published in a Swedish newspaper last month, showed Prophet Muhammad's head on a dog's body. Several Muslim countries protested.

A website designer was convicted yesterday of stirring up racial hatred during a protest by Muslims over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Mizanur Rahman, of Palmers Green, North London, carried placards that called for non-Muslims to be “annihilated” and “beheaded” as he addressed more than 300 protesters outside the Danish Embassy in London on February 3. Rahman, 23, who wore white robes and a cap throughout the five-day trial, claimed that he had got “carried away” in front of the crowd and said he was a “nobody” whose words no one would take seriously, the Old Bailey was told. The...

A British Muslim who called for the murder of coalition troops in Afghanistan during a demonstration against the Danish cartoons has been convicted of inciting racial hatred. Mizanur Rahman, a website designer, was among 300 people who protested in London against the decision of several European newspapers to publish offensive cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. An Old Bailey jury today found him guilty of stirring up race hate but was unable to reach a verdict on a second charge of incitement to murder. Rahman, 23, who denied both charges, was remanded in custody while the prosecution decide whether there will...

Muslims lose libel case against Danish newspaper AARHUS — A court ruled yesterday that a Danish newspaper did not libel Muslims by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that unleashed a storm of protest in the Islamic world. Seven Danish Muslim organisations brought the case, saying the paper had libelled them with the images by implying Muslims were terrorists. One cartoon depicted Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. Jyllands-Posten, which published the 12 drawings in September last year, hailed the ruling, saying any other outcome would have been a catastrophe for a free press. A Muslim imam said that...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A Danish court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Muslim organizations against the newspaper that first published the Prophet Muhammad cartoons that touched off protests in the Islamic world. The City Court in Aarhus said it could not be ruled out that some Muslims had been offended by the 12 drawings printed in Jyllands-Posten, but said there was no reason to assume that the cartoons were meant to “belittle Muslims.” The newspaper published the cartoons on Sept. 30, 2005 with a text saying it was challenging a perceived self-censorship among artists afraid to offend Islam.

A Danish court has rejected a civil lawsuit against a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The 12 cartoons sparked violent protests around the world after Jyllands-Posten published them in 2005. Seven Muslim organisations launched the lawsuit against the newspapers' editors, alleging defamation. But the City Court in Aarhus said there was not enough reason to believe the cartoons were intended to be insulting or harmful to Muslims. The organisations brought it in March after the Danish attorney-general's decision not to make criminal charges against the newspaper under racism and blasphemy legislation. Since the racism and blasphemy laws...

European political correctness allows Muslims to resist integration, argues the culture editor of Jyllands-Posten. Instead, Muslims should be treated just like all Europeans -- including being subject to satire. He argues that publishing the caricatures was an act of "inclusion, not exclusion." The worldwide furor unleashed by the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed that I published last September in Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper where I work, was both a surprise and a tragedy, especially for those directly affected by it. Lives were lost, buildings were torched and people were driven into hiding. And yet the unbalanced reactions to the not-so-provocative...

[First American magazine with a Mohammad cartoon on the cover!] In this issue, we’ve reprinted two of the now-infamous Danish newspaper cartoons depicting the Muhammad. We do so not to gratuitously offend Muslims; we do so because a vital principle is at stake—a principle that easily trumps any considerations of ill manners or hurt feelings. It is the founding principle of America: individual rights. For us, it is the pre-eminent concern for any publication or journalist: the right to speak and express oneself freely. The editors of this magazine are Objectivists. As advocates of reason, we reject religion and the...

The West once again has been forced to confront the clash of cultures. Muslims worldwide rage and riot over Danish newspaper cartoons that, in their eyes, commit the double sin of depicting Mohammad and satirizing him disrespectfully. Many Muslims consider any illustration of their prophet to be an insult to their religion. Of course, other religions often find their ideas and icons satirized or criticized. Yet rarely do they respond with death threats, riots, arson, and murder. There’s a noteworthy irony in the violent Islamic reaction to the publication of the cartoons. The editors of the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten printed...