2005-2014

Copenhagen - A Danish newspaper at the centre of the ongoing row over controversial Mohammed cartoons refuted reports that it planned to publish anti-Semitic or anti-Christian caricatures, the chief editor said Thursday. Jyllands-Posten's editor Carsten Juste's statement was published on the newspaper's web site after a Danish television channel reported that publication was pending this Sunday...

A member of Rockhampton's Muslim community has expressed disappointment that a cartoon that it believes is offensive was published in a local newspaper. The Morning Bulletin has published one of the cartoons that has sparked a violent reaction overseas. Dr Saleh Wasimi says he told the newspaper that the small central Queensland Muslim community would be offended by the publication, but it went...

The Taliban will give 100kg of gold as a reward to anyone who kills the person responsible for the contentious Danish cartoons, Afghan Islamic Press reports. "Any one who will kill the person responsible for blasphemous cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in Denmark would be rewarded 100 kilogram of gold by the Taliban," Mullah Dadullah, chief military commander of the Taliban, said. Dadullah also said...

A mass demonstration of 100,000 Muslims will take place in London next weekend as anger continues over publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The Muslim Action Committee, an umbrella group which claims to represent more than a million Muslims, said it would do as much as it could to prevent the ugly scenes seen last week when protesters carried placards issuing death threats and one man...

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Feb. 8 – As leaders of the world's 57 Muslim nations gathered for a summit meeting in Mecca in December, issues like religious extremism dominated the official agenda. But much of the talk in the hallways was of a wholly different issue: Danish cartoons satirizing the Prophet Muhammad. The closing communiqué took note of the issue when it expressed "concern at rising hatred...

KABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 8 -- Like tens of thousands of protesters this week, the crowd that gathered Wednesday in the southern Afghan town of Qalat came to speak out against cartoons in European newspapers mocking the prophet Muhammad. But the protest soon took a much different direction. Afghan demonstrators began chanting against the hiring of Pakistanis to do reconstruction work. Pakistanis in...

The Mexican government will name a special prosecutor to investigate crimes against journalists. The move comes two days after gunmen stormed a newspaper office in the US-Mexico border town of Nuevo Laredo, seriously wounding one reporter. TIME TO GIVE IT A SHOT: Mexico president Vicente Fox speaks during a news conference in Vina del Mar, 85 miles south of Santiago, Chile January 26. Fox had

Editors, not governments, should decide what is published in the media, the Cabinet said on Wednesday. However, it warned that the sensitivities of individuals and communities should also be respected. Government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe said: "South Africa upholds the principle of freedom of speech. However, we appreciate that our constitution enjoins us, in exercising this right, to...

NEW YORK – Muhammed Zahny is upset - and not about the cold wind that is keeping customers away from his store on Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue. "If I lose money, I don't care," says Mr. Zahny, who owns "Islamic Fashions." "But if I lose respect, then I have nothing left." Zahny, originally from Egypt, says the recent republication of Danish newspaper cartoons depicting Muhammad, the messenger of...

COPENHAGEN, Feb. 8 -- Mohammad Fouad Barazi, a prominent Muslim cleric here, received a text message on his cell phone last week. It was a mass mailing from an anonymous sender, he said, warning that Danish people were planning to burn the Koran that Saturday in Copenhagen's City Hall Square out of anger over Muslim demonstrations against Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Hundreds of people...