2005-2014

The Danish editor who published the drawings of the prophet Muhammad that have sparked worldwide protests said the furor was deliberately stoked by a group of Danish imams who toured the Middle East with a portfolio that included images never printed in his paper, among them, drawings of the prophet having sex with animals. Flemming Rose, cultural editor of the Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, said...

The editors of two New Zealand newspapers that published controversial images of the Prophet Mohammed have apologised for the offence they caused Muslims. The apology comes after a meeting today in Wellington attended by 17 representatives of various media organisations and religious groups. It was set up by Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres. The meeting issued a statement saying freedom...

Here’s a tale of two "toons." The first comprises twelve parts. They were published on September 30 of last year in Denmark’s largest newspaper Jyllands-Posten and since then have caused an intensifying crescendo of protest across Muslim communities throughout Europe and throughout the Muslim Middle East and Asia. The second appeared in The Washington Post on January 29. The history of the first...

In a historical move, leaders of three major international organisations have deplored the violent protests following the publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. The joint statement from the UN, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the EU also urged governments to guard embassies and foreigners from attacks. "We are deeply alarmed at the repercussions...

European Jews expressed a mixture of anger and frustration this week as the furor over a Muslim cartoon erupted into violence in Europe and the Middle East. As frequent targets of anti-Semitic cartoons - many of them in the Arab press - Jews on one hand sympathized with the Muslim outrage over depictions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed, which is considered by Muslims to be blasphemous. But Jews...

LONDON – The violence over cartoons satirizing the prophet Muhammad has highlighted often inconsistent rules in Europe governing free speech, tolerance, and the boundaries of public expression. Muslims in particular charge that hate-speech laws are implemented unfairly. Many countries, they say, do not abide anti-Semitic outbursts, but will tolerate cartoons that to many Muslims are deeply...

A meeting aimed at easing tensions caused by the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad is to take place today. It will involve representatives from The Dominion Post, The Press, TVNZ and TV3, along with Muslim, Jewish and Christian religious leaders. Race Relations Commissioner, Joris de Bres, says he is delighted at the willingness of the two sides to get together at short notice...

THEIR anger was raw. Several New York Muslims protesting against the caricatures of the prophet Muhammad became irate when asked if the global furore was an overreaction. "Do you know the atrocities that are happening to Muslims every day?" one demanded. "In Iraq? In Pakistan? In Palestine? Muslims feel as if we are under siege." The deep offence many Muslims have taken to the cartoons is about...

WHILE some say Muslims just can't take a joke, it turns out the joke is on us. Across large swaths of the Middle East and in the West, the report card on free speech contains more F-words than the dialogue in Team America: World Police. When a Danish newspaper published 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohammed to test whether multi-cultural Denmark was committed to freedom of expression, much of the...

Google’s decision to abide by Chinese censors in the launch of its new google.cn search service is a blow against democratic rights and free speech that sets a dangerous precedent both in China and internationally. Though certainly not the first such move–Yahoo’s and Microsoft’s MSN service have both stated that they abide by Chinese government censorship policies, banning such words as "freedom"...