Trust me on this. When the Philadelphia Inquirer became the first major American newspaper to publish one of the drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that have inflamed passions throughout the Muslim world, it didn’t strike a blow to press freedom. "This is the kind of work that newspapers are in the business to do," Amanda Bennett, the paper’s editor, told The Associated Press. I don’t think so...
DAMASCUS, 12 February (IRIN) - Following violent protests last week in the capital, Damascus, against negative depictions of the prophet Mohamed in a Danish newspaper, charges have been filed against a journalist who called for peaceful dialogue to settle the issue. Following his arrest on 7 February, journalist Adel Mahfouz has been charged with insulting public religious sentiment, an offence...
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed alarm at the arrest of three journalists in Yemen and two in Algeria for publishing controversial cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed. Their newspapers have all been ordered closed. Mohammed Al-Asadi, editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, has been detained by the office of the print and media prosecutor in Sana'a, according to the Yemen...
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - An opinion poll in a Danish Sunday newspaper showed that more than half the Danes questioned said they understood why Muslims around the world were outraged by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad first published in Denmark. But fewer than half those asked thought it was wrong of the daily Jyllands-Posten to publish the 12 cartoons, whose reprinting by other European newspapers...
Aliye Cetinkaya, a journalist from the Turkish daily Sabah newspaper, who was reporting on the recent protests over the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, was stoned in Konya for reasons demonstrators said were provocative as she did not cover her head. Cetinkaya was taken away by male colleagues after stones hit her head and shoulders. The female journalist was attacked for being...
The outrage which cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have provoked among Muslims has prompted much self-righteous blather about the sanctity of free speech. Yet Muslims are not the only ones who seem to find blasphemy beyond the pale, and who believe that religion should take precedence over liberty. Here in the UK, Christians retain the protection of the law of 'blasphemous libel', a common law...
To see or not to see: that is now our question. For the past week and a half, the biggest global story has been the rioting, violence and murder that has exploded over a dozen cartoons in a Danish newspaper. Former president Bill Clinton has called the cartoons "totally outrageous". Many mainstream Muslims have claimed that they are indeed offended by them. The Archbishop of Canterbury has opined...
Until earlier this month most of us had never heard of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Most were blissfully unaware, too, that the 12 cartoons published in that newspaper on September 30 last year would eventually result in a wave of Muslim protest that would lead to embassies being set on fire, posters being paraded around London with messages inciting terror and several deaths across the...
The ringleaders behind the cartoon-row demonstration in London include a British-born radical who underwent military training in Afghanistan, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. This paper has learned that the protesters included Abdur Rahman Saleem, a former member of the now-disbanded Al-Muhajiroun sect, which has been linked with terror and intimidation. The 32-year-old from Ilford in Essex...
COPENHAGEN, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Denmark urged its citizens to leave Indonesia on Saturday, warning of "clear and present danger" from Muslim extremists seeking revenge for Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. The foreign ministry said all Danes should leave the world's most populous Muslim country as soon as possible. "Concrete information indicates than an extremist group wishes to...
