SAN FRANCISCO--Why are some Western commentators casting the controversy over the Danish cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad as a challenge to freedom of expression and of the press? They should instead view the controversy as a challenge to journalists to renew their sense of respect for different cultures and religious beliefs. A series of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad provoked protests...
When it comes to matters of free speech and sound journalism, it's getting increasingly difficult to determine who is worse: the present rulers of the United States or the Islamo-fascists they're now at war with. When they're not busy attacking one another, each side in the current conflict keeps busy attacking journalists (more already dead in Iraq than in the entire Vietnam era), journalism and...
Diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners are leaving the West Bank and Gaza Strip as cartoons of the prophet Mohammed that were published in several European newspapers sparked outrage in the Muslim world. Palestinian gunmen burst into a West Bank hotel and abducted a 21-year-old German teacher in Nablus on Thursday evening, and Gaza militants surrounded European headquarters in the Strip. But...
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Flemish newspapers on Friday printed a series of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, including those published in a Danish newspaper that have sparked outrage across the Muslim world. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet, to prevent idolatry. "Right for Satire," said a front-page headline in Het Nieuwsblad. An editorial in the newspaper called the outcry over...
A leading British imam has urged Muslims in the UK to look to their own behaviour and see if they are following the Prophet’s commandments in their own lives before lashing out against the controversial cartoons. Imam Ibrahim Mogra, a preacher in Leicester and a senior member of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that British Muslims were "upset, distraught and angry" about the repeated...
COPENHAGEN, Feb 3 (Reuters) - European Muslims, some bearing aloft banners threatening a "9/11" for Europe, ratcheted up their anger on Friday over controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad, despite some imams calling for calm. After holy day prayers at a mosque in central London, a group of 300 Muslim demonstrators marched to the Danish embassy to vent their anger, holding placards...
By Kim Willsher in Paris, Luke Harding in Berlin and Nicholas Watt in Brussels Europe's political elite were scrambling last night to contain the furore across the Arab world at the publication of caricatures of Muhammad, with leaders stressing that freedom of the press did not mean freedom to cause offence. With newspaper editors in half a dozen countries unrepentant at the decision to republish...
In September 2005, a Danish newspaper published 10 cartoons, including one depicting the prophet Muhammad with a bomb on his turban. There were immediate protests within Denmark and the situation has recently escalated to the point where Danish goods are being boycotted, Scandinavian aid workers have been pulled out of Gaza and ambassadors have been recalled. One striking feature of these events...
The battle is set, of religious extremism versus freedom of speech. These are the lines drawn, or so we are told, in the escalating tensions worldwide surrounding the printing of images of Muhammad in Denmark and elsewhere in Europe. Although the media is only now picking up on this story, my inbox has been receiving messages about these cartoons for weeks. The messages range from high-pitched to...
Friday prayers in the Muslim world helped fuel further outrage against the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed published in Europe, at the same time that the controversy promised to continue as more and more European publications were re-printing the cartoons. As the controversy widened, what began to crystallize Friday was a clash-of-civilizations collision between Western views of freedom of...
