RIYADH (Reuters) - A leading preacher in Saudi Arabia proclaimed a new spirit of defiance among Muslims after worldwide protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in European newspapers. "A great new spirit is flowing through the body of the Islamic nation ... this world can no longer ignore this nation and its feelings," Saleh bin Humaid said in a televised sermon at the Grand Mosque in the...
The Danish prime minister has invited foreign ambassadors to a meeting on Friday to discuss a growing international row over a series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The move by Anders Fogh Rasmussen comes amid threats from Palestinian factions to harm foreign nationals as revenge for what they say is an offence to Islam. Earlier on Thursday the joint command of the Popular Resistance...
AMMAN (Reuters) - The publisher of a Jordanian tabloid weekly newspaper has sacked a chief editor who reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that have caused outrage across the Islamic world. Editor Jihad Momani apologised on Friday and said he had wanted to illustrate the extent of the insult against Islam and Muslims in the Danish cartoons. Momani was dismissed by the publishers of his...
BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Iraq's Christians are bracing for attacks on their ancient community, fearful that deadly bombings of their churches last month were linked to Muslim fury over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad published in Europe. "The church blasts were a reaction to the cartoons published in European papers. But Christians are not responsible for what is published in Europe," Louis Sako, the...
BERLIN (Reuters) - Muslim fury over cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammad in European newspapers provides dangerous ammunition for radical Islamists and could serve as a pretext for violence, security analysts said on Friday. But they said any such action was more likely for the time being to be directed against individuals than to take the form of full-scale terrorist attacks. The "low...
An umbrella Nigerian Christian body based in the majority Muslim north has condemned the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have sparked Muslim protests across the globe. A leading Islamic cleric in Kaduna, which has previously had deadly religious riots, has also spoken about the insensitivity of printing them...
Members of Switzerland's Muslim community say the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed is unacceptable and provocative. The controversial caricatures first appeared in a Danish newspaper last year, with some of them being reprinted by Swiss and European publications this week. The images - one of which shows the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb - have caused an outcry...
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw today launched a fierce attack on the decision by some media to republish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. Speaking at a news conference he said: "There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. "I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive...
OSLO (Reuters) - The editor of a Norwegian newspaper which reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad said on Friday he regretted publication, after dozens of death threats and a growing international furore. Muslims consider any depiction of the founder of Islam as blasphemous, and the drawings, first published in Denmark in September, have whipped up fury around the Arab world. "It's escalating...
French journalists rallied yesterday to the cause of the newspaper France Soir, whose managing editor was sacked for reprinting Danish cartoons that have angered opinion in the Muslim world. The Left-of-centre Le Monde ran a page one cartoon showing the artist obscuring an image of the Prophet's head by repeatedly writing the phrase "I must not draw Mohammed" over it. The newspaper's editorial...
