Amman (dpa) - The owners of Jordan's Shihan Weekly on Thursday fired the paper's editor for republishing three of the 12 Danish cartoons depicting Islam's Prophet Mohammed which have triggered outrage in the Arab world and a campaign to boycott Danish products.
"The Arab Printers Company which owns Shihan Weekly has decided to fire its editor Jihad Momani as of Thursday after republishing the blasphemous caricatures," the firm said in a statement.
The company said that it had also decided to withdraw the paper's new issue from the market and vowed to "punish all those involved in such irresponsible and shocking action."
The Jordanian government condemned Shihan's reproduction of the cartoons and said the paper had "committed a grave mistake and should apologise immediately."
In an editorial, Momani urged Muslims of the world to "behave rationally" and seemed to belittle the impact of the publication of the caricatures compared with the injury to Islam inflicted by suicide bombers who killed 60 civilians in Amman in blasts that rocked three Amman hotels on November 9.
"Who hurts Islam more: a foreigner who excels in depicting the Prophet, or a Muslim with an explosive belt who blows himself up at a wedding party?" Momani asked.
However, he said: "I published the cartoons in order to enable people to know what is going on and did not publish them out of promotion purposes."
The cartoons were originally published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30 and reproduced in the Norwegian magazine Magazinet on January 10. Other European papers have reproduced the caricatures over the past couple of days.
The Jordanian journalists' syndicate meanwhile issued a statement strongly condemning the publication of the caricatures by Danish and other European newspapers and rejected the excuse that the move came in the cause of "freedom of expression."
"While the Jordanian Journalists Association Council absolutely condemns the publication of the caricatures, it urges European authorities to take the necessary measures to avert repetition of such offences in future," the statement said.
Jordanian trade unions also said they were going ahead with arrangements to hold two protests on Saturday and Tuesday to urge stepping up the boycott of Danish products.
