Janne Virkkunen, the editor of Helsingin Sanomat, Finland's biggest broadsheet, said in a media seminar on Tuesday that the decision by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (centre) to apologise for the posting of Jyllands-Posten's Mohammed cartoons by a Finnish right-wing website as ill-advised.
"The prime minister's action was simply imprudent," Mr Virkkunent said, receiving the approval of other representatives of the Finnish press attending the seminar.
While the decision by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten to print the cartoons had been a mistake, Mr Virkkunen added, defending free speech did not exclude stupid decisions by editors.
"Either speech is free or it is not. There are no intermediate forms. Free speech applies equally well to a British rubbish tabloid as it does to the Financial Times."
Those who also confessed to having been amazed by the government's decision to apologise included Håkan Gabrielsson, the chief executive of the Federation of the Finnish Media Industry, and Jussi Vilkuna, who in February lost his job as editor of cultural magazine Kaltio after deciding to print a cartoon, featuring a depiction of the prophet, which criticised the Finnish government's approach to the Jyllands-Posten row.
Mr Vilkuna said the juxtaposition of the west and Islamic countries appeared to take centrestage in the debate. He went on to ask whether Finland too was in a state of war.
"One can in fact suggest that the censorship against Kaltio is a sign of the acceptance of a Bushist analysis of a state of war existing between the European and Islamic worlds," Mr Vilkuna said.
