Moscow, June 7, Interfax - The authors of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and triggered Muslims' angry protests worldwide are still getting death threats, Jyllands-Posten Editor-in-Chief Jorn Mikkelsen said at the 13th World Editors Forum organized by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) in Moscow on Tuesday.
"Twelve of our cartoonists are still receiving deaths threats. They have to live in hiding and under police protection," Mikkelsen said.
Explaining the motives behind the newspaper's decision to publish the cartoons, the editor said the publishers had wanted to gauge the degree of freedom of speech in this era of globalization by seeing whether Danish cartoonists could be restricted in their activities.
"We believed we could bring this issue up for discussion. We faced a bitter response and some provinciality," he said.
The newspaper "did not aim to insult the Muslim residents of Denmark," Mikkelsen said. "We are not champions of extremism and did not try to provoke any civilization clashes," he said.
The cartoon scandal was extremely politicized, Mikkelsen said. "Many Muslims in Denmark agreed with our viewpoint," he said.
"This situation has made us think about the degree of freedom of speech," he said.
