The Cartoon Row

They may have graphic depictions for anything under the sun, but not even the best cartoonists could have illustrated the type of fury that would result from the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons’ controversy. The Muslim world is incensed. Passions are overflowing. Protesters are igniting embassies with flames. Effigies are getting burnt and stomped on. Smoke bellows out of city centres. United...

In Palestinian towns, for several weeks now, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets seeking vengeance and international apologies for blasphemy. The same scene was repeated, with alarming regularity and furor, in Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia as Muslims clamored indignantly and threatened death to those who had perpetrated these horrific acts against Islam. Jordan’s mass...

The television cartoon show of a Virgin Mary statue bleeding will go to air despite Catholic bishops urging their congregations to boycott TV3's news and advertisers. Responding to an open letter from Catholic bishops, the chief of TV3 and sister channel C4 said if Catholics feared they might be offended by the "Bloody Mary" episode of the South Park show, they should switch it off. "We absolutely...

A New Zealand television network says it plans to show a controversial cartoon depicting a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding, despite a boycott call by Catholic bishops read at masses throughout the country. New Zealand's seven Catholic bishops signed a pastoral letter read to worshippers at Sunday services dubbing the Bloody Mary episode of the South Park cartoon series due to be screened in May...

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the closure of Russian newspaper Gorodskiye Vesti (City of Volgograd), following the publication of a cartoon showing the Prophet Mohammed and other religious figures last week. "At a time when editorial independence needs to be defended, we find the closure of this newspaper shocking," IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said in a...

Free expression groups from around the world gathering in Brussels February 20 at the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) conference pledged themselves to confront a "growing number of attacks against the media." "It's no news to anyone here that the war on terror has put freedom of expression under threat," said Christopher Warren, the International Federation of Journalists' (IFJ...

Tehran, Iran, Feb. 19 – Iran criticised its principal opposition movement on Saturday for charging that it was behind the recent violence over cartoons depicting negatively the Islamic prophet Muhammad published in European dailies. A coalition of Iranian dissidents, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), had accused Tehran of dispatching several clerics to European and Muslim...

The Danish newspaper that published the Mohammed cartoons said Sunday that it had not published an apology to Muslims in Saudi Arabian newspapers, but that these newspapers had simply republished an apology posted on its web site earlier this month. Full-page advertisements appeared in Asharq al-Awsat, which is printed around the Arab world, as well as the local al-Riyadh and al-Jazira. "Allow me...

Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has denied reports that it was behind an ad published in Arabic-language newspapers to apologize for cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad that have sparked deadly protests around the world. Earlier, news agencies reported Saudi Arabian newspapers printed an apology on behalf of the Danish newspaper. The full-page advertisements appeared in al-Sharq al-Awsat...

A student newspaper at Canada's largest university is refusing to back down after publishing a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad and Jesus kissing. The cartoon was published last Wednesday alongside an editorial addressing the debate on whether to publish controversial Danish cartoons that have sparked protest around the world Nick Ragaz, managing editor for the Strand, says the newspaper is...