February 17, 2006 ¤Ñ President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday filed a second libel suit against the mainstream Chosun Ilbo newspaper, saying a cartoon defamed him by circulating false facts. The cartoon, titled "The lie is detected fast," was published on Aug. 9 last year and addressed illegal eavesdropping by the state intelligence agency. In his written complaint submitted to the Seoul Central District...
A DRAWING by Fairfax cartoonist Michael Leunig that found its way on to an Iranian newspaper website without his approval was anti-Semitic and not an anti-war comment as claimed by the artist, Jewish groups believe. The controversy continued yesterday with a column by Michael Gawenda in The Age, critical of the cartoonist. Gawenda, the paper's former editor-in-chief and now US correspondent...
Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has launched an appeal and a petition for the immediate release of six journalists thrown into prison in Yemen and Algeria for reprinting the controversial prophet cartoons as part of informing their readers. "Whatever one thinks of the cartoons or whether they should be published, it is absolutely unjustified to jail or prosecute journalists, threaten them with...
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has urged international leaders at the level of the European Union and the United Nations to use their influence on the governments of Algeria, Jordan, the Yemen and Syria to free journalists who have been arrested or detained for publishing cartoons which have caused outrage in some Muslim communities around the world. "At a time when...
The International Federation of Journalists hosted a meeting in Brussels on February 15, 2006 at which media professionals discussed the publication in Denmark and elsewhere of cartoons which have caused regrettable offence to many people in Europe and around the world. The following statement was agreed: While all professional groups understand well the need to consider cultural and religious...
The decision by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) to issue an apology for the appearance on a Finnish website of the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad was Vanhanen's own. In his statement, issued on Tuesday while the Prime Minister was attending the Winter Olympics in Torino, Vanhanen used stronger language than many Foreign Ministry civil servants would have considered sensible...
STRASBOURG, France, Feb. 15 – In the face of attacks against foreigners in the Muslim world by violent critics of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, the European Union's chief executive said Wednesday that Europe had to fight for its core European values, including freedom of speech. "We have to stick very much to these values," said José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission....
A GERMAN newspaper has published a cartoon depicting the Iranian football team dressed as suicide bombers, opening up a new front in the row over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in Denmark. The Iranian embassy immediately demanded an apology from Der Tagesspiegel. The German cartoon showed four Iranian players at this year's World Cup in Germany with explosives attached to their...
A Queensland newspaper has entered a Holocaust cartoon in an Iranian newspaper competition to test the notion of free speech, it says. The Rockhampton-based Weekend Choice has emailed a copy of its cartoon to Iran's biggest-selling newspaper, Hamshahri. It depicts a Western man holding a Muslim man by the throat as he is about to deliver the punchline on an old joke about how many Jews you can fit...
JERUSALEM, Feb 16 (Reuters) - An Israeli cartoonist has launched an "anti-Semitic cartoon contest" to poke fun at fellow Jews in response to furore among Muslims over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad. Cartoonist Amitai Sandy said he was inspired by violent Muslim protests and the launching of a Holocaust cartoon competition by an Iranian daily that said it wanted to test the...
