The Cartoon Row

WASHINGTON – U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday he's seen no evidence to prove the U.S. allegation that Syria and Iran have roiled anti-Western demonstrations over cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. Still, Annan said, those two, just like all other countries, should have prevented rioters from attacking foreign diplomatic missions. Foreign missions, especially of Denmark and...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Uproar in the Islamic world over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad has prompted many in the Middle East to ask why Muslims have rarely mobilized to address other pressing issues such as democracy and human rights. In a region largely dominated by absolute rulers, there has been little momentum for protests against restrictions on political freedom, sky-high unemployment or human...

OTTAWA - The Western Standard magazine has republished the controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, which have ignited riots and protests around the world. Reprinting the cartoons, which many Muslims consider to be blasphemous, increases the risk to Canadian embassies and troops, especially those serving in Afghanistan, said Peter Marwitz, a retired RCMP and CSIS agent. "The troops...

Suomen Sisu, a Finnish nationalist organisation, has posted Danish daily Jyllands-Posten's cartoons of the prophet Muhammad on its website. The organisation, which calls itself "a revolutionary Finnish nationalist movement", said in a statement dated Friday that the move was a response to what it says was a decision by the Swedish Security Police (Säpo) and the country's Ministry for Foreign...

Round two in the controversy over the Muhammad cartoons: Because many Muslim regimes are competing with radical Islamists for popular approval, they continue to incite public outrage. Now the region fears terrorist leader Osama bin Laden's call to arms. Jørgen Nielsen quickly cleared his desk and emptied the safe. Then he locked the door from the outside and left the Danish Cultural Institute in...

Trust me on this. When the Philadelphia Inquirer became the first major American newspaper to publish one of the drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that have inflamed passions throughout the Muslim world, it didn’t strike a blow to press freedom. "This is the kind of work that newspapers are in the business to do," Amanda Bennett, the paper’s editor, told The Associated Press. I don’t think so...

DAMASCUS, 12 February (IRIN) - Following violent protests last week in the capital, Damascus, against negative depictions of the prophet Mohamed in a Danish newspaper, charges have been filed against a journalist who called for peaceful dialogue to settle the issue. Following his arrest on 7 February, journalist Adel Mahfouz has been charged with insulting public religious sentiment, an offence...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed alarm at the arrest of three journalists in Yemen and two in Algeria for publishing controversial cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed. Their newspapers have all been ordered closed. Mohammed Al-Asadi, editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer, has been detained by the office of the print and media prosecutor in Sana'a, according to the Yemen...

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - An opinion poll in a Danish Sunday newspaper showed that more than half the Danes questioned said they understood why Muslims around the world were outraged by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad first published in Denmark. But fewer than half those asked thought it was wrong of the daily Jyllands-Posten to publish the 12 cartoons, whose reprinting by other European newspapers...

Aliye Cetinkaya, a journalist from the Turkish daily Sabah newspaper, who was reporting on the recent protests over the offensive caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, was stoned in Konya for reasons demonstrators said were provocative – as she did not cover her head. Cetinkaya was taken away by male colleagues after stones hit her head and shoulders. The female journalist was attacked for being...