The Cartoon Row

TO publish or not to publish the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed? That's the question weighing on the minds of newspaper editors around the country. The cartoons have caused global outrage but you will probably never see them. And it's a good thing, too. The 12 drawings by a Danish cartoonist which depict the Prophet Mohammed in a negative light were initially published in a Danish...

Israel's newspapers yesterday contrasted the Muslim world's furious response to the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed with the restrained way it reacted to anti-Semitic caricatures in Arab media. Hook-nosed Jews manipulating American foreign policy, Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, drinking the blood of Palestinian children and Israelis wearing swastikas have all been depicted in newspapers...

Cartoons making fun of the Prophet Muhammad that were published in a Danish newspaper last September are suddenly one of the hottest issues in international politics. Muslims in Europe and across the Middle East have been holding protests with growing levels of violence and now loss of life. The easy points to make about the continuing crisis are that (a) people are bound to be offended if their...

The editor of a Polish newspaper that reprinted images of the Prophet Muhammad said on Tuesday that he was sorry if the publication gave offence to Muslims, but defended it as an act of solidarity. The Rzeczpospolita daily on Saturday reproduced two caricatures that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper, along with a commentary defending media freedom by editor Grzegorz Gauden. The move was...

Only an irresponsible and intellectually inept individual would sketch such insulting images as those depicting Prophet Mohammed by a cartoonist in the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper. And no self-respecting newspaper would allow itself to run such filth. However, the backlash in the Muslim world highlights a much more serious issue. Jyllands-Posten - and another newspaper in Norway that re-ran...

As world leaders pleaded for calm in the Mohammed cartoon row yesterday, the Danish Muslim leaders who set the crisis in motion insisted that they had been trying to promote a "dialogue of civilisations". They also angrily denied allegations from moderate Muslims and European intelligence services that hidden "masterminds" triggered the sudden explosion of protests, a full four months after 12...

Last week the publication I work for, the German newsweekly Die Zeit, printed one of the controversial caricatures of the prophet Muhammad. It was the right thing to do. When the cartoons were first published in Denmark in September, nobody in Germany took notice. Had our publication been offered the drawings at that point, in all likelihood we would have declined to print them. At least one of...

"Without this there would be no Life of Brian," said Roger Koeppel, editor-in-chief of the German newspaper Die Welt, claiming that his decision to republish the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have caused such offence to many Muslims was a free speech issue. "It's at the very core of our culture that the most sacred things can be subjected to criticism, laughter and satire." That is...

PARIS -- Fears are growing that the spasm of anti-European protests across the Muslim world could evolve into a more dangerous confrontation unless political and religious leaders take unified action. Extremists have already capitalized on public anger in Muslim countries over the widespread publication, in Europe and elsewhere, of caricatures of Islam's Prophet Mohammed, including one with a...

BRUSSELS, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The European Union stepped up pressure on Arab and Muslim countries to control protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, reminding 19 nations of their treaty obligation to protect diplomatic missions. In a strongly worded statement issued late on Monday, EU president Austria said it had instructed its embassies in the Middle East, Asian and African countries to...