The Cartoon Row

PARIS (Reuters) - Fresh protests erupted across Asia and the Middle East over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Monday, despite calls by world leaders for calm after Danish diplomatic missions were set ablaze in Lebanon and Syria. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed alarm and urged restraint but oil giant Iran, which is reviewing trade ties with countries that published the cartoons...

A South African editor has received threats after her paper reprinted one of the cartoons that have angered Muslim groups internationally. Ferial Haffajee, editor of the Mail and Guardian said she had received abusive letters and text messages. On Friday, South African Muslim activists won an interdict barring another paper, the Sunday Times, from printing the cartoons. Cartoons of the prophet...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has expressed concern at the arrest of two Jordanian editors in Amman for publishing cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed. The journalists, charged twice in three days, face criminal counts that include incitement to violence and blasphemy. The action comes as violence against journalists was reported in Lebanon, and a South African court censored two top...

The cartoon was disgracefully insensitive. It depicted a barbed wire Star of David in which innocent Palestinian men, women and children were trapped. By the time it appeared in the Seattle Times in July 2003, hundreds of Israeli civilians had been mercilessly slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists in what they call the "second intifada." But compared to what is typically found in the Arab press...

Several hundred people gather for a come-as-you are demonstration for peace and understanding As many as a thousand people gathered in the shadow of the offices of newspaper Jyllands-Posten Sunday afternoon to demonstrate in support of dialogue in the intensifying debate over the newspaper's caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. The demonstration, attended by ethnic Danes as well as Danes of Muslim...

I think, therefore I am, said the philosopher. Fine. But I think, therefore I speak? No way. Nobody has an absolute right to freedom. Civilisation is the story of humans sacrificing freedom so as to live together in harmony. We do not need Hobbes to tell us that absolute freedom is for newborn savages. All else is compromise. Should a right-wing Danish newspaper have carried the derisive images of...

DUBAI (Reuters) - Prominent Muslim scholar Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi condemned on Sunday the torching of Danish and Norwegian embassies in Arab capitals by Muslims angry over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar, told Arabic television Al Jazeera that Muslims should instead channel their fury by boycotting goods of countries who published the drawings in their...

The worldwide campaign at street and diplomatic level against European newspaper publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed yesterday assumed ever more serious proportions. In Damascus, thousands of Syrian demonstrators set fire to both the Danish and Norwegian embassies, badly damaging the buildings. In Palestine, dozens of youths attacked the European Union's officer in Gaza, and, in Jordan, the...

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway will complain to the United Nations about Syria's failure to protect its embassy in Damascus from being torched by demonstrators angry over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. "We condemn what happened in Damascus strongly, it's totally unacceptable and we are going to raise the question with the United Nations because this is a violation...

Danish ministers say the government can’t condemn the cartoons a daily published mocking the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and that freedom of speech is guaranteed for all and that freedom of the press is also guaranteed by the Danish constitution. This argument would have been accepted if the constitution does not state otherwise and if the Danish government can say the same thing when it...