The Cartoon Row

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has called for calm in a row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that has seen protests erupt across the Muslim world. Mr Annan said he shared the distress of Muslims upset by the cartoons but urged them to accept an apology from the Danish paper that first published them. The paper's editor has told the BBC his intention was to show Muslims they were not exempt...

A FRONT-page cartoon in Wednesday’s France Soir, one of the papers that has outraged Muslim opinion by reproducing the controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, shows a sulking Mohammed sitting in a cloud being consoled by God: "Stop whingeing Mohammed, we’ve all been caricatured up here," says God, as deities from other religions look on. Such humour is unlikely to cut much ice with the...

No newspaper in this country has published the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad in ways that have angered many Muslims across the world. The Guardian believes uncompromisingly in freedom of expression, but not in any duty to gratuitously offend. It would be senselessly provocative to reproduce a set of images, of no intrinsic value, which pander to the worst prejudices about Muslims...

It began innocuously enough. Last year the Danish writer Kare Bluitgen had been searching for someone who could illustrate his children's book about the life of the prophet Muhammad. It soon became clear, however, that nobody wanted the job, through fear of antagonising Muslim feelings about images of Muhammad. One artist turned down the commission on the grounds that he didn't want to suffer the...

TWELVE Danish cartoonists whose pictures sparked such outcry have gone into hiding under round-the-clock protection, fearing for their lives. The cartoonists, many of whom had reservations about the pictures, have been shocked by how the affair has escalated into a global "clash of civilisations". They have since tried, unsuccessfully, to stop them being reprinted. A spokesman for the cartoonists...

It's some time since I visited Palestine, so I may be out of date, but I don't remember seeing many Danish flags on sale there. Not much demand, I suppose. I raise the question because, as soon as the row about the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in Jyllands-Posten broke, angry Muslims popped up in Gaza City, and many other places, well supplied with Danish flags ready to burn. (In doing so, by...

DUBAI – Denmark is the villain and not the other countries that have reprinted the controversial cartoons insulting to Islam, says a cross-section of Muslims interviewed by your favourite No. 1 newspaper Khaleej Times. The Muslim world will not be satisfied with anything less than an apology from the Danish government and quicker action against those who have offended the sentiments of the Muslim...

Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the controversial cartoons about the prophet Muhammad, today acknowledged it would not have published the drawings had it known the consequences of its decision. In a leader entitled 'What if?", the daily title says "the editor in chief of ... Jyllands-Posten has been asked the natural, but hypothetical, question: what if one had known the...

The furore concerning the cartoons published in a Danish newspaper depicting the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist has yet to abate. In the wake of the government's defeat on the religious hatred bill, many have rushed to the defence of the cartoonists. These voices range from the chattering classes reaching for their book of Voltaire quotes and trumpeting the sanctity of free speech, to the sort of...

The furor continues around the world over cartoons first published in Denmark depicting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, despite apologetic statements from Western politicians and media officials. Violence against Danish government buildings abroad and boycotts of Danish and European products are in force. Reaction from Central and South Asia has ranged from upset but understanding in...