The Cartoon Row

An umbrella Nigerian Christian body based in the majority Muslim north has condemned the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. The cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have sparked Muslim protests across the globe. A leading Islamic cleric in Kaduna, which has previously had deadly religious riots, has also spoken about the insensitivity of printing them...

Members of Switzerland's Muslim community say the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed is unacceptable and provocative. The controversial caricatures first appeared in a Danish newspaper last year, with some of them being reprinted by Swiss and European publications this week. The images - one of which shows the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb - have caused an outcry...

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw today launched a fierce attack on the decision by some media to republish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed. Speaking at a news conference he said: "There is freedom of speech, we all respect that. But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. "I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been insulting, it has been insensitive...

OSLO (Reuters) - The editor of a Norwegian newspaper which reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad said on Friday he regretted publication, after dozens of death threats and a growing international furore. Muslims consider any depiction of the founder of Islam as blasphemous, and the drawings, first published in Denmark in September, have whipped up fury around the Arab world. "It's escalating...

French journalists rallied yesterday to the cause of the newspaper France Soir, whose managing editor was sacked for reprinting Danish cartoons that have angered opinion in the Muslim world. The Left-of-centre Le Monde ran a page one cartoon showing the artist obscuring an image of the Prophet's head by repeatedly writing the phrase "I must not draw Mohammed" over it. The newspaper's editorial...

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's leading newspaper El Pais on Friday became part of a growing international row by publishing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad on its front page. The cartoon, originally published by France's Le Monde, portrayed the head of the Prophet Mohammad made up of lines which say "I must not draw Mohammad" in French. Newspapers in France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and Hungary...

The Danish Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia was the target of a demonstration today by 200 – 300 people from the Front of the Defenders of Islam (FPI) who were protesting to show their contempt for drawings of the Prophet Muhammad featured last year in a Danish newspaper. The protesters smashed lamps with bamboo sticks and threw chairs around, and shouted "Allahu Akbar" meaning "God is Great". They...

British newspapers have refused to publish the controversial Mohammed cartoons that this week prompted a violent backlash from Muslims across the world. Broadcasters took a different view and last night the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 all showed fleeting images of the cartoons. The row over cartoons of the Islam founder began last week after a senior Saudi Arabian cleric denounced Danish paper Jyllands...

COPENHAGEN: As a Danish citizen of Pakistani descent, a onetime television anchor and now a prominent author married to a Dane, Rushy Rashid has led what could be depicted as a high-profile life. But, she said, nothing has forced her to define her attitude to fellow Muslims quite so much as Denmark's bitter fight with much of the Islamic world over a newspaper's decision to print unflattering...

PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen lashed out at extremist Muslim leaders in Denmark on Thursday for speaking with two tongues in the on-going row between the country and the Muslim world. Rasmussen said imams' positive comments in Danish about the recent days' thaw in the dispute over newspaper Jyllands-Posten's publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet Mohammed had been undermined by statements made in...