The Cartoon Row

That began as an act of not-so-innocent bravado in Denmark last September has ceased to be a laughing matter – what with sundry ministers in Uttar Pradesh negotiating terms for contract killers. Yet, amid all the outrage, indignation and hysteria, people haven’t entirely lost their sense of humour. There are at least two interventions in the fiery debate over blasphemy worthy of a chuckle. Both...

The board of Finnish culture magazine Kaltio decided Friday to sack its chief editor, Jussi Vilkuna, after he refused to remove a cartoon featuring the Prophet Muhammad from the magazine's website. The cartoon appeared in the Finnish culture magazine Kaltio's website last Friday. On Thursday, Finnish insurance firms Tapiola, Sampo and Pohjola withdrew their advertisements from the Kaltio website...

Two student newspapers at Clemson University have reprinted the controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, upsetting Muslim students on campus and drawing a rebuke from the school’s president. The papers, the conservative Tiger Town Observer and the liberal Clemson Forum, are not funded by the school, but the Observer has an on-campus office. In an open letter e-mailed to Clemson...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A prominent Malaysian newspaper avoided punishment for publishing a cartoon about the Prophet Muhammad drawings controversy, offering an apology accepted by the government Friday. The New Straits Times angered many Muslims groups in Malaysia by running the Non Sequitur strip on Monday, even though the cartoon did not show the prophet. Muslim groups said it mocked Islam...

(AXcess News) Washington - Some editorial cartoonists and other journalists Friday applauded U.S. newspapers that reprinted the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. "Our newspapers ought to have shown the cartoons to say this is what has caused so much trouble," said Signe Wilkinson, a Pulitzer Prize wining cartoonist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Wilkinson said U.S. newspapers...

STOCKHOLM: As the uproar over Prophet Muhammad cartoons continues to roil the world, the crisis has come home to the region where it originated, striking a major blow to traditional Scandinavian solidarity. Despite the strong historical and cultural links the countries share - and their centuries of close cooperation, known here as "Nordism" - Sweden and Norway have carefully chosen to distance...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Syria on Friday disputed U.S. charges it had incited mob violence over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, saying Damascus had done its best to protect embassies during violent protests and would pay for damages. Dozens of Syrian police and security officers had been injured protecting foreign embassies during February 4 demonstrations in Damascus that started out...

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- The New Straits Times, the flagship newspaper of Malaysia's second-biggest publisher, said the government may take action against it over a Wiley Miller cartoon it published following complaints it insults the prophet Muhammad. ``The matter is in the hands of the authorities,'' New Straits Times (M) Bhd. Group Editor-in-Chief Hishamuddin Aun said in a statement published on...

23 February 2006 -- Belarus' Information Minister Uladzimir Rusakevich has threatened tough measures against a Belarusian newspaper that reprinted the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The private weekly "Zhoda" reprinted the cartoons on 17 February to illustrate an article about the deadly impact of the protests they sparked across the Muslim world. The Foreign Ministry lashed out at...

The storm over the Danish cartoons has been mistakenly described as a debate over the limits of free speech. One of the milder posters carried during a Londonistan anti-cartoon protest read "FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS WESTERN TERRORISM." The coverage in the mainstream American press has ranged from the banal to the bizarre, depicting broad-minded Danes and Dutchmen as raving xenophobes for refusing...