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Muhammad cartoon row intensifies
Newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage. Seven publications in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain all carried some of the drawings.

The owner of one of the papers to reprint - France Soir - has now sacked its managing editor over the matter.

The cartoons have sparked diplomatic sanctions and death threats in some Arab nations, while media watchdogs have defended publication of the images in the name of press freedom. Reporters Without Borders said the reaction in the Arab world "betrays a lack of understanding" of press freedom as "an essential accomplishment of democracy."
Not that such trifles are important in an Islamic society, of course.
France Soir and Germany's Die Welt were among the leading papers to reprint the cartoons, which first appeared in Denmark last September. The caricatures include drawings of Muhammad wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise was running short of virgins for suicide bombers.

France Soir originally said it had published the images in full to show "religious dogma" had no place in a secular society. But late on Wednesday its owner, Raymond Lakah, said he had removed managing editor Jacques Lefranc "as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual". Mr Lakah said: "We express our regrets to the Muslim community and all people who were shocked by the publication."
Somebody in the French government or academia got to him, not that it would especially hard to do so.
The president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), Dalil Boubakeur, had described France Soir's publication as an act of "real provocation towards the millions of Muslims living in France".
"Oh, the millions who will seethe, roll their eyes and set cars on fire! You'd better apologize right now!"
Other papers stood by their publication. In Berlin, Die Welt argued there was a right to blaspheme in the West, and asked whether Islam was capable of coping with satire. "The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical," it wrote in an editorial.
That makes too much sense to have been written in Y'urp.
La Stampa in Italy, El Periodico in Spain and Dutch paper Volkskrant also carried some of the drawings.

European Muslims spoke out against the pictures. In Germany, the vice-chairman of the central council of Muslims said Muslims would be deeply offended. "It was done not to defend freedom of the press, but to spite the Muslims," Mohammad Aman Hobohm said.
That's what we call a 'two-fer'.
Correspondents say the European papers' actions have widened a dispute which has grown very serious for Denmark. The publication last September in Jyllands-Posten has provoked diplomatic sanctions and threats from Islamic militants across the Muslim world.

Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller has postponed a trip to Africa because of the dispute. Thousands of Palestinians protested against Denmark this week, and Arab ministers called on it to punish Jyllands-Posten. Syria and Saudi Arabia have recalled their ambassadors to Denmark, while Libya said it was closing its embassy in Copenhagen and Iraq summoned the Danish envoy to condemn the cartoons.

The Danish-Swedish dairy giant Arla Foods says its sales in the Middle East have plummeted to zero as a result of the row, which sparked a boycott of Danish products across the region.
To be balanced by increased sales in the U.S., I hope.
The offices of Jyllands-Posten had to be evacuated on Tuesday because of a bomb threat. The paper had apologised a day earlier for causing offence to Muslims, although it maintained it was legal under Danish law to print them.
Posted by: ryuge 2006-02-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=141194