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| Cartoon violence calming down? |
| 2006-02-22 |
| Denmark said on Tuesday weeks of sometimes violent protests against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad appeared to be calming down, and world political and religious leaders appealed for tolerance. But with a decrease in the number and intensity of protests in the past few days, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fog Rasmussen expressed hope that his country, where the cartoons where first published in September, had weathered the worst of the storm. "It is my impression that the development during the last few days has gone in the direction of more subdued demonstrations and statements in large parts of the Muslim world," said Rasmussen. But he said: "It's clear that in several countries Â… there is (still) a lot of turbulence and I want to warn against believing that the solution to these problems will be quick or easy." Angry Muslims have set fire to the Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon and violent protests have rocked cities from Morocco to Malaysia. Hundreds of Afghan students shouted support on Monday for Osama bin Laden and threatened to join al Qaeda. The head of the world's largest Muslim grouping said on Tuesday violence would not help the Muslims' cause and denounced calls to kill the cartoonists who lampooned the Prophet Mohammad. Last week, a Pakistani Muslim cleric and his followers offered rewards amounting to more than $1 million for anyone who killed the Danish cartoonists. Ekmelettin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), condemned the caricatures as "blasphemous, ugly and uncivilized" but said any call to kill the cartoonists was against the teachings of Islam. "You have no authority to kill anybody," he told a news conference after talks with Pakistani leaders. "Nobody is entitled to do this in the name of Islam and who does it in the name of Islam is harming Islam Â… Violence weakens us. Violence works against us. Anything except violence is helpful," he said. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to address a meeting in Qatar this week in an effort to help end the violence. "He hopes on that occasion to meet with a number of leaders from Europe and from the Islamic world and to discuss with them ways of calming the situation," said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric. While European leaders have expressed regret for the offence caused by the cartoons, most have refused to apologize on grounds that the press has the freedom to express itself providing it does not contravene the law. But a Norwegian Muslim, Khalid Mohammah, said the editor of the Magazinet newspaper which reprinted the cartoons had broken the law and reported him to the police. "There are limits for what expressions are acceptable, even in a democracy. This is a case for the police, it cannot be solved by the masses," Mohammah told the Aftenposten newspaper. "We will have to see what happens as this law has not been used since 1933," Magazinet editor Verbjoern Selbekk told Reuters by telephone from Spain, where he was on holiday. Paragraph 142 of Norway's criminal code states a person can be prosecuted if he or she "in word or action publicly insults or in a demeaning or hurtful way displays scorn for any religious belief that is permitted in the country." Saudi Arabia suspended the Shams youth daily that carried the cartoons, journalists from the newspaper said on Tuesday. "The paper is for the youth and its editors are young, so they didn't realize how dangerous this is," said Suleiman al-Bathi, Saudi spokesman for a U.S.-based lobby group, the International Committee for the Support of the Final Prophet. Saudi preachers have kept the issue alive with angry sermons, but there have been no public protests, which are frowned upon by authorities in the conservative kingdom. "In the Gulf region the reaction is still controlled," Bathi said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #5 What happened? Did they realize that their ACME-brand IEDs were too dangerous to use? |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2006-02-22 21:07 |
| #4 70 plus deaths and for what??? WHAT GOOD DID IT DO???? These protests are indicative of whats wrong with the muslim world right now. |
| Posted by: bgrebel 2006-02-22 16:27 |
| #3 After 70 plus deaths, you'd think so. But wait ... here comes the bikini riots |
| Posted by: Happy 88mm 2006-02-22 14:14 |
| #2 "Norway's criminal code states a person can be prosecuted if he or she "in word or action publicly insults or in a demeaning or hurtful way displays scorn for any religious belief that is permitted in the country." It gets bit confusing, though, when a religion is in actuality a political entity with clear political aims, right? Interesting tactic that the Moslems are using. The cartoons did not denigrate religion at all--only politics, but by saying anything and everything Moslem is merely "religious" and therefore protected, the Moslems can get away with whatever they want. Free speech and law are concepts the Moslems try to use, but don't understand. For them it's: "can't say this or that, and law is what we decide by force of arms." They are so like stupid little monkeys (no offense to monkeys intended) attempting to imitate true culture. |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2006-02-22 11:20 |
| #1 Ekmelettin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), condemned the caricatures as "blasphemous, ugly and uncivilized" but said any call to kill the cartoonists was against the teachings of Islam. "You have no authority to kill anybody," he told a news conference after talks with Pakistani leaders. "Nobody is entitled to do this in the name of Islam and who does it in the name of Islam is harming Islam Â… Violence weakens us. Violence works against us. Anything except violence is helpful," he said. "Ya gotta declare jihad first! THEN it's okay!" |
| Posted by: Ptah 2006-02-22 08:17 |