 The editor of a small Finnish culture magazine was fired on Friday for publishing new Prophet Muhammad cartoons satirising the global row over the caricatures, said the magazine. Jussi Vilkuna, the editor-in-chief of Kaltio, was sacked after he refused to remove the cartoons from the publication's website as requested by the magazine's board of directors.
"Herbert? Those aren't vertebrates are they?"
"No, Maudette. Those are trilobites, I believe. Or maybe Finnish publishers." |
"It was a very big mistake to put these comics in the magazine. We are very sorry about this and have just fired our editor Jussi Vilkuna. We will now as soon as possible take the cartoons off the web," said Harri Kynnoes, chairman of the board.
| "Please don't burn our embassies!" |
In the series of drawings, which appeared on the magazine's website but not in its print version, Mohammed is debating freedom of speech with a cartoonist. Vilkuna had served as editor for almost seven years. Three insurance companies withdrew their advertisements from the Kaltio website in reaction to the caricatures. Kaltio, which calls itself an "opinion-magazine", has about 2,000 print subscribers throughout Finland and has been published for more than 60 years. |