COPENHAGEN: A Danish newspaper said on Tuesday it had filed a defamation lawsuit against a lawyer representing a group of Muslim organisations that sued the daily for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).The Jyllands-Posten sued Michael Christiani Havemann for saying its top editors ordered a cartoonists to deliberately make a “gross” drawing of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) because those solicited by freelance artists were not good enough. The 12 cartoons published by the daily in September prompted angry mobs to attack Western embassies in Muslim countries, including Lebanon, Iran and Indonesia. The cartoons later were reprinted in several countries worldwide.
Jyllands-Posten Editor in Chief Carsten Juste said Havemann’s accusations “are simply so gross and insulting that he has crossed the line for what we will accept”. “The cartoonists were explicitly asked to freely depict the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as they saw him, in other words without any directions from the newspaper’s side,” he said in a statement. The purpose of the cartoons was to challenge a perceived self-censorship among artists afraid to offend Islam, Juste said.
The newspaper is seeking $16,800 in damages, and demanded a court ruling stating Havemann’s statement was incorrect. In a March 29 news release, Havemann wrote: “According to my information, the grossest of the cartoons, the one with the bomb, was drawn by the paper’s employed cartoonist, apparently on the instructions of management because the cartoons drawn by the freelance artists were not gross enough.”
Havemann was not immediately available for comment. On March 29, 27 Muslim organisations represented by Havemann filed a defamation lawsuit calling the drawings “gratuitously defamatory and injurious.” They sought $16,800 in damages from the daily. No date for a hearing has been set. The newspaper apologised for offending Muslims, but stood by its decision to print the drawings, citing freedom of speech.