Police have registered cases against the editor and publisher of a Danish newspaper and several other European dailies over their publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), under a blasphemy law that carries the death penalty, an officer said. Internet giants Yahoo, Hotmail, and the search engine Google were also named in the cases for allowing access to the drawings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) that were considered sacrilegious by Muslims. A lawyer who runs a citizensÂ’ rights group submitted the cases.
The drawings were first published by DenmarkÂ’s daily Jyllands-Posten in September. Newspapers in several other European countries later reproduced the caricatures, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world. At least five people died in the unrest in Pakistan.
Islamic tradition bars any of drawings of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), favourable or otherwise, in a policy to discourage idolatry. Lawyer Iqbal Haider, who runs Awami Himayat Tehrik or PeopleÂ’s Support Movement, had petitioned the Supreme Court against the publication of the cartoons under a blasphemy law that allows the death penalty for anyone guilty of insulting the Holy Prophet (PBUH) or the holy Quran.
Cases were registered on Tuesday against Jyllands-Posten, its editor, publisher, a cartoonist, and newspapers in France, Italy, Ireland, Norway and the Netherlands at a police station in Karachi on the courtÂ’s orders, said Tariq Malik, an official at the station.
“It is now the government’s job to contact the Interpol and bring the offenders to a court of law in Pakistan,” Haider said on Wednesday.
It was not clear immediately whether or when the government would approach the Interpol but a senior Karachi police officer said that the case would be further probed.
“At this stage we can’t say whether or not Interpol will be contacted in this matter,” said Mushtaq Shah, chief of Karachi police operations.
“We will first investigate and file our report to the government,” he said, adding, “This is for the higher authorities to decide what to do next.”
A government prosecutor, who opposed the petition, says PakistanÂ’s courts have no jurisdiction over a crime committed abroad.
“The courts in Pakistan ... have jurisdiction to try a person for an offence within their territorial jurisdiction in Pakistan,” prosecutor Makhdoom Ali Khan said in a written statement to the Supreme Court on April 7.