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February 02, 2006

Jordanian paper reprints Danish Prophet cartoons

AMMAN (AP) In one of several Middle Eastern protests Thursday, a Jordanian newspaper took the bold step of publishing the Danish caricatures of Prophet Muhammad that have outraged Muslims, saying it was reprinting them to show readers "the extent of the Danish offense."

The Arabic weekly Shihan ran three of the 12 cartoons, including the one that depicts Muhammad as wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse. The headline said: "This is how the Danish newspaper portrayed Prophet Muhammad, may God's blessing and peace be upon him."

The drawings first appeared in a Danish paper, Jyllands-Posten, in September. They were reprinted in a Norwegian magazine in January and in newspapers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain on Wednesday as editors rallied behind them in the name of free expression. [Blog entry with further detail here]

Source: [IHT]

Armed Palestinians protested the cartoons Thursday outside the EU Commission's office in the Gaza Strip, and more than 300 Islamic students demonstrated in Pakistan, chanting "Death to Denmark" and "Death to France."

In Damascus, about 300 Syrians staged a sit-in outside the Danish Embassy and distributed leaflets calling for a boycott of European products. The leaflets named Danish products sold in Syria and added: "We do not want civilization from those who insult our Prophet."

Shihan's editor-in-chief, Jihad al-Momani, told The Associated Press that he decided to run the cartoons to "display to the public the extent of the Danish offense and condemn it in the strongest terms.

"But their publication is not meant in any way to promote such blasphemy," al-Momani added.

Shihan ran an article next to the cartoons that gave examples of the protests, condemnations and diplomatic initiatives that Muslim nations have launched. It bore the headline: "Islamic intefadeh against the Danish offense."

Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry. What has heightened the offense is the fact that several of the cartoons portray the prophet as a man of violence.

In other moves Thursday, two Iraqi cities, Baghdad and Basra, issued calls for demonstrations against the caricatures after Friday prayers. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood also called for a protest after Friday prayers in Alexandria. About 100 Lebanese women staged a similar sit-in in the southern city of Sidon. And Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit met EU ambassadors to Cairo and urged them to ask their governments to "adopt quick and decisive measures" to contain the issue.

"Freedom of expression should guarantee respect for each others' religious beliefs and values," Aboul Gheit told the ambassadors, according to a Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul-Illah Khatib protested the cartoons in a meeting with the Danish ambassador on Sunday, describing them as an "intentional insult to Islam, its message and its honorable Prophet." He urged Denmark to take steps against their republication.

In Tehran on Wednesday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry delivered a similar protest to the ambassador of Austria, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. The same day Syria recalled its ambassador to Copenhagen over the cartoons.

The Danish government has until recently expressed regret for the furor, but refused to become involved, citing freedom of expression. On Tuesday, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that while he cherishes freedom of expression, "I would never myself have chosen to depict religious symbols in this way."

However, on Thursday Fogh Rasmussen invited ambassadors to meet him to discuss the controversy. In October he had declined to meet ambassadors from 10 predominantly Muslim countries who objected to the drawings.

Related stories:

For single page combination of all stories on the Danish cartoon row click here

Posted at 12:32 PM in Cartoon rows, Culture almighty, Media Watch, Religion | Permalink

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Comments

OK so cartoons of muhammed was published in a danish newspaper. But that has been done several times other places so why are you so mad?? Take a look here:

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

Many pictures of muhammed and some of them are very old

Posted by: thefedayeenkilldog | Feb 2, 2006 4:18:30 PM

Pardon me if I am naive, but it would seem that the Jordanian newspaper has now commited the same offense as those that originally printed the drawings.

Posted by: mibike | Feb 2, 2006 4:46:17 PM

Shame on your Momany. You have just added another black point to the history of your family!
What is your point by doing this?! What on earth does the incident of the caricatures has to do with the terrorist acts in the world? Do you think that we Muslims have no right to express our anger now?!!!!!

Posted by: Blower | Feb 3, 2006 3:21:35 AM

The abuse or violation of any religon should be forbbiden at all by any means
We have to issue a code of ethics and adhear to it world wide
Any body believes should be free without any type of provoke
This is what we learnt in Islam
personally i spent 40years working with international company (P & G)joining different nationalities with different believes never have any religous conflict

Posted by: Tawfiq Aburabie | Feb 3, 2006 4:41:43 AM

I personally dont see what the big problem is, its freedom of expression not a personal attack on anyone. People need to have a sense of humour about themselves and the things around them and not take things so personally.Its happend deal with it and move on. If you dont like it dont look at it.

Posted by: freedom | Feb 3, 2006 12:31:49 PM

WOW Freedom! I wonder if you can differentiate between someone who makes fun of you and someone who insult you! If someone humiliated you or your family in the newspaper, would you be happy or file a defamation complaint?

Posted by: Blower | Feb 3, 2006 4:27:35 PM

filing a complaint is WAY different than running around in masses trampling flags and setting them on fire over a couple cartoons some retard drew. I'm pretty sure these people would eat babies. Makes it hard not to generalize when i read thousands upon thousands of these people running around defaming things, there people either 1)are extremely hostile or 2) have nothing better to do than whine or complain about a cartoon. If a picture of jesus with a bomb on his head was drawn in a iraqi paper i'd 1) never hear about it and 2) if i did hear about it you wouldnt see me running around setting things on fire. or does their god believe in such violent acts?

Posted by: realist | Feb 3, 2006 5:28:00 PM


Seeing anti-European insults and violent threats all over my television screen targeted against an entire people, my people as a European, all because of the act of one irresponsible newspaper editor, I cannot help believing that this is just an excuse for a minor (and in no way representative) sector of the 'Islamic' community to insight racial hatred against the West. When are the responsible Islamic leaders going to put a stop to this group of who are doing little more than war mongering in the name of their religion, and who are by their very actions, defiling the true Islam in the eyes of the entire World and shaming their own people.

Posted by: Kay | Feb 4, 2006 4:06:29 AM

It seems ironic that printing cartoons can be compared to burning down embassies and thousands of supposed religous individuals taking to the streets in violent protests. Do you think that Muhammad or Jesus or Buddah would advocated such reactions? Do you believe that any religious leader would support violent protests including burning down buildings and racial violence because of some cartoons? Any one that took part in these violent acts or would do so obviously does not truly understand religion or respect these prophets. If you knew anything it would be that none of the prophets were about promoting violence, so I ask you "WHY DO YOU PROMOTE VIOLENCE IN THE NAME OF GOD?" Do you think it makes you a more faithful or religious person? Do you believe that God wants you to be violent over cartoons? So you say it disrespects your religion, your prophet. If you believe in God and love then you would not be part of such violent, childish reactions.

Posted by: Marco | Feb 4, 2006 8:16:22 PM

I think the followers of the Muslim religion needs to CHILL tremendously. What makes them better than anyone else? Free countries allow freedom of speech and print. Why didn't the Muslims protest when Bin Laden blew up thousands of innocent people on 9/11? Is that any way to heaven?

Posted by: meb | Feb 4, 2006 9:28:59 PM

The original cartoons seems perfectly inocuous to me; a couple are vaguely sardonic, but very mild compared to the sort of thing published regularly about european political/religious figures.

What annoys me about the extreme reactions is that it's yet another brick in the wall of the imam's efforts to make any form of comment on islam a 'thought crime'.

One had the cheek today (Feb 6th) on a BBC interview to say ALL european governments should make criticism of a 'prophet' (Jesus or Mohammed) a crime! Further that people should be tried by an 'islamic court'!!!

It would be bad enough if this was just hypocrisy, however, I think it's evidence of an underlying attempt to 'islamisize' the world. Tyy watching some of the videos distributed by The Society for the Propogation of Islam (I saw many whilst working in Africa).

Why hypocrisy? Well moslems have made a big thing about 'respect' for Islam and freedom of religion. Try being free to be a christian in Saudi Arabia. Try being free to be secular and follow a secular lifestyle in many moslem states!!

Ask the Koptic Christians in Egypt (one of the world's oldest christian communities) how they have been 'respected' by moslems over the past few years.

Isn't interesting that there have been worldwide moslem demonstrations about these cartoons, but no demonstrations against 'christians' having their throats cut by Iraqi insurgents?

If there's one message I want to say to any moslems reading this: European culture is secular, this gives freedom of religion (as in practising) and expression to all. An element of expression will inevitably involve criticism; we cannot always accept elements of ideas/religions 'foreign' to our own, particularly those that appear offensive.

Just as these cartoons may appear offensive to moslems, many fundamental concepts in Islam are offensive to non-moslems, women's rights to name but one. Either learn to accept some criticism or exercise your freedom to go and live in an islamic state.

Posted by: gasump | Feb 6, 2006 4:53:10 PM

Muslims have gone about this the wrong way, i cannot agree with how they are behaving, seeing as i'm one myself.
But its not the Islamic leaders that are influencing people to be violent, they ask them to be peaceful and the like, but many of the these muslims i'm ashamed to say, despite myself understanding what happened are in error.
However, Freedom of speech is all well and good but when it gives way to being insulting it draws the line.
The preivous poster knows nothing of womens rights in islam, so you better research before you spout your rubbish, as women have as many rights as men in islam, but different cultures believe women to be inferior and so some muslims follow their cultures instead of the religion as you can see in these riots.
People that are involved in these riots arent acting as muslims should so i'm disappointed that many people believe these to be the common behaviour of muslims.

Posted by: JmL | Feb 7, 2006 7:40:25 AM

In my opinion , i think that the cartoons were way off limits, pointless and totally unrealistic the cartoons had no point at all and they werent funny= not saying that from a religious point of view , and also people could have their freedom of speech but theres always limits to everything, and by insulting a religious icon is insulting to Muslims and im sure u wont like it if whatever ur religion is, u wont like it if someone bad mouthed it, and talking about Women rights, women in Islam were given their rights before even Non-muslim women received them, but Muslims are acting with women from a society view not an islamic just like JmL said.. i advise all people who arent muslim to go and search well about islam before they come talking about stuff that they heard that are mostly from ignorance and bad media

Posted by: R | Feb 7, 2006 4:57:28 PM

I think Muslims anger is right in all over the world. Danish News paper and then follow up to few other news papers have definitley hurt the musluims feeling and they must apologies immidiatley and take serious action against properator.
Freedom of speech does not give the right to hurt the feeling of millions and I think all the world regardless of race should condem this act and involved news paper should apologies immidiatley.

Posted by: Parvez MuZAFFAR | Feb 9, 2006 11:37:14 AM

Why are Muslims so defensive about their religion? The disproportionate response only shows the inner weakness and doubts over their own feelings towards their faith. anyone who is certain about one's feelings, can ignore stupid cartoons in the first place. Look inwards, not outwards.

Posted by: samir | Feb 13, 2006 4:41:55 PM

This is a hard global situation to solve.
It's a mixture of religious, racial and political imbalance that it was long due for global debate.
The cartoons are only the straw that broke the camel's back.
What's next?

As a Christian, I'm concerned about the dissemination of the muslim religion. As a Christian however, the only things I can do about this is a) pray b) live a healthy christian life and c) tell others about God. Am I fighting a hopeless war where the muslim and other religions will take over? Perhaps yes. But I follow Jesus who taught that God's kingdom is not of this earth.

That's why I decided not to hate. Specially when Jesus 2nd commandment is "you shall love your neighbor as yourself". Whether that neighbor is from one of those religions, countries, race other than mine. That's the only way to win this war, it's the only way to save them.

Posted by: Moses | Feb 13, 2006 8:36:16 PM

THE DANISH NEWS PAPER AND THE GOVERNMENT HAS TO SHAME ON THERE RELIGION OF CRISTIAN. THE CRISTIONS ARE PEACEFULL FOR THERE LEAVING AS PER THERE PROPET JESUS. BUT THIS DAM THIRD CLASS ACTIVITY AND AS WELL AS SUPPORT TO THE NEWS PAPER IS CONDUMED BY TRUE CHRISTIANS ALSO.

Posted by: Rafathullah | Feb 18, 2006 8:59:15 AM

If your feelings are hurt, then stop reading Danish newspapers. The truth is, Muslims would not know to be insulted had not a certain fundamentalist imam peddled a portfolio around the Middle East trying to drum up anger.

Those of you who keep posting such pithy statements on various boards such as "Your freedom of press does not give you the right to insult me" have it wrong. Yes, it does give that right. Understandable that you cannot accept this, of course, because your governments do not tolerate true freedom of press, so you don't really have experience in ignoring offensive press. Also, something about your culture places a premium on personal honor, and hence it seems that you are easily offended by things that most Westerners would simply brush off. Western freedoms protect expression that is sometimes outrageous and sometimes hurtful. If you understood this you would also understand that no apology is needed (although it has been offered), and for all you Western apologists out there, no, the press did not step over the line. The newspaper merely did what a free press is supposed to do -- offer its views on world affairs, even if they were provocative.

Wake up people!!! This has nothing to do with freedom of speech and press in the Western world. This is merely a manifestation of movement within the Muslim world that is trying to force moderates into the fundamentalist camp. Orthodox imams selected this single instance of Western editorializing (out of thousands that are published in the Western press each year) and used it to whip up a frenzy among the masses to promote their own agenda. For extra measure they brought in plenty of outsiders with kerosene cans and a ready supply of Danish flags to make the event a media extravaganza.

If you are angry, it should be directed at those who have hijacked your faith and used it to murder Americans and Europeans in the name of Allah. It was those infidels whose images were portrayed.

That was the Point. Now here is the Counterpoint. Subsequent news stories have made the point that the editors of this particular right-wing Danish newspaper relish taking pot shots at the immigrant population. This should not be countenanced. But neither should it be stifled. The best remedy: ignore them. Don't give them your advertising dollars. Cancel your subscription. But don't let yourself be manipulated by power-seekers within your religion, either.

Posted by: can't insult me | Feb 18, 2006 1:15:39 PM

:If you are angry, it should be directed at those who have hijacked your faith and used it to murder Americans and Europeans in the name of Allah. It was those infidels whose images were portrayed:
i want to include the murders of palastine.

Posted by: junaid ahmed | Feb 19, 2006 3:11:00 AM

OH MUSLIMS OF THE WORLD (FROM HOLY QURAAN)


Mocked were (many)Messengers(like,Moses,Jesus,and Prophet Mohammed P.u.h.)
Before thee; But their scoffers were hemmed in by the thing that they mocked.
(Chapter 6. verses 10)

Say” travel thorugh the earth And see what was the end of those who rejected Truth.
(Chapter 6. verses 11)

AND

And there are certainly, Among the People of the book., Thouse who belive in Allah, in the revelation to you, And in the revelation to them, bowing in humility to Allah:
They will not sell the Signs of Allah For miserable gain! For them is a reward Whith
There Lord, And Allah is swift in account
(Chapter: 3
Verses : 186)
O ye who belive ! Persevere in patience And constancy; vie In such perseverance;
Strengther each other; and fear Allah; That ye may prosper.
(Chapter: 3
Verses: 200)

Posted by: K.RAFATHULLAH | Feb 23, 2006 11:43:43 AM

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