[Mb-civic] Tension Rises Over Cartoons of Muhammad - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Tension Rises Over Cartoons of Muhammad
Publication Widens In Europe as Protests Grow in Islamic World

By Molly Moore and Faiza Saleh Ambah
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, February 3, 2006; A01

PARIS, Feb. 2 -- Protests against European newspapers' publication of 
cartoons lampooning the prophet Muhammad gained momentum across the 
Islamic world Thursday as Pakistani schoolchildren burned French and 
Danish flags and Muslim presidents denounced the drawings. At the same 
time, more European news organizations printed or broadcast the 
caricatures, citing a need to defend freedom of expression.

In another day of confrontation between the largely secular nations of 
Europe and Muslim countries where religion remains a strong force in 
daily life, Islamic activists threatened more widespread protests and 
boycotts of European businesses. While some European officials sought to 
defuse the crisis, many journalists insisted that despite Islamic 
outrage, religious sensibilities should not result in censorship.

"We would have done exactly the same thing if it had been a pope, rabbi 
or priest caricature," wrote Editor in Chief Serge Faubert in Thursday's 
editions of France Soir, one of the newspapers that printed the cartoons.

Mahmoud A. Hashem, a businessman in Saudi Arabia reflecting broad 
sentiment in Muslim societies, called the cartoons just another example 
of a "sport to insult Islam and Muslims" after the attacks of Sept. 11, 
2001.

Under Islamic teachings, any depiction of Muhammad, the faith's founder 
and messenger of God, is blasphemy, including depictions that are not 
negative. The cartoons violated that dictum, and many of them also 
ridiculed the prophet. In one, he is depicted as a terrorist, with his 
turban holding a bomb with a burning fuse.

Political analysts from both sides described the newspapers' printing of 
the cartoons as a dangerous incitement in a conflict that has already 
alienated the growing Muslim populations of West European nations and 
hardened extremists in both camps.

Alexandre Adler, author of "Rendez-vous With Islam," criticized the 
newspapers. "We're at war," he said, citing the Iraq insurgency and the 
electoral victories of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and Iranian 
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "And sometimes war demands censorship. In 
this context, anything that might strengthen the hate of the West is 
irresponsible."

The European Union's trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, said the 
continued printing of the cartoons was "throwing petrol onto the 
flames." Acknowledging the desire to stand up for press freedom, he said 
newspapers must understand "the offense that is caused by publishing 
cartoons of this nature."

But more news organizations continued to display the cartoons Thursday, 
including the BBC, which said it hoped to "give audiences an 
understanding of the strong feelings evoked by the story."

In the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian gunmen kidnapped a German 
citizen from a hotel restaurant and threatened to seize more foreigners. 
The German was later released, Palestinian security officials said.

Many Europeans left the Gaza Strip as a precaution Thursday. The E.U. 
shuttered its office there after warnings that staff members would be 
kidnapped. About a dozen gunmen briefly surrounded the empty building, 
firing their weapons. Some European countries warned citizens against 
travel in the Middle East.

In the city of Multan in central Pakistan, several hundred students from 
Islamic schools burned French and Danish flags in protest. Boycotts of 
Danish grocery products expanded across the Middle East

Presidents Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Ahmadinejad of Iran issued 
statements of condemnation, as did King Abdullah of Jordan. In a speech 
in Washington, the monarch said that while "we respect and revere 
freedom of speech, we condemn needless desecration and injury of Islamic 
sensibilities, such as the recent cartoons misrepresenting and vilifying 
my ancestor, the prophet."

Newspapers throughout the Muslim world condemned their European 
counterparts. Bahrain's Gulf Daily News ran a one-word headline on its 
front page that summarized sentiment in the region: "Apologize!"

The Egyptian publisher of France Soir, which printed the controversial 
caricatures Wednesday, fired the paper's managing editor, Jacques 
LeFranc, late Wednesday night, saying, "We present our regrets to the 
Muslim community and to all people who have been shocked or made 
indignant by this publication."

But the dismissed editor's boss, Faubert, wrote an unrepentant editorial 
in Thursday's editions: "We had no desire to add oil to the fire as some 
may think. A fundamental principle of democracy and secularism is being 
threatened."

But critics argued that publishers should be more discerning in the 
battles they choose over freedom of expression. "This is the sort of 
thing that will feed into al Qaeda, alienating and angering a lot of 
educated young people," Najam Sethi, editor of Pakistan's Daily Times 
and Friday Times, said in a telephone interview from Lahore.

Sethi and others see a double standard at work. "People who question 
some of the facts of the Holocaust are ostracized; most publishers are 
so sensitive they won't even get into the argument," Sethi said. "A 
degree of censorship is imposed that is not articulated in this case."

International journalist organizations have condemned the threats of 
violence against the European journalists who published the cartoons.

"We defend unpopular speech around the world all the time," said Joel 
Simon, deputy director of the New York-based Committee to Protect 
Journalists. "We don't make judgments whether we agree or disagree" with 
the message. "Sometimes we sort of have to hold our nose, but they've 
got the right to say that, and we defend their right."

Europe has roughly 15 million Muslims, who in some countries make up 
more than 10 percent of the population. Many analysts see growing social 
divisions between the Muslims and the majority populations of the 
countries, which are historically Christian but are increasingly secular 
in outlook.

Tensions continue in the Netherlands, where in 2004 Dutch filmmaker Theo 
van Gogh, whose work carried strong anti-Islamic messages, was 
assassinated by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim extremist. In a court 
appearance Thursday in that city, Bouyeri said that "the fact that you 
see me as the black standard-bearer of Islam in Europe fills me with 
honor, pride and joy."

Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament who has proposed a law 
that would ban women from wearing burqas in the Netherlands and has been 
the target of death threats, posted the cartoons on his Web site 
Thursday under this explanation: "What is the price of freedom? As a 
token of support to the Danish cartoonists and to stand up for free 
speech, we will place their drawings here."

The controversy, which has inflamed the Middle Eastern press and Islamic 
organizations, began when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 
the cartoons in September. The newspaper's editors had asked 12 artists 
to draw their depictions of Muhammad after an author had complained that 
he could not find an artist willing, under his or her own name, to 
illustrate a book about the prophet.

The issue received little attention in Europe, however, until this week, 
when the Danish company Arla Foods -- the second-largest dairy producer 
in Europe -- announced that its Middle Eastern sales had completely 
dried up as the controversy continued. On Thursday, the company said it 
was laying off about 125 workers because of those losses.

Mahmoud Hashem, 51, who owns a company based in the seaside Saudi city 
of Jiddah, said he had sent e-mails to more than 500 people urging them 
to stop buying Danish products.

"I think that all Muslims should unite and do something about this," 
said Hashem, reached on his cell phone as he was leaving prayers at a 
Jiddah mosque Thursday afternoon. "Anybody who wants to get some press 
uses Muslims as a punching bag."

At Sawari Superstores, one of the largest supermarket chains in Jiddah, 
signs were posted in the dairy section saying, "We do not sell any 
Danish products."

"I am not willing to buy any product from a country that has insulted my 
prophet, my religion and my dignity as a Muslim," said Leila Faleh, 42, 
a hospital administrator shopping at the store. "I would rather go back 
to drinking milk from a cow and eating dates."

Yuri Thamrin, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Indonesia, the 
world's most populous Muslim country, called the cartoons' publication 
an act of insensitivity that has stoked anger across the Muslim world. 
"We as a democratic country value freedom of expression, but believe 
freedom of expression has to be conducted wisely and not as a cover to 
denigrate or insult religious symbols," Thamrin said.

"It is nothing new," lamented Mohammed Hussein Mudhaffer, a 33-year-old 
mechanical engineer in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. "The publishing 
of such cartoons showing the prophet Muhammad is part of the savage 
campaign waged by the West against Islam and Muslims."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/02/AR2006020202720.html?nav=hcmodule
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