AP: Danish Cartoons of Prophet Irk Muslims (Contribution)

Friday, December 9, 2005 · Last updated 1:22 p.m. PT

Danish cartoons of prophet irk Muslims

ASSOCIATED PRESS

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- It was a provocative exercise: asking cartoonists to draw pictures of the Prophet Muhammad that were published in one of Denmark's largest papers.
But apparently no one at the Jyllands-Posten daily imagined the scale of the fallout: Death threats against the artists, protest strikes in Kashmir, condemnation from Muslim leaders worldwide and even criticism from the U.N.
"I'm very surprised that the reactions have been so sharp, very shocked, and I find the death threats against the cartoonists to be horrible and out of proportion," Carsten Juste, chief editor of Jyllands-Posten, told The Associated Press. He said the pictures were not meant to offend.
The paper refuses to apologize for publishing the drawings Sept. 30, citing freedom of speech - a right cherished in this northern European country of 5.4 million that also refused to prosecute an artist who depicted a crucified Jesus Christ with an erection.
One cartoon shows Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. Another portrays him with a bushy gray beard and holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. A third pictures a middle-aged prophet standing in the desert with a walking stick in front of a donkey and a sunset. A fourth depicts a schoolboy near a blackboard.
"If we apologize, we go against the freedom of speech that generations before us have struggled to win," Juste said.
The paper had asked 40 cartoonists to draw images of the prophet. That idea alone would be enough to offend many Muslims, since Sunni Islam bars depiction of any prophet from the Quran out of concern that such images could lead to idolatry.
"The Quran clearly forbids anyone from belittling a prophet, whether Jesus Christ, Abraham or Muhammad - peace and blessings be upon them - and it stresses they must be accorded utmost respect," said Ragab Zaki, a Muslim Sunni senior cleric at Egypt's Ministry of Endowments.
"Ridiculing any prophet is a crime, according to the Quran," he said.
Critics say the drawings in Jyllands-Posten were particularly insulting because some appeared to ridicule Muhammad.
"Those cartoons are very offensive to every Muslim feeling, and to Islam as a religion," said Abdel Moeti Bayoumi, a theology professor at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. "Do you expect Muslims to remain silent or rise to defend their religion?"
The turmoil comes a year after Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam by a Muslim radical because he made a film critical of Islam. It also revives memories of the 1989 death threat against writer Salman Rushdie over his portrayal of Muhammad in "The Satanic Verses."
The paper's culture editor, Flemming Rose, came up with the idea after the author of a children's book on religion said its illustrator demanded anonymity because he feared retaliation for a picture of the prophet.
Juste said the newspaper's intention "was to examine whether people would succumb to self-censorship, as we have seen in other cases when it comes to Muslim issues." Twelve artists participated.
After the drawings were published, 11 ambassadors from Muslim countries signed a letter of protest to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. But his government has refused to intervene.
"As prime minister I have no tool whatsoever to take actions against the media and I don't want that kind of tool," Fogh Rasmussen said Oct. 24.
Still, Danes were caught off guard by the furor.
Lise Poulsen Galal, an anthropologist at the University of Copenhagen, noted that 85 percent of Danes belong to the state Lutheran church and tend to think of others as guests. Three percent of the population is Muslim.
The drawings have been a topic in Muslim chat rooms on the Internet, and two cartoons were posted on the newspaper's Web site.
The Danish Foreign Ministry said the youth auxiliary of Pakistan's largest Islamic group, Jamaat-e-Islami, offered a reward of about $8,000 for killing the cartoonists. But spokesmen for the group say they have not made such threats, which Denmark's intelligence service has also downplayed.
In Indian-controlled Kashmir, many shops and businesses shut down Thursday after Islamic separatists and religious groups called a strike to "protest the outrage felt by Muslims over the insulting cartoons," separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani said in a statement.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the drawings during a visit to Denmark last month.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour was investigating the matter.
"I understand your attitude to the images that appeared in the newspaper," Arbour wrote the Organization of the Islamic Conference. "I find alarming any behaviors that disregard the beliefs of others. This kind of thing is unacceptable."
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Associated Press writers Christian Wienberg in Copenhagen, Salah Nasrawi in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and Maggie Michael and Pakinam Amer in Cairo, Egypt, contributed to this report.

(Paki Amer)