Danish newspapers on Wednesday reprinted one of the 12 drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that caused global Muslim outrage two years ago, to protest against a plot to murder one of the cartoonists.
The republication of the cartoon showing Muhammad holding a bomb drew criticism from Muslims, who said it would only stoke anger.
A Danish citizen of Moroccan descent and two Tunisians were arrested on Tuesday for planning to murder 73-year-old Kurt Westergaard, a cartoonist at Jyllands-Posten, the Danish paper that originally published the drawings in September 2005.
Five major daily newspapers, 10 smaller papers and a Swedish daily reprinted Westergaard’s cartoon, the one that had caused the greatest controversy. Most Muslims consider any depiction of the founder of Islam as offensive.
”We believe this is very foolish and does not help building the bridges we need,” said Imam Mostafa Chendid, a leading Danish Muslim cleric.
Chendid, an imam at the Islamic Faith Community, a religious Muslim organisation at the centre of the first cartoon controversy, condemned all violence but said it would be difficult to absorb the anger young Danish Muslims might feel.
”It will make our young people feel more isolated,” he said. ”The printing of the cartoon is an insult to our intellectual capacity. We are not against freedom of speech but we are opposed to continued discrimination of the Muslim minority in Denmark.”
Three Danish embassies were attacked and at least 50 people were killed in rioting in 2006 in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Several young Muslims have since been convicted in Denmark of planning bomb attacks, partly in protest at the cartoons.
The Security and Intelligence Service said Tuesday’s arrests near Aarhus in western Denmark were made after lengthy surveillance to prevent a murder that was in an early stage of planning.
Danish media said the man of Moroccan descent had been released but faced preliminary charges while the two Tunisians would face deportation later this week.
An editorial in left-leaning Politiken called the murder plot an attack on Denmark’s democratic culture.
”Regardless of whether Jyllands-Posten at the time used freedom of speech unwisely and with damaging consequences, the paper deserves unconditional solidarity when it is threatened with terror,” it said.
Safekeeping
Meanwhile, it was reported last month that Denmark’s national library is to risk re-opening an international political storm by housing the cartoon images of the Prophet.
The royal library in Copenhagen — founded in the 17th century by King Frederik III and home to many historic treasures — has declared the drawings to be of historic value and is trying to acquire them for ”preservation purposes”.
The library, widely acknowledged as the most significant in Scandinavia, had agreed to take possession of the caricatures on behalf of the museum of Danish cartoon art, a spokesperson told the Art Newspaper.
Negotiations with the artists behind the 12 cartoons were said to be at an advanced stage. Several had agreed to donate the works for mothing but the museum may have to buy some of them. One had already been sold to a private buyer.
Jytte Kjaergaard, a spokesperson for the library, said they were unlikely to be displayed publicly and insisted the decision was not intended to be controversial.
”We are not interested in an exhibition, we are interested in them being kept safe for future generations because they have created history in Denmark,” she said.
”This is the obvious place to keep them because we have all the security measures in place.
”It would be very difficult for a private person to come in and sabotage them because to see them for research purposes you will need a letter of consent from your university professor. They will be treated like any rare book.” — Reuters, Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008