Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper which prompted world-wide Muslim protests after publishing cartoons criticized as blasphemous, in which the Prophet Mohammed was depicted wearing a bomb-shaped turban or telling suicide bombers he’d “run out of virgins” with which to reward them, received multiple bomb threats yesterday, one day after it apologized for the publication. The cartoons, which ran last September, have led to a recent, massive reaction in the Muslim world with protests and Danish flag-burnings in Gaza, boycotts from Kuwait to Sudan, the closing of the Libyan embassy and the recall of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Denmark. The anger in the Muslim world, which seems to have escalated since the paper apologized and the Danish government made moves towards reconciliation, was further enflamed by the republication of the cartoons in other E.U. countries, including France, Germany and Norway, and the call from pan-Arab organizations to draft a U.N. resolutionbanning “contempt of religious beliefs,” and levying sanctions on countries and institutions that tolerate insults to religion.
Banning Contempt
01 February 2006