Tel-Chai Nation

The Brussels Journal (via Michelle Malkin) reports that a Danish newspaper's been threatened for publishing political cartoons deemed offensive to Islam (I do wonder: what isn't offensive to Islam?):

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is being protected by security guards and several cartoonists have gone into hiding after the newspaper published a series of twelve cartoons about the prophet Muhammad. According to the Islam it is blasphemous to make images of the prophet. Muslim fundamentalists have threatened to bomb the paper’s offices and kill the cartoonists.

The newspaper published the cartoons when a Danish author complained that he could find no-one to illustrate his book about Muhammad. Jyllands-Posten wondered whether there were more cases of self-censorship regarding Islam in Denmark and asked twelve illustrators to draw the prophet for them. Carsten Juste, the paper’s editor, said the cartoons were a test of whether the threat of Islamic terrorism had limited the freedom of expression in Denmark.

Then, the al Qaeda posted threats of its own on a website run by its own sympathisers:

On Thursday the ambassadors of eleven Muslim countries, including Indonesia, a number of Arab states, Pakistan, Iran, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, complained about the cartoons in a letter to Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. They say the publication of the cartoons is a “provocation” and demand apologies from the newspaper.

Jyllands-Posten was also included on an al-Qaeda website listing possible terrorist targets. An organisation which calls itself “The Glorious Brigades in Northern Europe” is circulating pictures on the internet which show bombs exploding over pictures of the newspaper and blood flowing over the national flag of Denmark. “The Mujahedeen have numerous targets in Denmark – very soon you all will regret this,” the website says.

You can see the rest of the cartoons on this webpage.

The newspapaer, I want to say, has a very good point about the dangers of letting Islamofascism limit the freedom of expression in Denmark, or anywhere else in Europe for that matter, and that any Islamists would dare to threaten their usual violence is simply disgraceful.

Also available at Bright and Early, Cao's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Point Five, The Political Teen, Wizbang. Others on the subject include Right Minded, The Jawa Report, Marked Up, Don Singleton, Stop the ACLU, Angry in the Great White North, National Review's The Corner.

Labels: jihad, Scandanavia