Muslim anger as more papers print Mohammad cartoons

By Kerstin Gehmlich

PARIS (Reuters) – Angry Muslims attacked a building housing
the Danish embassy in Indonesia on Friday as more European
newspapers reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that have
caused outrage across the Islamic world.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen summoned
foreign envoys in Copenhagen for a meeting to discuss the
outcry and the government’s response to the publication of the
drawings, which first appeared in Danish newspaper
Jyllands-Posten.

Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous
and the cartoons have touched off an international row and a
debate on freedom of the media and respect for religion.

Up to 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage in
the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta.

Shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest), they smashed
lamps with bamboo sticks, threw chairs, lobbed rotten eggs and
tomatoes and tore up a Danish flag. No one was hurt.

Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yuri Thamrin said the
dispute was not just between Jakarta and Copenhagen.

“It involves the whole Islamic world vis-a-vis Denmark and
vis-a-vis the trend of Islamophobia,” he said.

Rasmussen, who was meeting ambassadors later on Friday,
said the issue was a question of free speech and he could not
control what appeared in the Danish media.

Danish companies have reported sales falling in the Middle
East after protests in the Arab world and calls for boycotts.

Palestinian gunmen seized and later released a German on
Thursday, and a hand grenade was thrown into the compound of
the French Cultural Center in the Gaza Strip.

FREEDOM OF THE MEDIA?

European newspapers said the publication of the cartoons
was an expression of freedom of the media.

“Liberation defends the freedom of expression,” French
daily Liberation said in a headline introducing two of the
cartoons, one of which depicted an imam telling suicide bombers
to stop because Heaven had run out of virgins to reward them.

In Italy, at least two papers published the cartoons on
their front pages on Friday.

“Objectively, the cartoons are fairly ugly and are not
funny — but the point is not the quality of the drawing or the
punchline,” said Vittorio Feltri, editor of maverick right-wing
daily Libero.

“This is about accepting or refusing the principle that it
is possible to laugh at, or even just criticize, a mentality, a
religion, a way of understanding spirituality,” he wrote.

Bulgarian daily Novinar also reprinted the drawings and
Spain’s El Pais reprinted a cartoon that had appeared in
France’s Le Monde newspaper portraying the head of the Prophet
Mohammad, formed by lines which read “I must not draw
Mohammad.”

The Sun tabloid, Britain’s biggest-selling daily, reprinted
the front pages of French daily France Soir and the Danish
paper but obscured images of Mohammad with red boxes marked
CENSORED.

More protests were expected in the Muslim world over the
cartoons, one of which shows the Prophet Mohammad wearing a
turban resembling a bomb.

In Iran, worshippers were expected to take part in a
nationwide rally after Friday prayers to protest.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux)