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French paper reprints Danish Mohammad cartoons

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 February 2006, 07:07 CST

By Jon Boyle

PARIS (Reuters) - A French newspaper reprinted on Wednesday a series of 12 Danish newspaper cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad that have sparked protests in the Muslim world and prompted Saudi Arabia to recall its ambassador from Denmark.

With a mounting diplomatic storm, calls for a boycott of Danish goods and flag-burning protests, Danish security police met Muslim religious leaders in a bid to contain any domestic reaction to cartoons first run by the Jyllands-Posten paper.

Police said they had won a pledge from Denmark's imams to work to prevent an escalation of the row while the France Soir daily said it had published the cartoons in the name of freedom of expression and to fight religious intolerance.

"Because no religious dogma can impose its view on a democratic and secular society, France Soir publishes the incriminated cartoons," the paper said.

Under a headline "Yes, we have the right to caricature God," the paper ran a front page cartoon with Buddha, the Christian and Jewish Gods and the Prophet Mohammad sitting on a cloud above Earth, with the Christian God saying: "Don't complain Mohammad, we've all been caricatured here."

France Soir, which is in financial difficulties and looking for a buyer, devoted two inside pages to the Danish cartoons, with editor Serge Faubert unapologetic.

"Enough lessons from these reactionary bigots! There is nothing in these incriminated cartoons that intends to be racist or denigrate any community as such," he wrote in a commentary.

"Some are funny, others less so. That's it. That is why we have decided to publish them."

DANISH POLICE MEET IMAMS

Thousands of Palestinians protested against Denmark this week for allowing publication of the cartoons and Arab ministers called on it to punish the newspaper that first printed them.

Saudi Arabia has recalled its ambassador from Copenhagen and Libya has closed its embassy. Qatar condemned the cartoons.

Jyllands-Posten has apologized for any hurt caused but the government says it cannot tell free media what to do.

Danish police said in a statement they had told Denmark's imams they were "highly aware of the risks of an escalation of the case, including the calls to burn the Koran, which these days flourish on the Internet and via SMS (phone messages)."

Such calls could be attempts by right-wing extremists to exploit the conflict and divide society, police said.

Danish-Swedish dairy product maker Arla Foods, with annual Middle East sales of 3 billion Danish crowns ($488 million), said it was talking to unions about 140 job cuts due to the boycott.

"We are losing around 10 million crowns per day at the moment," a spokeswoman said.

The world's biggest maker of insulin, Novo Nordisk, said it was also hit as pharmacies and hospitals in Saudi Arabia have avoided its products since Saturday.

Islam sees images of its prophets as disrespectful and caricatures as blasphemous. One of the drawings published in September seemed to portray the Prophet as a terrorist.

A Norwegian paper has also reprinted the cartoons this year.

There was no comment on the France Soir move from the leaders of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), a body set up to represent France's 5 million Muslims.

French relations with devout Muslims have been strained by a 2004 law banning religious symbols in state schools, which prohibited the wearing of Muslim headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses in secular state schools.

(Additional reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris and Per Bech Thomsen in Copenhagen)

Source: REUTERS

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