News

Rioters burning Danish flags and Danish embassies in the Middle East are not just reacting to newspaper cartoons of Muhammad.

They're also angry about the Mona Lisa, a chair and a bearded lady.

Denmark's leading newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, triggered the international controversy in September by publishing 12 cartoons about the Muslim prophet as a free speech exercise.

When a group of Danish Muslims led by a Palestinian-born imam filed a criminal complaint against the paper for ridiculing a sacred figure of Islam, Klaus Wivel decided to make a joke.

The literature editor of Weekendavisen, a small Danish weekly, Wivel spoofed the cartoon flap by publishing several pictures that had nothing to do with Islam -- a chair, the Mona Lisa, abstract paintings, a bearded lady, a man's leg -- and labeling each "Muhammad."

"It was completely ridiculous," Wivel said. "It was just to make fun of the whole thing."

But a delegation of Danish Muslims organized by Ahmed Abu Laban, the Copenhagen imam, took copies of the Weekendavisen satire, along with the original 12 cartoons and some offensive e-mails they claim to have received, on a December trip to Cairo to drum up support for their cause.

"I've seen this chair on Al-Jazeera," Wivel said.

Abu Laban said the Weekendavisen satire is an example of Danish anti-Muslim bigotry because it is "tasteless and meaningless."

"There is an overlap between free speech and free faith, and we must find the solution. I think you may agree with me that if we exclude some holy symbols like Muhammad, Jesus and Moses, we do no harm to the freedom of speech," he said.

A Danish prosecutor declined to pursue charges against the newspaper, citing free speech.

The dispute did not provoke widespread reaction until late January, when Saudi Arabia withdrew its ambassador from Denmark and demanded punishment of those responsible for the cartoons. The kingdom is very influential with conservative Sunni Muslims, and religious leaders soon began denouncing the cartoons to their congregations.

On Jan. 30, masked Palestinian gunmen raided the European Union office in Gaza, demanding an apology. When several European newspapers responded by reprinting the cartoons, mobs burned the Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon. Protests have spread throughout the Muslim world.

Critics say the protesters are using a double standard.

"Every single day there is anti-Western, anti-Christian and anti-Semitic material in the government-controlled press everywhere in the Middle East," said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute.

The Washington, D.C., organization offers English translations of news stories, speeches and other items from the Middle Eastern media.

The institute's Web site has a video clip of one prominent Muslim leader on Lebanese TV claiming that if a devout Muslim had succeeded in killing Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses," Europeans would not dare insult Muhammad today.

"I am certain that not only millions, but hundreds of millions, of Muslims are ready and willing to sacrifice their lives in order to defend the honor of their prophet. And you are among them," Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah told an audience.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized Syria and Iran last week for purposely inflaming the dispute for their own purposes.

Abu Laban, the Danish imam, publicly condemned the violence and threats against Denmark and other countries where papers have reprinted the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.

The Tribune-Review published one of the cartoons this month in a news analysis about the riots.

The cartoon controversy comes at a time when many Europeans are arguing about limits to free speech.

Some advocates criticize Denmark for its prosecution, under a new anti-terror law, of a Moroccan-born Dane charged with instigating terrorism by distributing CDs with jihadist speeches and videotaped beheadings.

When Dutch newspapers reprinted the cartoons, that roiled up a debate that had peaked in the Netherlands in 2004, when a Muslim radical murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh for mocking Islam.

"There were not many people that said they shouldn't (reprint the cartoons)," said Johannes Bardoel, professor of media policy at the University of Amsterdam. "But at the same time, these were the same kind of discussions we had after ... Theo van Gogh."

"People say maybe these sorts of discussions shouldn't be held at the loudest volume," Bardoel said.

• Most Read
• Most E-mailed
• Latest News