How Muslims choose to depict themselves or their prophet is one issue, but for Muslims to demand that the West should submit to their prejudices and phobias is another…
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3037
The http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1247
On September 30, 2005, the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3395 Jyllands-Posten published a series of 12 images of Mohammed, founder of Islam. The intention was not to insult Islam, but to highlight how artists had become too scared to tackle Islam head-on. The issue stemmed from attempts by Kare Blultgen, a Danish author, to find illustrators to provide pictures for a children’s book he had written about Mohammed, founder of Islam. Blultgen said he found no artist willing to take the risk of depicting Mohammed. As a result, Jyllands-Posten invited artists from across Denmark to submit their pictures. Â
There was limited reaction within Denmark, until Palestinian-born radical cleric http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=343 to protest the publication of the images.
Carsten Juste, editor of Jyllands-Posten, said: “To demand that we take religious feelings into consideration is irreconcilable with [Western democracy and freedom of expression. This doesn’t mean that we want to insult any Muslims.” Two illustrators, Franz Fuschel and Kurt Westgaard had been issued with death threats and forced into hiding. Fuschel said that he had not set out to offend, “but I live in 2005, not 905 and I use my quill in the way that Danish law allows me.”
The European Union gave little support to Denmark. EU Commissioner Franco Frattini condemned the cartoons. In January 2006, Bill Clinton said in Qatar that the cartoons were “appalling.”
The actions of Abu Laban and his assistant, Lebanese-born Ahmed Akkiri, were to prove more damaging. Their Middle East delegation inflamed the sentiments of leading Muslims, so much so that by February 2006 there were riots across the Muslim world. In Borno state in northern Nigeria, Muslims went on the rampage, killing Christians. In Indonesia, the Islamists of Front Pembela Islam stoned the American Embassy on February 19th, 2006, and in Hong Kong foreign Muslims protested against the US, even though on February 3rd, U.S. State Department press officer Janelle Hironimus had claimed the cartoons were “offensive to the beliefs of Muslims.”
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=1386601