Temperatures Rise
Over Cartoons
Mocking Muhammad
By CRAIG S. SMITH and
IAN FISHER, From the NYTimes on the Web, February 3, 2006
PARIS, Feb. 2 — An
international dispute over European newspaper cartoons deemed blasphemous by
some Muslims gained momentum on Thursday when gunmen threatened the European
Union offices in Gaza and more European papers pointedly published the drawings
as an affirmation of freedom of speech.
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Mohammed Salem/Reuters
A gunman
stood on the roof of the European Union office in the Gaza Strip
today. |
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In Gaza, masked gunmen swarmed the
European Union offices on Thursday to protest the cartoons, and there were
threats to foreigners from European countries where the cartoons have been
reprinted. The gunmen stayed about 45 minutes.
A newly elected legislator from Hamas, the radical Islamic group that swept the
Palestinian elections last week, said large rallies were planned in Gaza in the
next few days to protest the cartoons, which depict the Prophet Muhammad in an
unflattering light. Merely publishing the image of Muhammad is regarded as
blasphemous by many Muslims.
"We are angry — very, very, very angry," said the legislator, Jamila al-Shanty.
"No one can say a bad word about our prophet."
The conflict is the latest manifestation of growing tensions between Europe and
the Muslim world as the Continent struggles to absorb a fast-expanding Muslim
population whose customs and values are often at odds with Europe's secular
societies. Islam is Europe's fastest growing religion and is now the
second largest religion in most European countries. Racial and religious
discrimination against Muslims in Europe's weakest economies adds to the
strains.
The trouble began in September in Denmark, when the daily Jyllands-Posten
published 12 cartoons lampooning intolerance among Muslims and links to
terrorism. A Norwegian magazine published the cartoons again last month,
and the issue erupted this week after diplomatic efforts failed to resolve
demands by several angry Arab countries that the publications be punished.
The cartoons include one depicting Muhammad with a bomb in place of a turban on
his head and another showing him on a cloud in heaven telling an approaching
line of smoking suicide bombers, "Stop, stop, we ran out of virgins!"
They have since been reprinted in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and
Hungary. BBC broadcast them on Thursday.
Most European commentators concede that the cartoons were in poor taste but
argue that conservative Muslims must learn to accept Western standards of free
speech and the pluralism that those standards protect.
Several accused Muslims of a double standard, noting that media in several Arab
countries continue to broadcast or publish references to "The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion," a notorious early 20th-century anti-Semitic hoax that presented
itself as the Jews' master plan to rule the world.
Many Muslims say the Danish cartoons reinforce a dangerous confusion between
Islam and the Islamist terrorism that nearly all Muslims abhor. Dalil
Boubakeur, head of France's Muslim Council, called the caricatures a new sign of
Europe's growing "Islamophobia."
Saudi Arabia and Syria recalled their ambassadors from Denmark, while the Danish
government summoned other foreign envoys in Copenhagen to talks on Friday over
the issue, having already explained that it does not control the press.
"We are talking about an issue with fundamental significance to how democracies
work," Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told the Copenhagen daily Politiken.
Jyllands-Posten has received two bomb threats in the past few days, despite
having apologized for any hurt feelings about the drawings.
Late Thursday morning, about a dozen gunmen appeared at the European Union
offices in Gaza, firing automatic weapons and spray-painting a warning on the
outside gate: "Closed until an apology is sent to Muslims." The men
handed out a pamphlet warning Denmark, Norway and France that they had 48 hours
to apologize.
The office, staffed only by Palestinians at the time, reportedly received a
telephone warning that the gunmen were coming, and was quickly closed.
In Nablus, on the West Bank, two masked gunmen kidnapped a German from a hotel,
thinking he was French or Danish, Agence France-Presse reported. They
turned him over to the police once they realized their mistake.
Leaders of both Fatah and Hamas said they did not endorse harming any foreigners
in Gaza. All the same, the threat emptied hotels there of Europeans, most
of them journalists. The manager of the popular Al Diera Hotel said 12 of
his 22 rooms had been cleared out by late afternoon.
France Soir, the only French daily to reprint the cartoons, fired its managing
editor late Wednesday as "a strong sign of respect for the beliefs and intimate
convictions of every individual," according to a statement from its owner,
Raymond Lakah, an Egyptian-born French businessman.
In an editorial defending its decision to publish the cartoons, France Soir
asked Thursday what would remain of "the freedom to think, speak, even to come
and go," if society adhered to all of the prohibitions of the world's various
religions. The result, the newspaper said, would be "the Iran of the
mullahs, for example."
Not everyone saw it that way. Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai,
issued a statement condemning "in the strongest terms" France Soir's publication
of the cartoons. "Any insult to the holy prophet (peace be upon him) is an
insult to more than 1 billion Muslims," his statement read.
On Thursday, France's embassy in Algeria, a former colony, issued a statement
condemning the publication, saying the French government was "deeply attached to
the spirit of tolerance and to respect of religious belief, as we are to the
principle of freedom of the press."
"In this light, France condemns all those who hurt individuals in their beliefs
or religious convictions," the statement read.
Still, Europeans showed no signs of backing down. Le Monde ran a sketch of
a man, presumably Muhammad, made of sentences reading, "I must not draw
Muhammad."
Craig S. Smith reported from Paris for this article, and Ian
Fisher from Gaza.
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