Friday, February 03, 2006

European elite scrambles to defuse furore over caricatures of Muhammad

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | European elite scrambles to defuse furore over caricatures of Muhammad: "
European elite scrambles to defuse furore over caricatures of Muhammad

· EU commissioners try to calm Muslim anger
· German newspaper urges more editors to publish

Kim Willsher in Paris, Luke Harding in Berlin and Nicholas Watt in Brussels
Friday February 3, 2006
The Guardian

Pakistani religious students burn an effigy of Denmark's PM
Pakistani religious students burn an effigy of Denmark's prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in Multan to condemn the publication of cartoons of Muhammad. Photograph: Khalid Tanveer/AP


Europe's political elite were scrambling last night to contain the furore across the Arab world at the publication of caricatures of Muhammad, with leaders stressing that freedom of the press did not mean freedom to cause offence.

With newspaper editors in half a dozen countries unrepentant at the decision to republish cartoons depicting the prophet, EU commissioners stepped in to berate the press and try to calm Muslim anger.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister of Denmark, where the cartoons were first published last autumn, said in an interview with al-Arabiya television that there had been no intention to offend. "We deeply respect all religions, including Islam, and it is important for me to tell you that the Danish people have no intention to offend Muslims," he said.

Article continues
The EU also entered the fray. Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner, said that newspapers had been deliberately provocative in republishing the drawings. Franco Frattini, the EU justice commissioner, said that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten had been "imprudent" to publish the 12 cartoons on September 30. Publication was wrong, he said, "even if the satire used was aimed at a distorted interpretation of religion, such as that used by terrorists to recruit young people, sometimes to the point of sending them into action as suicide bombers".

Even Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, was drawn into the debate, saying that freedom of the press should not be an excuse for insulting religions.

But not everyone was acquiescent. France's interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said he preferred "an excess of caricature to an excess of censure"."

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