Cartoon crap continues in court
A Danish court has rejected a libel case brought
by several Muslim groups against a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet
Muhammad.
A Danish court has rejected a libel case brought by several Muslim groups against a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
The court in Aarhus said there was not enough reason to believe the cartoons were meant to be insulting or harmful.
The cartoons sparked violent protests around the world after Jyllands-Posten published them in 2005.
There’s a whole class of Euro politicians who believe that political correctness is the horse to ride into perpetual office. Obscurity would be a better destination.
In Syria, where a mob attacked and set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in February, legislator Mohammed Habash said the ruling would “widen the gap between the Western and Islamic world”.
“What the newspaper did represents a true insult to millions of Muslims who do not follow Danish laws,” Mr Habash, who heads the Islamic Studies Centre in Damascus, told AP.
“Since the racism and blasphemy laws cannot be used in a civil suit, the groups sued the editor-in-chief and cultural editor of the newspaper for libel,” the BBC’s Julian Isherwood reports from Copenhagen.
“Of course it cannot be excluded that the drawings offended some Muslims,” the ruling said.
“But there is no sufficient reason to assume that the cartoons are or were intended to be insulting… or put forward ideas that could hurt the standing of Muslims in society.”
The crowds that burned the embassies believe in a mode of behavior that isn’t acceptable in any democracy. The question remains whether or not political leaders of the European democracies will stand up for freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
Posted: Fri - October 27, 2006 at 06:17 AM