The winds of the Muslim protests against the publication of those cartoons are still blowing, battering freedom of speech. In Denmark, where the cartoons originated
Denmark's top prosecutor said Wednesday he will not press charges against the newspaper that first published the Prophet Muhammad cartoons that triggered angry protests from Muslims worldwide.
The Foreign Ministry warned the decision could spark "negative reactions" against Danes and warned citizens to be cautious when traveling in Muslim countries.
Actually Danes——and all lovers of free speech and press——should be worried about traveling in their own country and continent
the Islamic Faith Community, said it was disappointed in Fode's ruling and would consider raising the issue with The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
"This can only damage Denmark on an international level," Kasem Said, a spokesman for the group, said of the ruling.
But Denmark, and by extension all countries that cherish these freedoms, are already damaged. Any media that wishes to publish or state anything critical of Islam will have second thoughts merely because of fear of prosecution; defense lawyers are very expensive. Note the threat by Fode, the Danish prosecutor:
In his ruling, Fode noted that there was "no free and unrestricted right to express opinions about religious subjects" in Denmark. He said Jyllands—Posten had thus been wrong in writing that religious groups had to be ready to put up with "scorn, mockery and ridicule."
He said the cartoon showing Muhammad wearing a turban shaped like a bomb "may with good reason be understood as an affront and insult to the Prophet who is an ideal for believing Muslims."
"However, such a depiction is not an expression of mockery or ridicule, and hardly scorn within the meaning of section 140 of the Danish Criminal Code," Fode said.
Even the US has been affected by the storm in Europe. Most media outlets, freedom of press/speech be damned, didn't publish the cartoons. And as for one brave editor of a college newspaper that published the cartoons, well his punishment has come.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/lake/chi—0603150263mar15,1,5806109.story
The Daily Illini editor who decided to publish several cartoons that had generated controversy for their portrayals of Prophet Mohammad has been fired, the newspaper's publisher announced Tuesday.
That will teach him for believing everything he learned in his high school and college American history classes.
Ethel C. Fenig 3 17 06
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