Denmark Apologizes For Cartoons

There is an UPDATE at the bottom of this post

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Monday, January 30th,2006
COPENHAGEN (Reuters)

Denmark warned its citizens on Monday to avoid Saudi Arabia, and gunmen in Gaza said any Scandinavians there risked attack, as Muslim fury mounted over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.
Denmark has defended the newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s right to publish the satirical drawings that seemed to portray the Prophet as a terrorist and which a Norwegian paper has run too.
Some Muslims, who deem images of prophets disrespectful and caricatures blasphemous, have threatened Danes and demanded an apology.
Saudi Arabia has recalled its envoy from Denmark and its religious leaders called for a boycott of Danish products.
Many Saudis have started boycotting Danish goods and across the Gulf, several supermarkets pulled Scandinavian foods off the shelves after consumers complained.
Jyllands-Posten said on Monday that it regretted offending Muslims but defended its right to publish the drawings.
“We cannot apologize for having printed the cartoons as part of a debate about the right to free speech,” Editor-in-Chief Carsten Juste told Reuters.
Libya has closed its Copenhagen embassy, and thousands of Palestinians marched in protest on Monday.
An Iraqi militant group called on Monday for attacks on Danish and Norwegian targets, saying a boycott was not enough, according to a statement attributed to the Mujahideen Army.
The Internet statement called on fighters to “hit whatever targets possible belonging to these two countries and others that follow their steps.” It could not be authenticated.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday advised colleagues in the European Union of the situation and the bloc’s executive said it might complain to the World Trade Organization (WTO) about the boycott if the Saudi government had encouraged it.
“The EU strongly rejects any threats by militant factions against EU citizens,” EU foreign ministers said in a statement.
The Danish Foreign Ministry advised against non-essential travel to Saudi Arabia and urged Danes to be cautious in other Muslim countries.
“Danes who choose to stay in Saudi Arabia should show extraordinarily high watchfulness,” it added on its Web site.
The Danish Red Cross said it had pulled two employees out of Gaza and one from Yemen, and Norway’s Foreign Ministry said two Norwegian aid workers in Gaza were planning to leave on Monday.
Sweden warned its citizens against traveling to Gaza and the West Bank and the Swedish consulate in Jerusalem received a fax claiming to be from Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades demanding that all Danes and Swedes leave the area.
“All Swedes and Danes that exist on our soil have 48 hours to leave our country or else,” according to the fax read to Reuters by a consulate official.
Swedish officials said they were taking the threat seriously even if it might be the result of being confused with Denmark.
Dozens of Palestinians with rifles and grenade launchers rallied outside the EU headquarters in Gaza City, demanding an apology and warning Danes and Norwegians they would be at risk in Gaza.
Some of the gunmen fired in the air, while others burned Danish and Norwegian flags.
Hamas, the militant Islamic group which won Palestinian elections last week, urged Islamic countries to take “deterrent steps against idiotic Danish behavior.”
Hardest hit by the boycott was Danish-Swedish dairy product maker Arla Foods, with annual sales of 3 billion Danish crowns ($487 million) in the Middle East. The world’s biggest maker of insulin, Novo Nordisk, also said it was affected.
Rasmussen said on Monday that “the Danish government cannot apologize on behalf of a Danish newspaper. It doesn’t work like … and we have explained that to the Arab countries. Independent media are not edited by the government.”
Denmark has around 530 troops serving in Iraq.

So here they for you to decide

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‘This is not just about cartoons, but standing up for our values’Times Online

THE Danish editor who brought the fury of the Muslim world on his country by printing pictures of the Prophet Muhammad defiantly declared yesterday: “We do not apologise for printing the cartoons. It was our right to do so.”
As protests continued for a second day in Gaza with shouts of “Death to Denmark”, Flemming Rose, the culture editor of the centre-right daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, sat in his book-lined office declaring his surprise at the reaction.
He said that he had to stand his ground because, as in the Salman Rushdie affair, freedom of speech was being threatened. “There is a lot at stake. It would be very naive to think this is only about Jyllands-Posten and 12 cartoons and apologising or not apologising.
“This is about standing for fundamental values that have been the (foundation) for the development of Western democracies over several hundred years, and we are now in a situation where those values are being challenged,” he said.

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Danes try to calm Muslim rage
International Herald Tribune

The Danish government stepped up efforts Tuesday to curb the damage caused by the publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper linking the Prophet Muhammad to terrorism.
But the moves failed to allay Muslim anger as retailers boycotted Danish goods in the Middle East and protesters in Gaza set fire to photos of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The economic fallout continued, with the French supermarket chain Carrefour announcing it was pulling Danish goods from its shelves in Arab countries.
A day after the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, apologized for offending Muslims, the Danish foreign minister, Per Stig Moller, handed out a contrite statement about the cartoons on the sidelines of an Afghanistan fund-raising conference in London.

Wild Thing’s comment…….
So apparently beheadings and suicide bombers are OK though…..”stop offending us or we’ll cut off your heads”…….they do it anyway, even if the person that was beheaded did not offend them.
History proves that before Islam came into existence the Sabeans in Arabia worshiped the Moon god who married the sun goddess and who gave birth to three goddesess. They were called Al-lat, Al-uzza and Manat. They later became idols and they were worshipped throughout that part of the world as the ” Daughters of Allah”. The moon god was Allah! He was just one of 360 idols in Kabah in Mecca.
The cresent moon is everywhere in Islam. Evem Ramadan begins and ends with the crescent moon.
Muhammed wanted to create his own religion. He needed the backing of his powerful tribe. So he picked Allah, the Moon-god which they worshipped, to be the one god. And he declared himself tio be Allah’s prophet.
In the 1950’s a major temple to the Moon-god was excavated at Hazor in Palistine. Two idols of the Moon-god were found, proving Alah wa sa pre-Islamic pagan deity.
The truth is that Alah is NOT God, Muhammad was NO prophet and the Koran is NOT the word of God.
Look at this, it is just an example of what the terrorists think is funny. But of course this kind of thing is fine with them. GRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

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Other cartoons from the Arab world

UPDATE on those getting involved around the world on this topic!!

* Michelle Malkin …..FIRST, THEY CAME FOR THE CARTOONISTS
* Jihad Watch …..Do you value freedom of speech and freedom of the press? ( good news from Europe: publications in France, Germany, Spain and Italy reprinting some of the cartoons that have provoked international cartoon rage)
* Judith Apter Klinghoffer ……PAPERS WORLDWIDE PUBLISH OFFENDING DANISH CARTOONS. AMERICAN MSM?
* My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy……Boycott the Stupid Boycott
* Vince Aut Morire ……..’To All The ‘slamotards I’ve Loved Before’
Feel free to grab one of these images from Sandmonkey’s blog . He is making sure this is not all talk and turns into action about what has happened. Thank you Sandmonkey!
Images below to help spread the word…………..