Cartoon Protests Rage On
Feb. 7, 2006 — -- Street protests sparked by the cartoons that caricatured the prophet Muhammad in European newspapers continue from New Zealand to Afghanistan, where this morning protesters attacked a Norwegian military base.
A 14-year-old boy has reportedly been killed in clashes with police in Somalia. In Iran, protesters hurled rocks and firebombs at the Danish embassy as a newspaper launched a competition to test Western protection of free speech by asking readers to submit cartoons about the Holocaust.
A European Muslim group has already published on its Web site a cartoon of Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. "If it is the time to break taboos and cross all the red lines," it explains, "we certainly do not want to fall behind."
U.S. and Danish consulates in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, have come under attack. The Danish government this morning urged its citizens to leave.
The dozen cartoons originally appeared in September, and they attracted little notice outside some offended Muslims in Denmark. Some Muslim clerics living in Denmark took the cartoons with them on a trip to Saudi Arabia where they were seen by plenty of people. One of the cartoons depicts the prophet's turban as a bomb.
Another cartoon shows a group of suicide bombers trying to enter heaven and the prophet saying: "There are no more virgins left."
The cartoons insult the Muslim sense of honor, said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who works to promote understanding between Muslims and other communities.
"The cartoons do enrage many Muslim cultures," he said. "Honor is of paramount importance; the honor of family, the religion, the tribe. Islam teaches that a prophet -- whether it is Muhammad, Jesus, Abraham, Moses -- should never be depicted."
But many critics charge that anti-Semitic cartoons are rampant in the Muslim world. In addition, Westerners see horrifying images of people like kidnapped reporter Jill Carroll pleading for her life or the death of Nicholas Berg, a young contractor who was beheaded by his captors in Iraq.
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