Fabricated cartoons worsened Danish controversy

The Counterterrorism Blog ^ | 2/2/06 | Lorenzo Vidino

[dervish]

The controversy over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed is expanding, as more Muslims join the boycott and protests against Denmark and various European newspapers decide to publish the cartoons, mostly out of solidarity with Jyllands Posten and to make a strong political stand. One issue that puzzles many Danes is the timing of this outburst. The cartoons were published in September: Why have the protests erupted from Muslims worldwide only now? The person who knows the answer to this question is Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, a man that the Washington Post has recently profiled as “one of Denmark's most prominent imams.”

Last November, Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian who had served as translator and assistant to top Gamaa Islamiya leader Talaal Fouad Qassimy during the mid-1990s and has been connected by Danish intelligence to other Islamists operating in the country, put together a delegation that traveled to the Middle East to discuss the issue of the cartoons with senior officials and prominent Islamic scholars. The delegation met with Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam’s most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. "We want to internationalize this issue so that the Danish government will realize that the cartoons were insulting, not only to Muslims in Denmark, but also to Muslims worldwide," said Abu Laban.

[dervish]

On its face, it would appear as if nothing were wrong. However, the Danish Muslim delegation showed much more than the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands Posten. In the booklet it presented during its tour of the Middle East, the delegation included other cartoons of Mohammed that were highly offensive, including one where the Prophet has a pig face. But these additional pictures were NOT published by the newspaper, but were completely fabricated by the delegation and inserted in the booklet (which has been obtained and made available to me by Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet). The delegation has claimed that the differentiation was made to their interlocutors, even though the claim has not been independently verified. In any case, the action was a deliberate malicious and irresponsible deed carried out by a notorious Islamist who in another situation had said that “mockery against Mohamed deserves death penalty.” And in a quintessential exercise in taqiya, Abu Laban has praised the boycott of Danish goods on al Jazeera, while condemning it on Danish TV.

[dervish]

Are you familiar with this blog?

[sageb1]

Who cares about what offends Muslims? They are liars just like their so-called "prophet."

[weegee]

The arab street also ran fake but accurate pictures of prison abuse. Some were sourced from an internet porn site and Egyptian papers and others (and eventually the Boston Globe) claimed that the images showed US troops raping Iraqi women. There were also posed photos of a British soldier urinating on an "Iraqi prisoner" (courtesy of the Daily Mirror). Those were also fakes.

I suspect that THESE are the images that got Nick Berg decapitated (he had already been kidnapped before that scandal broke).

[backhoe]

Everything I have found about The War of the 12 Cartoons ( links, blogs, quips, quotes, aggravating pictures ) is located here- click the Pic, and scroll backwards:

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

No, but I appreciate the ping.

The fact that Islamist agitators are exploiting this for political gain is nothing new, and I think that the comments of Ali al-Sistani and the Lebanese prime minister in this regard should have gotten more press than they've received thus far.

[SunkenCiv]

Sure will be nice to see the Grand Opening of a WalMart on the current site of the Kaaba.