W.W.M.D
Posted on 10/26/2006 6:42:38 AM PDT by Republicain
A Danish court has rejected a civil lawsuit against a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
The 12 cartoons sparked violent protests around the world after Jyllands-Posten published them in 2005.
Seven Muslim organisations launched the lawsuit against the newspapers' editors, alleging defamation.
But the City Court in Aarhus said there was not enough reason to believe the cartoons were intended to be insulting or harmful to Muslims.
The organisations brought it in March after the Danish attorney-general's decision not to make criminal charges against the newspaper under racism and blasphemy legislation.
Since the racism and blasphemy laws cannot be used in a civil suit, the BBC's Julian Isherwood reports from Copenhagen, the groups sued the editor-in-chief and cultural editor of the newspaper for libel.
They accused the paper of publishing text and cartoons which were "offensive and insulting" to Muhammad.
The cartoons, they argued, "attacked the honour of believers because they portrayed the Prophet as war-like and criminal and made a clear link between Muhammad, war and terrorism".
'Not offensive'
But a judge ruled on Thursday that the cartoons were "not offensive... even if the text accompanying the pictures could be read as being derogatory and mocking".
"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."
After Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons on 30 September 2005, a campaign of protest gradually gathered steam in the Muslim world, erupting into deadly riots in February of this year.
Islamic tradition explicitly prohibits images of Muhammad and other major religious figures. At least one of the cartoons also portrayed Muhammad as a terrorist.
Death threats were made against the artists. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen appeared on Arabic TV to apologise for any offence caused.
Jyllands-Posten has defended its publication of the cartoons on grounds of freedom of press but it also accepted they had caused offence to many Muslims and apologised.
Our correspondent notes that the issue is far from closed.
An appeal against the verdict has been lodged, and if the first court of appeal upholds the decision, the Muslim groups say they will take the issue as far as they can, up to the supreme court if necessary.
Well that'll cause a riot.
So what if they were intended to be insulting? Is insult now a crime?
Mohammed was a pedophile. I hope they find that fact insulting.
"Mohammed was a pedophile. I hope they find that fact insulting."
Not to mention...TRUE!
Muslim: "I'm offended! Give me victory over the infidel in your courts!"
"Infidel": Er, uh...sir...there's a difference between taking offense and giving offense."
HF
W.W.M.D
They are different ~ and surprisingly much more different from us than Mexico.
I think that's why they have to get visas to visit here for extended periods. Mexicans, in contrast, are simply allowed to cross back and forth.
What a relief.
Speaking of which, I think I'll go relieve myself in my spiffy new restroom...
Under Sharia law, everything that upsets a muzzie is a crime punishable by death. That's the core nature of their fascist, satanic ideology that masquerades as a "religion of peace."
The 12 cartoons sparked violent proteststhe obvious quibble of course is that the one cartoon which provoked most of the outrage in the orchestrated campaign to provoke outrage was one invented by some Shiite-head.
February 02, 2006
Fabricated cartoons worsened Danish controversy
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.
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.
http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2006/02/fabricated_cart.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1573592/posts
DANISH IMAMS BUSTED!
This crap reminds one why our First Amendment is so precious. Such a suit brought in the US would be actionable as malicious prosecution.
Libel isn't a valid complaint when the libeled is dead -- at least, not in a court of law. Maybe in some kind of Islamic kangaroo court, or Islamic drumhead trial...
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