Free Republic

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) - About 1,000 Afghans, incensed by the republication of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers, marched on Sunday demanding withdrawal of Danish and Dutch troops. The protesters, mostly religious clerics in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, also condemned plans by a right-wing Dutch politician to broadcast a film on the Koran. Afghanistan's Religious Affairs Ministry has called the reprinting of the cartoon as an attack against Islam. Several other Islamic countries have demanded that the film by the Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders must not be released. The cartoons were first printed in a Danish...

The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the few U.S. newspapers to publish a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad from a series that sparked a wave of protests by Muslims, defended the action on Sunday by saying it was just doing its job. "This is the kind of work that newspapers are in business to do," said Amanda Bennett, the newspaper's editor. The Inquirer on Saturday published the most controversial image, which depicted the Prophet with a turban resembling a lit bomb, and it posted on its Web site an Internet link to the rest of the cartoons. For many Muslims, Islam...

The Prime Minister has spoken out about the Mohammad cartoon controversy, saying she does not think it is a freedom of the press issue. Helen Clark says the New Zealand press is free, and politicians do not dictate what it can and cannot print. She says it is a question of judgement. She does not think the publication of the cartoons does anything to bring communities together in New Zealand or around the world. Helen Clark says the New Zealand government's position is very strongly in favour of respecting all religions and working to bring communities together, not drive them...