Free Republic

The artist behind the controversial caricature of the Muslim prophet Muhammad published in Nerikes Allehanda, Lars Vilks, claims to have begun receiving death threats. Vilks says he is planning to report the matter to the police after a slew of threats arrived over the last 24 hour. "There have been a lot of threats. A variety of death threats have come through via telephone, e-mail and in the comment section in my blog," Vilks told TV4. Despite the death threats, the artist says that he has no regrets about drawing the pictures of Muhammad as a dog.

Marking the beginning of yet another dispute over free speech and religious sensitivity, the government of Pakistan has joined Iran in protesting the publication in a Swedish newspaper of a sketch featuring the head of Mohammed on the body of a dog. "Pakistan condemns, in the strongest terms, the publication of an offensive and blasphemous sketch of the Holy Prophet in the Swedish newspaper," the foreign ministry in Islamabad said in a statement Thursday. A Swedish diplomat was summoned to the ministry and "was told that the publication of the sketch had caused grave affront to the religious sentiments of...