Free Republic

Two years after a Danish newspaper provoked manufactured outrage in the Islamic world by printing a series of cartoons lampooning Islam's founder, a Swedish newspaper may have done the same with a series of sketches: 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...

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...

Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has spoken out about the need for Sweden to stand up for press freedoms following the controversy surrounding the publication by a local newspaper of drawings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Asked whether Sweden risked being drawn into a similar situation as that faced by Denmark two years ago, Reinfeldt replied: "I think it's important to say two things. First, we are eager to ensure that Sweden remains a country in which Muslims and Christians, people who believe in God and people who don't believe in God, can live side by side in a spirit of...

Pakistan has added its voice to that of Iran in condemning the publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in newspaper Nerikes Allehanda. Sweden has told Pakistan it is sorry if the publication hurt Muslim feelings. The protest concerned a cartoon by artist Lars Vilks, which showed the head of Muhammad on the body of a dog. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad said Pakistan condemned the publication "in the strongest terms." Related Articles Paper defends Muhammad dog cartoon 28th August 2007 Ahmadinejad claims 'Zionists' behind Swedish cartoon 28th August 2007 Iran protests over Swedish...

Sweden risks crisis over Prophet picture By David Ibison in Stockholm Published: August 29 2007 23:11 | Last updated: August 29 2007 23:11 What began as a harmless artistic experiment in Sweden is at risk of erupting into a repeat of last year’s crisis in Denmark that followed the publication of allegedly insulting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. The growing dispute in Sweden is linked to rondellhund – roundabout dogs – which are amateur and usually humorous sculptures of dogs placed covertly on roundabouts around the country as a form of counter-cultural expression.   When Lars Wilks, a Swedish...

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has played down the row surrounding a Swedish newspaper’s recent publication of a picture depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog. A spokeswoman for Foreign Mininster Carl Bildt told the newspaper ”Dagens Nyheter” that the Swedish government does not get involved in what newspapers write. The Foreign Ministry says it now considers the incident closed. The drawing, by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, appeared in a local newspaper in the city of Örebro, on August 19. Vilks originally produced three drawings depicting Mohammed as a roundabout, or traffic circle, dog. Iran lodged an official complaint with Sweden...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that "Zionists" were behind a cartoon in Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, which depicted the head of the Prophet Mohammed on a dog's body. The drawing sparked an official protest by Tehran to Stockholm. "They do not want the Swedish government to be a friend of other nations. I strongly believe they are behind it (the cartoon). They thrive on conflict and war," he said.

Leading figures in Sweden's media industry have backed newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, which has been criticised by Iran for publishing a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. The paper itself has meanwhile defended its decision to publish.

Four men jailed over cartoon demo Javed, Muhid, Saleem and Rahman had denied holding extremist views Four Muslim men have been jailed for their part in protests at the Danish embassy in London, against cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad. Mizanur Rahman, 24, Umran Javed, 27, and Abdul Muhid, 24, were each jailed for six years for soliciting to murder after telling a crowd to bomb the UK. A fourth man, Abdul Saleem, 32, was jailed for four years for stirring up racial hatred at the protest in 2006. The men, from London and Birmingham, were convicted at the Old Bailey....

BERLIN, April 30 (UPI) -- The dialogue between the German government and the country's Muslim community is heating up shortly before the second leg of an integration conference. Maria Boehmer, Germany's envoy for integration matters and a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, has harshly criticized a demand made by the German Muslim community to separate girls and boys in the physical education classroom. "We will not allow that a small minority of backward people wants to install (in Germany) the rules of their grandfathers," she told the Neue Osnarbruecker Zeitung newspaper. This is hardly a successful prelude to the...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A local cab driver allegedly tried to run over two customers after a fight over religion became heated. The incident happened early Sunday morning on the Vanderbilt campus and left one man hospitalized and a cab driver arrested, said police Two students visiting from Ohio were coming from a bar downtown when they got into an argument with their driver over religion, said police. After they paid the driver he allegedly ran them down in a parking lot. Ibrihim Ahmned, of United Cab, was arrested and charged with assault, attempted homicide and theft.

From the Vatican to the Pentagon, goodwill gestures offered to the Muslim world too often blow up in the West’s collective face. The nicer we are to them, the harsher they are to us. The olive branch Pope Benedict XVI extended to Muslims is obscured by the smoke that has billowed since his address at Bavaria’s Regensburg University. The pope cited a conversation between “an educated Persian” and the 14th-century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus. They discussed, the pope said September 7, “the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.” He then quoted Paleologus who said: “Show...

Protests are planned for Monday in the same area of campus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where, authorities said, a former student plowed a sport utility vehicle into nine people Friday afternoon. The College Republicans, Americans for an Informed Democracy and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies are sponsoring the event, scheduled for 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. Monday in "The Pit," a central area of the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. The event is open to the public and free of charge. Police said Mohammad Taheri-azar, a 2005 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate, admits he acted to "avenge...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A recent University of North Carolina graduate faces attempted murder charges after he allegedly drove a sport utility vehicle through a popular campus gathering spot Friday, clipping and scattering startled bystanders. No one was seriously hurt. Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, who graduated in December after studying psychology and philosophy, was in the custody of campus police. They intended to charge him with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, said police Capt. George Hare. Taheri-azar called police to surrender and then awaited officers on a street two miles from the campus,...

The Intolerance of the Intolerants By Lori Lowenthal Marcus In dozens of recent articles in media sources around the world, a Jewish human rights group is being accused of gross insensitivity. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is building a Museum of Tolerance in the center of West Jerusalem. Muslim leaders are outraged, they wail to all who will listen, because the site being excavated is on what was once the Mamilla Cemetery. They contend, and few journalists question, that Mamilla is an ancient and sacred Muslim cemetery. Who could resist such a story - the intolerance of a Jewish Museum of...

The Muslim Al-Dimmah Foundation is charging that Vebjørn Selbekk, the editor of the journal that published the controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed in Norway, endangered Norwegian lives. "The publication of these images of Mohammed is inciting Muslims to riot and attempt to slay the blasphemers,” said Kawlid Muhumma, leader of Al-Dimmah, an organization of devout lunatics. “Police must arrest Selbekk and put him in a safe place before someone kills him. We cannot be held responsible for the consequences if he is allowed to roam free." Muhumma added that innocent Muslims in Norway now feel unsafe, although he was...