Misery loves company
The Independent reports that in the West Bank city of Nablus, a German citizen was seized - and later released - by armed militants who have been roaming hotels looking for someone to have a go at over the Jyllands-Posten Muhammed cartoons controversy.
Yesterday’s incidents prompted the EU to review the security of its representatives in the occupied Palestinian territories, where armed militants warned the staff at its Technical Assistance Office in Gaza City that they were demanding that all French citizens leave Gaza.
The papaer also reports that a gunman in a Fatah-linked armed unit has threatened “any citizen of these countries [that printed the cartoon] who are present in Gaza,” although Mahmoud Zahar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, has unequivocally condemned the threats against foreign nationals.
” We are not accepting any aggression against foreign institutions whether EU or American, or against any other group, foreign or Palestinian,” Dr Zahar said. He said some Palestinians had already boycotted Danish goods and Hamas wanted them to continue protesting by “legal means”.
Ahmed Qureia, the outgoing Palestinian Prime Minister and a leading figure in Fatah, and Khadr Habib, an Islamic Jihad leader in Gaza, have both claimed that their groups are not targeting Europeans, but are equivocating in the subject of violence.
The BBC also reports that Iraqi, Egyptian and Palestinian Islamic groups have all jumped on the bandwagon, calling for demonstrations as Muslims attend Friday prayers. And, in Indonesia, protesters broke into the lobby of the building housing the Danish embassy and pelted the coat-of-arms outside with eggs.
Not wanting to be left out, the Muslim Council of Britain has organised demonstrations outside the Danish embassy in London and the BBC’s Television Centre, after the corporation aired “glimpses” of the images.
According to another BBC report, Denmark has made a new bid to calm the situation as yet more Muslims stage angrey protests.
Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen called in Muslim ambassadors to explain his position over the images’ publication.
He said he could never apologise for a newspaper’s actions but said he was “distressed” at offence caused.
Rasmussen met the ambassadors in Copenhagen on Friday but stuck to his position that “neither the Danish government nor the Danish nation as such can be held responsible for drawings published in a Danish newspaper.”
“A Danish government can never apologise on behalf of a free and independent newspaper. This is basically a dispute between some Muslims and a newspaper.”
He also said that the issue of the cartoons has gone beyond Denmark to become a clash between Western free speech and Islamic taboos.
In other developments:
- Iraq’s top Shia Muslim cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani condemned the publication, but said militant Islamists were partly to blame for distorting the image of Islam
- Palestinians protested in Ramallah on the West Bank, shouting: “The assault on the Prophet is an assault on Islam”
- The Pakistani upper house of parliament passed a resolution condemning the cartoons
- Vatican cardinal Achille Silvestrini condemned the cartoons, saying Western culture had to know its limits.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for Muslims to be forgiving, saying the cartoons should not cause a dispute between cultures
Friday 03 Feb 2006 | Paul | Denmark, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, UK
The philosophical foundations of “freedom of speech” were inspired by a desire to ensure the free exchange of ideas and information. I’m sure the architects of these foundations would have been the first to agree that it is not a contradiction to expect those free exchanges to be accomplished in a civilized, respectful manner. When you knowingly and blatantly insult either a person or a group in a very egregious manner, it is naive and stupid to expect that insult to be accepted piously. Try going up to someone in the street, who loves his mother, and tell him his mother is syphillis ridden whore. Will you be suprised when he knocks your lights out? Do you think the world will come to your defense because you were just just exercising your freedome of speech? I doubt it. Civility and respect is a vital lubricant in the free exchange of ideas and information.