New Danish Muhammad cartoons draw criticism, spark protest

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Less than a year after cartoons of Islam's prophet Muhammad published in a Danish newspaper ignited worldwide protests against the Scandinavian nation, a new set of cartoons, this time featured in a video aired on Danish television and the Internet, has again sparked condemnations in the Muslim world.

Reuters reports that dozens of Iranian protesters attacked the Danish embassy in Tehran Tuesday in response to the cartoons, which were aired during a news report on Danish television Friday.

Reuters witnesses said protesters hurled stones and petrol bombs into the embassy compound. The crowd chanted "Down with Zionists" and "God praise the party of God".

Riot police guarded the embassy and two fire trucks stood nearby. Firefighters extinguished a tire which was set alight next to the embassy compound wall, the witnesses said.

Also on Tuesday, the Iranian parliament called upon Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to cut economic ties with Denmark over the cartoons, reports Agence France-Presse.

"Since disrespecting the prophet of Islam is not tolerable under any conditions, we call for cutting economic relations with Denmark," said a petition addressed to the president and read out in a live radio broadcast from parliament.

The letter - signed by 232 MPs in the 290 seat hardline-controlled house - also asked the president to "freeze political relations if Denmark continues such policies."

The cartoons appeared in a video showing young members of the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party drawing carictures of Muhammad during a summer camp, reports The Independent of London.

The film was made by a group called Defending Denmark which said it infiltrated the youth wing of the far-right party for 18 months "to document [its] extreme right-wing associations". It showed the junior members of the party, who appeared to have been drinking, holding a drawing contest during their summer camp.

One woman presented a cartoon showing a camel with the head of Mohamed and beer cans for humps. A second drawing showed a bearded man wearing a turban next to a plus sign and a bomb, equalling a nuclear mushroom cloud.

In the report above, AFP noted that the cartoons appeared on screen "fleetingly" during the broadcast by Denmark's TV2. The Associated Press reported that the videos were pulled from websites Monday.

The controversy over the new cartoons echoes the protests earlier this year over a series of images of Muhammad that were published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Those cartoons led to demonstrations and violence across the Muslim world, and sparked a heated debate over the weight of religious sensitivity versus the freedom of the press. Jyllands-Posten said that the cartoons were not intended to be offensive, which does not appear to be true of the latest cartoons.

The Independent reports that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen denounced the actions of the Danish People's Party youth, saying, "Their tasteless behaviour in no way represents the way the Danish people or young Danish people view Muslims or Islam." The Independent notes that while Mr. Rasmussen's center-right ruling coalition does not include the Danish People's Party, it has relied on the group for legislative support. The Danish government also issued a statement to its citizens, urging caution by those traveling in the Middle East and Indonesia.

Despite Rasmussen's statement, Denmark has still received criticism from Muslim quarters. AP reports that Indonesia has voiced complaints to both the Danish ambassador and Denmark's foreign minister, while Deutsche Presse-Agentur and the South African Press Association report that an Indonesian radio station is sponsoring a contest, meant to insult Denmark, for the best drawing of the Danish king standing with pigs.

IslamOnline reports that the International Union of Muslim Scholars said the cartoons were part of a larger campaign by the West to distract Muslims from developing their countries.

"One of the main goals of this ferocious campaign against Islam and its sanctities is to distract Muslims from achieving the Islamic civilizational project to rid the Muslim nation of its subordination to the West," the International Union for Muslim Scholars said in a statement, a copy of which was sent to IslamOnline.net. ...

Expecting more anti-Islam insults, the Muslim scholars said the best way to respond is to "pay no heed at all to the ignorant."

The BBC reports that Danish Muslim leaders "said they would not be provoked by the latest incident."

The new controversy has stirred concerns among Danish companies of new boycotts by Muslim nations. AP reports that two Danish companies in Saudi Arabia have been asked to remove their products, but neither the Confederation of Danish Industries nor Danish dairy giant Arla Foods have seen significant overall impact from the latest cartoon protests. Arla Foods says that its sales in the Middle East still have not fully recovered from the cartoon-sparked boycott earlier this year.

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Feedback appreciated. E-mail Arthur Bright.