Danish Cartoons 10th Anniversary: Jyllands-Posten SUBMITS to Islam, CENSORS Iconic Muhammad Cartoons

Ten years ago, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten “inflamed the Muslim world” (as if that were hard to do) by publishing some innocuous Muhammad cartoons. The cartoons were published in September 2005 without incident. An Egyptian newspaper picked them up and ran them in October. But it wasn’t until the Organization of Islamic Cooperation met in December of that year that the cartoon jihad was launched. It was thus decided that the Danish cartoons (to whom no one had paid any attention until that moment) was where the Muslim world would throw down the sword in order to force the West to adhere to the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law). And they chose to do it by brute force and violence.

“It was no big deal until the Islamic conference, when the OIC took a stance against it,” said Muhammad el-Sayed Said back in 2006. El-Sayed was the deputy director of the Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, Egypt.

The meeting in Mecca, a Saudi city from which non-Muslims are barred, drew minimal international press coverage even though such leaders as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran were in attendance. But on the road from quiet outrage in a small Muslim community in northern Europe to a set of international brush fires, the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference — and the role its member governments played in the outrage — was something of a turning point. After that meeting, anger at the Danish caricatures, especially at an official government level, became more public. In some countries, like Syria and Iran, that meant heavy press coverage in official news media and virtual government approval of protests that ended with Danish embassies in flames.

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The cartoon jihad was as “spontaneous” as the jihad attack on Benghazi on 9/11/12.

These innocuous cartoons of Muhammad were used by the caliphate-inspired OIC to rain terror and murder down on innocent people in order to impose lslamic law (do not offend Muhammad or Islam). Priests were shot, embassies burned, rioting, rampaging, bloodshed.

2005: Syrian protesters burn Danish embassy

It was an admirable stand for freedom of speech in response to jihad savagery and sharia intimidation.

And we stood with the editors and cartoonists. We held rallies in support of the Danish free speech activists:

NYC rally in support of the Danish cartoons

The goal was always to impose Islam and sharia on the West. We took a stand and fought for a decade against this supremacist thuggery. Muslims in America stood with the sharia totalitarians against free speech (go here).

We protested when NYU would not show them at an event discussing them.

Ten years later the Danish newspaper remembered the anniversary this way. Bloody cowards.

The Muslim world never moved off their intractable position. They held steadfast to their brutal and unforgiving position of complete submission. The West surrendered in installments. It took 10 years and as evidenced by today’s edition of Jyllands-Posten, the Islamic supremacists won.

2015:

2005:

If they didn’t have the courage of their convictions, why mention it at all? Why surrender in such a deliberate and craven way?

This is a travesty.

Tomorrow we reprinting the original cartoon page . Unfortunately, the look like

I morgen genoptrykker vi den oprindelige Muhammed-side. Desværre må den se sådan ud #ytringsfrihed @jyllandsposten pic.twitter.com/RV9DdZdpms

— Pierre Collignon (@PCollignon) September 29, 2015

“Free speech at issue 10 years after Muhammad cartoons controversy,” Deutsche Welle, September 30, 2015

 

Ten years ago, cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish paper inflamed the Muslim world. As Europe grapples with the refugee crisis, the men behind the publication reflect. Malcolm Brabant reports from Denmark. The editor who commissioned the controversial cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammad is urging Muslims to redefine blasphemy. Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the publication of the 12 cartoons, Flemming Rose, formerly the culture editor of Denmark’s “Jyllands Posten” newspaper, said a new concept of blasphemy was required in order to “save the social peace in a multireligious, multicultural, multiethnic society.” Under the watchful gaze of Danish protection officers during an interview in Copenhagen’s main park, Rose said: “For too many Muslims it’s okay to commit violence when non-believers or Muslims commit blasphemy according to Islamic clergy.” Flemming RoseRose asks whether refugees arriving in Europe need to accept Western values or whether Europe needs to change.

As one of the principle actors in the cartoons’ drama, Rose’s life has been irrevocably changed by death threats, as has Kurt Westergaard’s, the artist who depicted Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

Both men defiantly refuse to apologize.

Westergaard’s house in central Denmark is now a fortress, after Somali Mohamed Geele, 29, broke in five years ago and tried to carry out a death sentence fatwa which is still active. Geele was convicted of attempted murder and terrorism.

Leaning on his silver-topped cane, Westergaard, now 80 and retired from satire, talked passionately about being one of the most hated men in the Muslim world.

“I think I still have a basic feeling of anger. I worked as a Danish cartoonist according to the Danish traditions. I had done nothing wrong. I had criticized an authority – in this case it was a religion. A big religion. And I think it’s a cartoonist’s and satirist’s job to criticize those in power, whether they are in this case a religion or it is a political party. If you work according to the Danish traditions then you offend people.”

Rose commissioned the cartoons after a children’s author complained that artists were too scared to draw images for his book about Islam.
A police bodyguard at work

Westergaard and Rose live with police protection

The images were first printed in “Jyllands Posten” in September 2005, but outrage in the Muslim world took several months to ferment, and erupted after a trip to the Middle East by a Danish Islamic delegation. Ahmed Akkari, an imam and the delegation’s press spokesman, later acknowledged that the purpose of the visit was to inflame passions.

It succeeded: There were demonstrations around the globe. An estimated 250 people were killed in riots. Danish institutions were attacked. The embassy in Damascus was set on fire. And Danish products were boycotted.

Since recanting and embracing free expression, Akkari has been forced to go into hiding. Unlike Rose and Westergaard, he does not have state protection and lives in Greenland.

‘Jihadists’ veto’

In Denmark, Muslim leaders remain uncompromising in their opposition to the cartoons.

“We don’t accept the cartoons as a picture or a caricature anything of the prophet,” Imran Shah, spokesman for the Islamic Society told DW, “but the very notion of connecting bombs with the religion of Islam – with a very acknowledgement of Islam where you propose that there is no God but God and the last messenger of God sent to this earth was Muhammad – connect that with a bomb, that’s a very immature and uncivilized way of starting the debate and discussions.”

It’s doubtful that any newspapers will reprint the cartoons on the anniversary, especially after the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris in January, and in Copenhagen in February earlier this year.
Jakob Mchangama

Mchangama says Muslims should accept satire

“Basically we have a situation where we have a jihadists’ veto, which is being respected, however grudgingly, by journalists and editors, which I think is sad, but at least some have come around to admitting that they are acting out of fear rather than out of respect or tolerance – which is of course a poor excuse,” says Jakob Mchangama, a jurist from the Justitia think tank and a leading proponent of unrestricted free expression in Denmark.

He believes Muslims should accept ridicule and satire as a sign of being fully accepted in Western society.

But his views are dismissed by Uzma Ahmed, a Dane of Pakistani heritage who is an activist in the Muslim-dominated Copenhagen district of Norrebro.

“We don’t need to have a talk about a huge cultural clash here, because it’s about rights, and it’s about equality. But it’s not given right now, because freedom of speech is for the very privileged. I see we have given up our freedom of speech and solidarity to the few who want to use freedom of speech to mock and scorn minorities. We can use freedom of speech constructively to create a new ‘we.'”

Ahmed was conversing with Karolina Dam at a “Welcome Refugees” rally in Copenhagen.
Karolina Dam and Uzma Ahmed

Dam (left) and Ahmed turned out for a rally in Copenhagen where they discussed free speech

Dam has every reason to despise Islam. Her 18-year-old son Lukas, who had learning difficulties, was radicalized after becoming a Muslim, joined the so-called “Islamic State” and was killed earlier this year in Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border.

But she’s in favor of limiting free expression.

“I think respect for another human being should be before anything else. We don’t fight about paintings of Jesus or Christ or Buddha or anything else – that’s because it’s not a problem. For Muslims it’s a problem. Why keep on pushing it? Why keep on poking them in the eye?”

Should Europe accommodate Muslim refugees?

The current influx of refugees and migrants into Europe has prompted Flemming Rose to ask whether the newcomers have to accept Western values and culture in return for sanctuary or whether Europe should moderate its traditions to accommodate the new arrivals.

“To me as somebody who is concerned with freedom, the question is how are we going to be able to preserve fundamental liberties like freedom of expression and freedom of religion – which also implies the right to say no to religion – in a society that is growing more and more diverse,” said Rose. “Where more and more people will be offended by what other people say because they have different understandings of what is important in life. So these clashes are inevitable.
Imran Shah

Shah says discussion needs to take place on a level playing field

“Unfortunately, most European politicians believe that in order to keep the social peace, we need to restrict freedom. I think it’s the other way round. That the natural thing is: If you welcome diversity in terms of culture, ethnicity and religion, you would also have to welcome diversity when it comes to speech, because people express themselves in more diverse ways when they are more different.”

The Islamic Society’s Shah said there is a need to discuss freedom of speech: “We’re not here to suspend freedom of speech. But we’re here to discuss how to use it. But if you want to start a debate or dialogue or critical discussion about religion, then let’s do that on a platform of respect and honor, instead of ridiculing and marginalizing an already-marginalized minority within these societies. Because as the pages of history turn throughout the decades that will follow, a just society will be measured [on] how justly it treated the minorities from the majority perspective.”