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February 19, 2006

India: Minister Offers $10m For Head of Cartoonist

In a demonstration of the sheer insanity of the current Muslim world, a minister in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has made an offer of the equivalent of 10 million US dollars for the person who beheads one of the cartoonists who depicted the paedophile and mass-murderer, the prophet Mohammed, states the Sunday Times today.

Yaqoob Qureshi is minister of minority welfare in the Uttar Pradesh cabinet, and made the announcement during a rally against the Danish cartoons in his constituency in Meerut, northeast of Delhi, the capital. He said he would give in addition, the weight of the killer in gold.

The Times of India reports that Quereshi is a leading figure in the Samajwadi Party, and explains how this mullah intends to gain the money. He claimed at the rally that he would be getting it off women. (A tactic used by Mohammed on Khadija, his first wife). Apparently, the women of Meerut would be willing to give their gold ornaments to provide the gold. Presumably, he canvassed these women first to garner their approval.

Speaking at a rally of 25,000 individuals, he said: "Whosoever it is, be it a Pakistani, an Iraqi or an American." A moment later he added, "The money will be paid by the people of Meerut."

In Pakistan, after Friday prayers in the city of Peshawar, in the northwest, a Muslim cleric said he would give 1 million US dollars, and a car, to anyone who kills a cartoonist. The cleric, Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, has not been arrested for inciting murder.

The Guardian stated that the Peshawar cleric's offer was not in dollars, but was 1.5 million rupees, or 17,000 dollars US. He is imam at the Mohabat Khan mosque.

The Observer on its front page today carries a report on one of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, who is now living in a succession of safe houses in Denmark, following death threats. Westergaard is responsible for the image of Mohammed with a turban as a bomb, which can be found with the other illustrations here.

The article, on the printed edition and not on its website, quotes the Glasgow Herald newspaper, which gained information on the cartoonist via an intermediary.

Asked if he had expected the controversy the caricatures would spark, he replied simply: "no,no." And when asked if he regretted drawing the cartoon or its publication, he said again "No".

The inspiration for the drawings was he said, "terrorism - which gets its spiritual ammunition from Islam." The artist defended his caricature as "a protest against the fact that we perhaps are going to have double standards [in Denmark and Western Europe] for freedom of expression and freedom of the press."

Asked if he thought artists had the right to say whatever they wanted, he replied simply: "Yes!" He was also asked what he thought he had learned from the experience. "The world is always a dangerous place, but what alternatives do we have?"

At least, unlike Bill Clinton and Britain's po-faced and gutless foreign secretary Jack Straw, this man, who is risking his life, has the courage to stand up for his convictions. If more artists followed suit, the Western world would be a stronger and more united place.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 19, 2006 2:45 PM

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