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May 3, 2006
Denmark: Paper Countersues In Muslim Cartoon Case
We reported in March that a group of Muslims had decided to sue the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten for images which it commissioned in September last year of the so-called Prophet Mohammed.
Michael Christiani Havemann, a lawyer representing the groups, claimed in a news release from 29 March that a sum of 100,000 kroner, equivalent to $16,100, is being demanded from the newspaper's editor Carsten Juste and its culture editor, Flemming Rose.
In this news statement, Havemann claimed: "According to my information, the grossest of the cartoons, the one with the bomb, was drawn by the paper's employed cartoonist, apparently on the instructions of management because the cartoons drawn by the freelance artists were not gross enough."
Now, Associated Press via Dawn reports that Jyllands-Posten has decided to countersue the lawyer himself for its claims.
Carsten Juste has said in a statement that Havemann's allegations "are simply so gross and insulting that he has crossed the line for what we will accept. The cartoonists were explicitly asked to freely depict the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as they saw him, in other words without any directions from the newspaper's side."
I believe that the newspaper Dawn, a Pakistani Muslim paper, has inserted the "peace be upon him" comment for its own dubious ends.
Carsten Juste explained that the reason why the cartoons were published was to challenge the self-censorship which was being imposed by artists, who were too afraid to defy the extremists of Islam.
As we reported 10 days before the cartoons of Mohammed appeared, Danish children's author Kare Bluitgen had completed a book on the life of Mohammed for Danish schoolchildren. The author found that the three illustrators he had approached to provide pictures had all shied away from the task. Shortly before Kare Bluitgen finished his book, a Danish lecturer at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute had been violently attacked.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at May 3, 2006 9:47 AM
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