Maybe it was Albion’s pushback against the Archbishop of Canterbury that emboldened them, or maybe the stout sons of Denmark needed no more encouragement than the newsworthy arrest of those who would murder an artist for his art, but newspapers there have re-published those Mohammed cartoons from two years ago.
Newspapers across Europe Wednesday reprinted the controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked worldwide protests two years ago.
The move came one day after Danish authorities arrested three people allegedly plotting a “terror-related assassination” of Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the drawing.
Berlingske Tidende, was one of the newspapers involved in the republication by newspapers in Denmark. It said: “We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper always will defend,” in comments reported by The Associated Press.
In Denmark, local Muslim leaders planned a protest while appealing for calm. The first is, of course, their perfect right: Damnable thing about liberal democracies, but no one has an inalienable right not to be offended and the best answer to objectionable speech is more speech. As for “appeals to calm,” none were necessary when Andres Serrano was playing the objectionable fool. Reader are free to draw their own conclusions.
Newspapers in Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands also published the cartoons, proving that not everyone is content to lie down, even if the king in the mountain is not yet awake.
Reminds me of this Thos. Jefferson quote I read in the am: “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
Doesn’t say too much for their taste though.
Did you see CNN’s coverage of this story? They also were bold enough to show some of the Mohammed cartoons….pixelated, of course, as if they were pictures of naked women.
laenge leve Danmark!