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Instigating cleric says he did not want riots Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/religion/13816381.htmhttp://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/religion/13816381.htm
Posted on Wed, Feb. 08, 2006
Cleric linked to protests says he did not want riots
He spread word of the cartoons, but he blames Denmark for ignoring the initial complaints.
By Matthew Schofield
Inquirer Foreign Staff
COPENHAGEN, Denmark - The Muslim cleric seen as instigating protests over a dozen cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad said yesterday that he never intended for rioters to attack Danish embassies and businesses in the Middle East and that he was crying for Denmark.
But Ahmed Abu-Laban, who leads a mosque in Copenhagen, also said that Danish officials had brought their problems on themselves by failing to respond to initial protests after the cartoons had appeared in a Danish newspaper. He said he did not feel responsible for the way the dispute had developed.
"People credit me with far more power than I have," Abu-Laban said. "The people rioting are not rioting in my name. They've never heard of me. They are furious because of the insult to Muhammad."
The cartoons, which were first published in Denmark in September, have led to angry demonstrations in the Middle East and Asia and a commercial boycott of Danish products in several Middle Eastern countries. The demonstrators say the cartoons violate Muslim prohibitions against creating images of Muhammad.
Last weekend, protesters set fire to the Danish embassies in Damascus, Syria, and Beirut, Lebanon. Demonstrations continued yesterday in Afghanistan, where U.N. peacekeepers killed five protesters, and Iran, where demonstrators stormed the Danish Embassy in Tehran.
Abu-Laban acknowledged in an interview that he had begun contacting Muslims in the Middle East late last year in an effort to build pressure on the Danish government to condemn the cartoons.
"European politicians want Muslim votes," he said. "We were running a campaign, trying to create pressure."
Abu-Laban said he had helped organize visits to Egypt and Lebanon, where he and other Muslims from Denmark displayed the cartoons. He said the visits were aimed at garnering political support, not inciting riots.
"We did not go to incite people," he said. "We did not go to the cafes to whip up support. We targeted rectors, scholars, muftis [experts in Islamic law], learned men of Islam who could help us to make heard our point in a place where officials have little time for religion."
When the protests turned violent, he said, he felt sympathy for Denmark.
"I cry for Denmark. I cry for the Danish people," he said.
But he was unrepentant, and said the West's view of Islam was the primary cause of the violence.
"This protest is not about the cartoons, offensive as they are," he said. "The cartoons are merely the final drop that caused the cup to overflow. The Muslim faith has been under attack for years. There has been intense psychological pressure on Muslims. We have heard Western politicians relate our faith to terrorism, over and over again, and it is too much. This was the response."
Many here accuse Abu-Laban of extremism and describe the mosque he leads, the Danish Islamic Community, as a center of radical Islam.
But Abu-Laban, whose mosque complex is in an old factory in the largely Muslim Noerrbro neighborhood, rejected those labels. He called suggestions that he supported Osama bin Laden insulting and said those who linked him to al-Qaeda were looking for easy answers to difficult problems between Muslims and Europeans.
He said he first became involved in the dispute even before the cartoons appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten because he had heard the editors were seeking depictions of Muhammad.
Abu-Laban said he went to the paper's editors and warned them not to publish depictions of Muhammad. "Do not make fun of the prophet," he said he told them.
When the paper published the drawings, Abu-Laban asked for an apology. When none was offered, he had 10 ambassadors from Islamic countries ask Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to get involved. In November, Abu-Laban began his tour of the Middle East with a dossier on what he calls the West's "Islamaphobia."
That led to the protests.
On Jan. 30, Carsten Juste, Jyllands-Posten's editor in chief, apologized for any offense the cartoons had given, though he defended the paper's right to print them. He declined yesterday to comment on Abu-Laban's statements.
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