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Palestinian gunman threaten european union in gaza { February 3 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/international/europe/03cartoons.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/03/international/europe/03cartoons.html
February 3, 2006
Temperatures Rise Over Cartoons Mocking Muhammad
By CRAIG S. SMITH and IAN FISHER
PARIS, Feb. 2 — An international dispute over European newspaper cartoons deemed blasphemous by some Muslims gained momentum on Thursday when gunmen threatened the European Union offices in Gaza and more European papers pointedly published the drawings as an affirmation of freedom of speech.
In Gaza, masked gunmen swarmed the European Union offices on Thursday to protest the cartoons, and there were threats to foreigners from European countries where the cartoons have been reprinted. The gunmen stayed about 45 minutes.
A newly elected legislator from Hamas, the radical Islamic group that swept the Palestinian elections last week, said large rallies were planned in Gaza in the next few days to protest the cartoons, which depict the Prophet Muhammad in an unflattering light. Merely publishing the image of Muhammad is regarded as blasphemous by many Muslims.
"We are angry — very, very, very angry," said the legislator, Jamila al-Shanty. "No one can say a bad word about our prophet."
The conflict is the latest manifestation of growing tensions between Europe and the Muslim world as the Continent struggles to absorb a fast-expanding Muslim population whose customs and values are often at odds with Europe's secular societies. Islam is Europe's fastest growing religion and is now the second largest religion in most European countries. Racial and religious discrimination against Muslims in Europe's weakest economies adds to the strains.
The trouble began in September in Denmark, when the daily Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons lampooning intolerance among Muslims and links to terrorism. A Norwegian magazine published the cartoons again last month, and the issue erupted this week after diplomatic efforts failed to resolve demands by several angry Arab countries that the publications be punished.
The cartoons include one depicting Muhammad with a bomb in place of a turban on his head and another showing him on a cloud in heaven telling an approaching line of smoking suicide bombers, "Stop, stop, we ran out of virgins!"
They have since been reprinted in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Hungary. The BBC broadcast them on Thursday.
[On Friday, 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage inside the lobby of the Jakarta building housing the Danish Embassy, unable to get past security to the embassy on the 25th floor, Reuters reported. They tossed rotten eggs and made fiery speeches calling on their government to sever diplomatic ties with Denmark and evict its ambassador. The protesters dispersed after an hour. There were no arrests.]
Most European commentators concede that the cartoons were in poor taste but argue that conservative Muslims must learn to accept Western standards of free speech and the pluralism that those standards protect.
Several accused Muslims of a double standard, noting that media in several Arab countries continue to broadcast or publish references to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a notorious early 20th-century anti-Semitic hoax that presented itself as the Jews' master plan to rule the world.
Many Muslims say the Danish cartoons reinforce a dangerous confusion between Islam and the Islamist terrorism that nearly all Muslims abhor. Dalil Boubakeur, head of France's Muslim Council, called the caricatures a new sign of Europe's growing "Islamophobia."
Saudi Arabia and Syria recalled their ambassadors from Denmark, while the Danish government summoned other foreign envoys in Copenhagen to talks on Friday over the issue, having already explained that it does not control the press.
Jyllands-Posten has received two bomb threats in the past few days, despite having apologized for any hurt feelings about the drawings.
Thursday morning, about a dozen gunmen appeared at the European Union offices in Gaza, firing automatic weapons and spray-painting a warning on the outside gate. The men handed out a pamphlet warning Denmark, Norway and France that they had 48 hours to apologize.
The office, staffed then only by Palestinians, reportedly received a warning that the gunmen were coming, and was quickly closed.
In Nablus, on the West Bank, two masked gunmen kidnapped a German from a hotel, thinking he was French or Danish, Agence France-Presse reported. They turned him over to the police once they realized their mistake.
Leaders of Fatah and Hamas said they did not endorse harming any foreigners in Gaza. All the same, the threat emptied hotels there of Europeans, most of them journalists.
France Soir, the only French daily to reprint the cartoons, fired its managing editor late Wednesday as "a strong sign of respect for the beliefs and intimate convictions of every individual," according to a statement from its owner, Raymond Lakah, an Egyptian-born French businessman.
In an editorial defending its decision to publish the cartoons, France Soir asked Thursday what would remain of "the freedom to think, speak, even to come and go," if society adhered to all of the prohibitions of the world's various religions. The result, the newspaper said, would be "the Iran of the mullahs, for example."
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, issued a statement condemning "in the strongest terms" France Soir's publication of the cartoons. "Any insult to the holy prophet (peace be upon him) is an insult to more than one billion Muslims," his statement read.
On Thursday, France's embassy in Algeria, a former colony, issued a statement condemning the publication, saying the French government was "deeply attached to the spirit of tolerance and to respect of religious belief, as we are to the principle of freedom of the press."
"In this light, France condemns all those who hurt individuals in their beliefs or religious convictions," the statement read.
Still, Europeans showed no signs of backing down. Le Monde ran a sketch of a man, presumably Muhammad, made of sentences reading, "I must not draw Muhammad."
Craig S. Smith reported from Paris for this article, and Ian Fisher from Gaza.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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