Mohammed Cartoon Prints Go On Sale

Prints of the Danish cartoon depicting Islam's Prophet Mohammed as a suicide bomber in 2005 -- much to the chagrin of the international Muslim community -- will now be sold by the Denmark Free Press Society for $250 each. One thousand copies are to be printed and sold, with each having a designated number and signature by the artist, Kurt Westergaard, who has been in hiding due to numerous death threats. From AFP:

Two Tunisians were arrested in Denmark last year on suspicion of planning to murder Westergaard, and later released without trial after they appealed a government order for their expulsion on national security grounds.

'The image won Kurt Westergaard international fame, but it has also forced him to live under constant police protection,' the Free Press Society said on its website.

'Despite threats and concrete murder plots planned by Islamists, he has nonetheless never expressed any regret and never apologised for being a free artist.' Calls to the organisation were not returned.

As the AFP notes here, Westergaard has never apologized or expressed regret for the drawings. And indeed, he enjoys the backing of free speech and free press advocates around the globe in this regard. A notable example of one such advocate, just this week, is NATO Secretary General and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who defended the drawings in 2006 and who forewent any diplomatic gesture or apology in Turkey this week at the Alliance of Civilizations meeting, despite earlier reports that said an apology was forthcoming. From ABC's Jake Tapper:

During a panel discussion at Çırağan Palace in Istanbul, Rasmussen said that, "I would never myself depict any religious figure, including the Prophet Mohammed, in a way that could hurt other people's feelings. I respect Islam as one of the world's major religions," Turkey's English daily newspaper, the Daily News & Economic Review, reported.

"My position is clear before, during and after the crisis. I condemn action that aims to demonize people on their religious or ethnic background," he said.

That said, Rasmussen also asserted that "all kinds of censorship are the enemy of dialogue and enhance prejudice. All kinds of prejudice have to confronted, not ignored. That is why freedom of expression is a precondition for open dialogue."

The controversial cartoons caused riots throughout the Muslim world in early 2006, resulting in a number of deaths, property damage and a general wounding of diplomatic relations between east and west that has still not fully healed.

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Comments

[Solaris123]

"The calculated role played by the two Danish Muslim extremists, backed by Islamic fundamentalist regimes, is a case in point.
They not only aggravated an already inflammatory situation, but added their own infuriating images, never published in the West, as they took their case to clerics in the Middle East.
Both, Imam Abu Laban and Ahmad Akkari have escaped the attention and scrutiny their acts deserved. These two men, who now sit in the comfort of their homes in Denmark, should be held accountable for their criminal actions."
http://www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/

[bismillah001]

[2nd try posting, sorry if this is redundant]

I gotta keep it real with you..

It's sad to see so much arrogance, vengeful hatred and ignorance manifested in this story's commentary. The ironic thing is many of these comments, with a few altered nouns, could just as well come from bigoted "Islamic" religious fanatics. For example, look at the comment by "ooRuth7", with some changes I inserted in brackets:

"These [Western imperialists] are barbaric idiots. They dont deserve to be treated like normal humans. We should keep them far far away. These are the same idiots that want to attack [Islam] and [the believers]. They wont rest until [atheism] is spread to every continent and every one is [an unbeliever], they may destory the world trying to do it. ..."

Sound familiar?

Anyone can mock and demonize others. That is not, however, why our predecessors fought so hard to ensure us the freedom of speech. How have we become so backward as a nation? We are a country founded on values, armed with a set of inalienable freedoms put in place to safeguard them. Freedom of speech is not itself a value; it was not bestowed upon us simply for its own sake. Those perverse enough to mock others "for the sake of freedom of speech" are naught but mocking themselves and our nation's architects.

[Solaris123]

Bismillah:""Those perverse enough to mock others are... mocking themselves and our nation's architects."
The "architect" Thomas Jefferson sent a considerable invasion force to the Middle East to attack the Islamists and make them behave. It worked.

[bismillah001]

hope you have a nice day, insha'allah

[00Ruth7]

Not really. Doesnt sound familiar to me. Because i didnt see atheists running jets into buildings and starting a Jihad and declaring wars on nations hiding in caves.
You said: "Anyone can mock and demonize others..."
No, not really again. Try to demonize the most peaceful religion in the world: Buddhism.
Yes i do have a lot of hate towards religion but not all religion like Buddhism. They are peaceful and they do their own thing. I haven't seen any Buddhists making attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and planning on using them on any western civilization or any violence.

[bismillah001]

The members of Burma's military junta all profess to be devout Buddhists. And Buddhist nationalism is used in Sri Lanka by the Sinhala majority who have structurally oppressed the Tamil Hindu minority for decades; hence the ongoing civil war and terrorism there. Also look at Bhutan, a Buddhist country that, in the name of preserving what it sees as its own religious and cultural heritage, has sought to cleanse itself of ethnic Nepalis living there for generations by forcing tens of thousands of them out of the country illegally.

Hate is a toxin that rots our hearts until we reach an subhuman condition. I hope, God willing, your hate will subside and you can begin to see man as man, politics as politics and violent bigotry as a universal human problem which no ideology, race or religion has a monopoly on. You know, the other day I read a news story about a baby Iraqi girl that survived a suicide blast shrouded by her mother's dead, burning body. Ya Allah! This is where hate has taken us. And the hate that created that suicide bomber is one and the same with the hate you claim to possess. There is a better way..

Salaam (peace)

[Solaris123]

Free speech plea from 11 Canadian Muslim academics and activists:

http://www.sappho.dk/Den%20loebende/canada_english.htm?phpMyAdmin=380958aa456e77bd953fd6b73dd4650f

[Cycadeoidea]

Bravo!!!

[00Ruth7]

These religious extremists are barbaric idiots. They dont deserve to be treated like normal humans. We should keep them far far away. These are the same idiots that want to attack liberties of the west and free living people. They wont rest until radical islam is spread to every continent and every one is a believer of Allah, they may destory the world trying to do it. Radical Religion is detrimental to society. Its not only Islam, Christianity is also part of the problem, Congressman John Shimkus quoted Gensis saying that we dont need to worry about the end of the world because men cannot end the world and only God himself can end the world.
Really? this guy believes gods words are infallible and obviously they wont mind declaring war, they wont prevent global warming ,etc, etc because they believe man cannot end the world, only god can.

complete BS.

[talkitreal]

The man doing this is an instigator

[Cycadeoidea]

The man responsible for the drawing has to live under constant police protection.

[ChristopherAtom]

Religious extremism; I will fight you till my dying breath or until I get sleepy. Then I'll take a nap and when I wake up I'll fight you till my dying last breath, again. Oh wait! Meal breaks too, then dying breath. Tuesdays are bad too and ill need the day off on the 24th of this month off, gettin' my wisdoms pulled. But anytime after that: IT'S ON!

[SusanStoHelit]

Only a thousand? I think they massively underestimated demand. $250 to express your support for freedom of speech, even in the face of threats of violence and murder is a cheap price!

I was hoping they were doing a book of all of the cartoons. I'd love to see that.

Those who get violent about this need to learn about the real world. People make fun of Christianity all the time - editorial cartoons figuring Jesus are common. Blackface stuff - guess what, still exists - and no one makes plans to murder the controversial artists. Every group has those who make fun of it, every group has those who oppose them and write about that. Muslims and scientologists are the only ones who seem to get violent and obnoxious about it.

GROW UP! Get a spine, get some thicker skin, and realize not everyone will agree with you, hold the same things sacred as you do.

[jimmyjones22]

seriously, I wish I had the bones to drop on that. It's become such a culteral icon.

[00Ruth7]

Same. I really want to purchase one and frame it.
Cannot believe that innocent people have been killed in protest of this cartoon. Shame of them.

[bbriani3842]

Religion poisons everything. . .

[twosexy4mycat]

WHACKOS are wackos in any religion. barbaric and childish, keep the population dumbed down and this is what you get, just read up on the crusades.

[Feanor]

There needs to be more mocking of religion. All hail Kurt Westergaard.

[Solaris123]

Reprints buy page. On your right side, the famed cartoon, next to it: BUY NOW. Click on it.
It's $250 with free international shipping. An instant collector's classic.

http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2009/04/ifps-prints-1000-copies-of-kurt-westergaards-famous-mohammed-cartoon-to-raise-money-for-free-speech/

http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/mohammed_bomb.jpg

[Wozzeck]

Check out the Board of Advisors. It's a Who's Who of neocons.

[Solaris123]

Some of the Directors--
Ibn Warraq--attempts to secularize islam. A pronounced agnostic.
Countries subjugated by Islam ( including some in Europe) need more people like Warraq.

Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi - producer of films about the a s s as sin at ions of Iranian writers, activists and scholars who opposed the regime of Iran at the hands of the secret police. A hero. Muslim world need more people like her.
And less people like Wozzeck

[Wozzeck]

Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Mark Steyn, Geert Wilders, Robert Spencer, Andrew C. McCarthy, Stephen Coughlin, Brigitte Gabriel. All are professional Islamophobes.

[WoodyTanaka]

Does that suprise you? These people are professional Arab-haters and Muslim-haters and they revel in something like this the same way that they would protest someone selling anti-Christian or anti-Jewish artwork.

The lesson I draw is that one can reject the resort to violence that accompanied the publication of these cartoons without glorying in the fact that it hurts the sensibilities of Muslim people.

[Solaris123]

You can buy the reprints here:

https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=FQ3fMeLdBC8U7RZxUqeDM6yW6vl-zOt6pWPEVDkUaEms9JIcTe2IlkUa5eq&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1fa798f5a5f5ae42e779d4b5655493f6179c7b0ecd252eac84

[Solaris123]

Free Press Society; Denmark

"In Denmark supporters of Islamic theocracy and sharia law have taken to violence in order to secure their monopoly on the interpretation of religion. A Jewish-Moroccan university teacher was attacked in open daylight in Copenhagen and severely beaten because he had dared to read from the Koran (which non-believers may neither read nor criticise)."

http://www.trykkefrihed.dk/free-press-society.htm

[Aloisius]

I'm sorry a picture hurt your feelings.

[Solaris123]

Palemoon posted: "since when did protests suddenly get labelled as "violence"??"

THIS IS NOT VIOLENCE??????? What nonsense.

----------------------------------------BBC quotes-----------------------------------------------------

"4-5 Feb: Danish embassies in Damascus and Beirut attacked"

"Many people have died in recent protests, including five in Pakistan."

"18 Feb: 16 ki l led in Nigerian protest"

"offers of rewards in Pakistan and India in recent days for anyone kil l ing the cartoonist. "

"The buildings burned in Lahore and Peshawar included cinemas, a theatre, banks, mobile phone outlets, fast food restaurants, the Punjab assembly building, petrol stations, music and video shops. "

"Eyewitnesses say some of the protesters opened fire as well."
" An eight-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4736854.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4716762.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4715084.stm