http://www.jp.dk/english_news/artikel:aid=3526280/

Quote:

Mid-East crisis deepens

Several Mid-East countries follow Saudi Arabia's lead and take action against Denmark in anger over a newspaper's publication of caricatures of the prophet Mohammed

The diplomatic and commercial storm over twelve caricatures published by daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten continued to rage over the weekend as Kuwait and Libya took action against Denmark.
Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Denmark on Thursday, the same day a boycott against Danish-based international dairy food producer Arla Foods was made public in the Danish press. Libya followed suit on Saturday, recalling its ambassador and closing the country's embassy in Denmark.

The effects of the Saudi Arabian boycott spread over the weekend turning into a blanket ban of Danish goods in serveral Mid-East countries.

Kuwait's largest grocery store chain removed Arla products from its shelves starting on Friday, causing the company to fear for the worst.

'This is serious. The chain is owned by the Kuwaiti government and has a 50 percent market share,' said Finn Hansen of Arla Foods.

In addition, both Kuwait and Jordan have called in the Danish ambassador to explain the Danish government's reaction to Jyllands-Posten's publication of the drawings in September.

After the publication of drawings, Danish Muslims protested over the newspaper's breaking the Islamic taboo of drawing Mohammed. The protests led eleven Muslim ambassadors to request a meeting with the prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to discuss the matter.

Rasmussen, however, refused to meet with them, saying that he had no control over the press, and that freedom of expression weighed more heavily than personal feelings.

Danish businesses suffering from the boycott against their products were quick to take steps to distance themselves from the drawings, pointing out that Rasmussen had also done so in his New Year's address to the nation.

Arla is currently the hardest hit of Danish companies operating in the Middle East, but also pump producer Danfoss and insulin maker Novo Nordisk said that their operations had been affected.

On Friday, Hans Skov Christensen, director of the Confederation of Danish Industries, sent an open letter to Jyllands-Posten expressing Danish businesses' frustration that they had been caught up in Jyllands-Posten's defence of freedom of expression.

'The time has come for Jyllands-Posten to use its freedom of speech to explain how they feel about the newspaper's Mohammed drawings having hurt the feelings of large groups of people,' Christiansen said.

In response the growing international criticism of Denmark, Jyllands-Posten printed its own letter to the people of Saudi Arabia in Arabic on the front page of its website explaining why they had printed the drawings and expressing regret that the situation had spread so far.

'It was not our intention to offend anyone or their faith. That it happened anyway was unintended. We have apologised for that many times in the past few months - not only in our newspaper, but also on television, the radio, and in international media,' said Carsten Juste, editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten.

In addition to the diplomatic and commercial fray between Denmark and Arab states both militant Muslim groups and international Muslim organisations expressed their anger over the drawings over the weekend.

In the city of Nablus in the West Bank, members of the al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade and Fatah burned a Danish flag in protest of the drawings.

In Cario, the OIC announced that it was prepared to use the conflict as grounds for asking the UN General Assembly to pass a resolution forbidding attacks on religious faith.

'Consultations are being carried out at the highest level between Arabic countries, and the OIC will request that the UN pass a binding resolution forbidding disdain for religious belief and opening up for the possibility of sanctions against countries and institutions that violate the ban,' said Ahmed Ben Helli, vice secretary general of the Arab League




I'm becoming more and more attached to the idea that this is a simply an attempt to shout out to the world that the islamic culture is much older than the western civilization. Consequently, this is no longer about religion, this is politics. The governments in the Middle-East demands that the Danish government issues an apology, knowing full well that the responsibility for this apparent transgression against Islam lies solely with Morgen-avisen Jyllands Posten.

If you look to the right of the article in the link above you'll find a videoclip with the primeminister commenting on this matter. The video is in english.



Racks be to MisterJLA