By TwoCircles.net staff reporter,
Copenhagen, Feb 13: Denmark’s newspapers have again flared up the controversy by reprinting drawing of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) on Wednesday. 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. Whose work had spurred deadly protests in the Muslim World.
The papers said they wanted to show their firm commitment to freedom of speech after Tuesday’s arrests in western Denmark.
The Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which first published controversial drawings of Prophet Muhammad(SAW) on Sept. 30, 2005, reprinted Kurt Westergaard’s cartoon in its Wednesday edition. Newspapers in Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands also republished the drawing Wednesday as part of their coverage of Tuesday’s arrests.
“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 will always defend,” said the Copenhagen-based Berlingske Tidende.
The cartoon by Westergaard and 11 others sparked deadly protests across the Muslim world when they were published two years ago in a range of Western newspapers.
Islamic law opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.
Muslim leaders in Denmark Wednesday attacked the republication of the cartoon, as well as the alleged murder plot, while calling for calm.