Three leading Swedish newspapers have republished a lampooning cartoon of a person described as Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) under the pretext of showing solidarity with the cartoonist in the face of an alleged murder plot against him.
"It's very important for us to take a stand on the issue of freedom of expression," Thomas Mattsson, editor in chief at the Stockholm tabloid Expressen, told Deutsch Welle on Thursday March 11.
In 2007, Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks depicted a person he described as Prophet Muhammad as a dog to illustrate an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of expression.
"This cartoon has been published in several newspapers in Sweden before," said Mattsson.
"Expressen has never published it, but we did so today given the fact that seven people were arrested yesterday on conspiracy of murder of the artist, Lars Vilks."
The same was done by the Stockholm-based Dagens Nyheter newspaper and the Malmö daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet.
The three dailies said the move was a show of solidarity with Vilks.
"Vilks doesn’t stand alone in this conflict," Dagens Nyheter said in an editorial Wednesday.
"A threat against him is, in the long term, also a threat against all Swedes."
Irish police have arrested four Muslim men and three women on suspicion of plotting to kill the Swedish cartoonist in an operation coordinated with US and European security agencies.
Vilks, who has a 100,000-dollar (74,000-euro) bounty on his head from an Al-Qaeda-linked group, began receiving death threats after his cartoon appeared in Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda on August 18, 2007.
No offence
Mattsson argued that their decision to print the controversial cartoon should not been seen as an offence to Muslims in Sweden, estimated at nearly 400,000.
"We wanted to show this cartoon for our readers, but not in an offensive way," he told the Deutsch Welle.
"It's not published on the front page - it's a two-column drawing, so it's pretty small - but it's identifiable and you can look at it and make up your own mind."
Gunilla Herlitz, the Dagens Nyheter editor-in-chief, echoed the same position.
"I believe that, in this case, the cartoon is a part of the news and therefore we would like to show the readers what this is all about," he told The Times on Thursday.
"But the cartoon is published in a context and is not the leading picture on the page."
Any drawings of Prophet Muhammad, let alone lampooning ones, are considered blasphemous under Islam.
The publishing of the cartoon in 2007 triggered protests by Muslims in the town of Oerebro, west of Stockholm, where the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper is based.
The protests echoed the uproar caused in Denmark by the publication in September 2005 of 12 drawings, including one showing a man described as Prophet Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb and another showing him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.
The crisis prompted Muslims in Denmark and worldwide to champion local campaigns to wash away widely circulated misconceptions about Prophet Muhammad.
IslamOnline.net launched a special website, Reading Islam, as part of a larger effort to acquaint non-Muslims with the Prophet.
"It's very important for us to take a stand on the issue of freedom of expression," Thomas Mattsson, editor in chief at the Stockholm tabloid Expressen, told Deutsch Welle on Thursday March 11.
In 2007, Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks depicted a person he described as Prophet Muhammad as a dog to illustrate an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of expression.
"This cartoon has been published in several newspapers in Sweden before," said Mattsson.
"Expressen has never published it, but we did so today given the fact that seven people were arrested yesterday on conspiracy of murder of the artist, Lars Vilks."
The same was done by the Stockholm-based Dagens Nyheter newspaper and the Malmö daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet.
The three dailies said the move was a show of solidarity with Vilks.
"Vilks doesn’t stand alone in this conflict," Dagens Nyheter said in an editorial Wednesday.
"A threat against him is, in the long term, also a threat against all Swedes."
Irish police have arrested four Muslim men and three women on suspicion of plotting to kill the Swedish cartoonist in an operation coordinated with US and European security agencies.
Vilks, who has a 100,000-dollar (74,000-euro) bounty on his head from an Al-Qaeda-linked group, began receiving death threats after his cartoon appeared in Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda on August 18, 2007.
No offence
Mattsson argued that their decision to print the controversial cartoon should not been seen as an offence to Muslims in Sweden, estimated at nearly 400,000.
"We wanted to show this cartoon for our readers, but not in an offensive way," he told the Deutsch Welle.
"It's not published on the front page - it's a two-column drawing, so it's pretty small - but it's identifiable and you can look at it and make up your own mind."
Gunilla Herlitz, the Dagens Nyheter editor-in-chief, echoed the same position.
"I believe that, in this case, the cartoon is a part of the news and therefore we would like to show the readers what this is all about," he told The Times on Thursday.
"But the cartoon is published in a context and is not the leading picture on the page."
Any drawings of Prophet Muhammad, let alone lampooning ones, are considered blasphemous under Islam.
The publishing of the cartoon in 2007 triggered protests by Muslims in the town of Oerebro, west of Stockholm, where the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper is based.
The protests echoed the uproar caused in Denmark by the publication in September 2005 of 12 drawings, including one showing a man described as Prophet Muhammad with a turban in the shape of a bomb and another showing him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.
The crisis prompted Muslims in Denmark and worldwide to champion local campaigns to wash away widely circulated misconceptions about Prophet Muhammad.
IslamOnline.net launched a special website, Reading Islam, as part of a larger effort to acquaint non-Muslims with the Prophet.
