Row deepens over Danish cartoons

If you haven't been following this, apparently this is a really big deal to the muslims. Seems a bit out of hand, but hey, I'm not muslim (thank God) and can't relate. People all over the world desecrate images of Jesus and you don't see Christians rising up in arms. Well, it just continues to show the real theology behind the RoP (or islam,sarcastically called the Relgion of Peace, which it is far from being).

Arab foreign ministers have condemned the Danish government for failing to act against a newspaper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. At the Arab League conference in Cairo, they said they were "surprised and discontented at the response". Islam forbids any depiction of Muhammad or of Allah.
The Jyllands-Posten newspaper published a series of 12 cartoons showing Muhammad, in one of which he appeared to have a bomb in his turban. The Arab League's ministers council said the cartoons were an insult to Islam. The government's response "was disappointing despite its political, economic and cultural ties with the Muslim world", it added.

Death threats
Danish Muslim community leaders held talks with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in July to complain about press coverage of Islam. At the time, Mr Rasmussen said he could not tell newspapers what to print - or what not to. Arab ministers also said they were unhappy that European human rights organisations have not taken a clear position on the issue. There have been street protests both in Denmark and in Muslim countries following the publication of the cartoons. The newspaper insists on freedom of expression and says it has the right to print whatever words and pictures it chooses. It said both the paper and the cartoonist had received death threats.

If you haven't been following this, read this article from FrontPageMag.com.

Last September, Danish author Kåre Bluitgen was set to publish a book on the Muslim prophet Muhammad, but there was just one catch: he couldn’t find an illustrator. Artistic representations of the human form are forbidden in Islam, and pictures of Muhammad are especially taboo — so three artists turned down Bluitgen’s offer to illustrate the book for fear that they would pay with their lives for doing so. Frants Iver Gundelach, president of the Danish Writers Union, decried this as a threat to free speech — and the largest newspaper in Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, responded. They approached forty artists asking for depictions of Muhammad and received in response twelve cartoons of the Prophet — several playing on the violence committed by Muslims in the name of Islam around the world today.
Danish Imam Raed Hlayhel was the first to react. “This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims,” he fumed. “Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world. We demand an apology!” Jyllands-Posten refused. Editor-in-chief Carsten Juste refused: “We live in a democracy. That’s why we can use all the journalistic methods we want to. Satire is accepted in this country, and you can make caricatures. Religion shouldn’t set any barriers on that sort of expression. This doesn’t mean that we wish to insult any Muslims.” Cultural editor Flemming Rose concurred: “Religious feelings,” he observed, “cannot demand special treatment in a secular society. In a democracy one must from time to time accept criticism or becoming a laughingstock.”

Cox & Forkum Editorial Cartoons really spells it out well with this cartoon...