Speaking to a meeting of 76 ambassadors in Copenhagen on Friday 3 March, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen deplored the publication of twelve cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper last September and asserted that Danish freedom of expression is tempered with tolerance and respect for different religions.

Up to very recently, referring to freedom of expression as “the very foundation of Danish society”, Danish prime minister and minister for the press Anders Fogh Rasmussen had refused to meet with a group of Muslim ambassadors to discuss what they perceive as an “ongoing smear campaign” against Islam.

The ambassadors quote four instances where Danish politicians and media have expressed hatred for Muslims:
Speaking two months before the publication of the controversial Muhammad cartoons, radio host Kaj Vilhelmsen suggested that Islamic terrorism could only be combated by expelling or killing Muslims.
Writing on her website two weeks before the cartoons were published, member of parliament for the Danish People’s Party Louise Frevert compared “the Muslim menace” with “a tumour which we know will kill us, if we don’t find and annihilate it ...”
In a speech at the Conservative Party’s national conference six days before the Muhammad cartoons were published, Minister for Culture Brian Mikkelsen accused Muslims of developing a “parallel society” within Denmark, “where minorities practise their medieval norms and undemocratic ways of thinking.”
And, of course, there are the infamous cartoons themselves, published in Jyllands-Posten on 30 September last. The text of the accompanying article states explicitly that the cartoons were commissioned specifically to offend against the Islamic taboo on depicting the Prophet – and not, for example, to tackle the issue of terrorism.

Please read the excerpts from the website of the Danish national broadcasting station, DR, and from the centre-left daily, Politiken, in translation: ... read full story / add a comment