On Friday, in a remarkable reversal of roles, the British government condemned the publication of Muhammad cartoons while Berlin and Paris opposed demands of Muslim fanatics that they pressure the German and French press. In Denmark, meanwhile, the group of moderate Muslims who oppose their radical imams is growing.

Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, condemned the decision by European newspapers to republish some of the Muhammad cartoons as “disrespectful.” He added that freedom of speech does not mean an “open season” on religious taboos. Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Interior Minister, however, firmly dismissed calls that the German government intervene after two German newspapers, Die Welt and Berliner Zeitung, published the Muhammad cartoons. “Why should the government apologize for something which takes place under the process of freedom of the press?” Herr Schäuble asked. He added that if the state were to interfere it would be the first step towards limiting freedom of the press. On Thursday Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister, had praised Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for his defense of freedom of expression. “Freedom of expression is not an issue for negotiation and I see no reason to give one religion a special treatment,” Mr Sarkozy had said.

Yesterday an overwhelming majority of the Dutch Parliament (126 of the 150 MPs) supported sending troops to southern Afghanistan, ending weeks of political indecision that was threatening to embarrass NATO and bring down the Dutch cabinet. Yesterday was the Big Day. One party of the government coalition voted against assisting in the ISAF mission in Uruzgan, Afghanistan, but Labour, the largest opposition party, backed the decision.

Dyab Abu Jahjah

An article by Paul Belien with a comment by Jos Verhulst 

The only trouble with the Europeans’ defence of freedom of speech is the fundamental hypocrisy of secular Western Europe. That is the opinion of Dyab Abu Jahjah, the Brussels-based leader of the Arab-European League. On his website he writes:

I do not believe in red lines, and I do not believe that anything should be above the freedom of human expression. I know that most Arabs and Muslims would disagree with me on this point, but this is not what bothers me, what bothers me is that most Europeans don’t realize that they also disagree with me.

Mullah Krekar

Yesterday (Thursday) Mullah Krekar, the alleged leader of the Islamist group Ansar al-Islam who has been living in Norway as a refugee since 1991, said that the publication of the Muhammad cartoons was a declaration of war. “The war has begun,” he told Norwegian journalists. Mr Krekar said Muslims in Norway are preparing to fight. “It does not matter if the governments of Norway and Denmark apologize, the war is on.”

Islamist organizations all over the world are issuing threats towards Europeans. The Islamist terrorist group Hizbollah announced that it is preparing suicide attacks in Denmark and Norway. A senior imam in Kuwait, Nazem al-Masbah, said that those who have published cartoons of Muhammad should be murdered. He also threatened all citizens of the countries where the twelve Danish cartoons [see them all here, halfway down the page] have been published with death.

On 31 January 2006 the British House of Commons narrowly defeated – with just 283 votes against 282 – New Labour’s Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, intended to prohibit speech or artistic expressions deemed insulting by religious communities. This was a narrow yet historic victory for freedom of expression, as well as a victory for Parliament against a despotic-minded Government. Liberal-Democratic spokesman Evan Harris commented: “The Government just failed to understand that they can’t take liberties with freedom of expression.”

Raymond Lakah, the owner of the French newspaper France Soir, has sacked Jacques Lefranc, the paper’s editor. Yesterday France-Soir republished the twelve controversial Danish Muhammad cartoons (see them all here, halfway down the page). Mr Lakah declared: “We express our apologies to the Muslim community and to all the persons that were shocked by the publication of the cartoons.”

French Muslim leaders had announced their intention to sue the paper for the cartoons. They said the publication was a “provocation.” Raymond Lakah, a Franco-Egyptian businessman, is the owner of Angel Gate, a holding company that also owns the airline companies Air Horizons and Star Airlines. The only adequate response to Mr Lakah's decision is a consumer boycott of France Soir. While Mr Lakah has a right to sack Mr Lefranch, French readers have the right to boycott his paper.

Today almost all the European newspapers are reporting on the Danish cartoon case. What most papers do not mention is that the whole affair escalated after a group of radical Danish Muslims and imams visited the Arab countries early in January with the deliberate intent to provoke a consumer boycott of Denmark. These people wanted to punish the Danish government for its refusal to introduce press censorship. They even added three false cartoons, possibly of their own making, to the twelve drawings of Muhammad that the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published last September. (See the original cartoons here, halfway down the page.)

In an unprecedented speech yesterday Belgian King Albert II warned the Belgians against Flemish secessionism. Last year, the Flemish secessionist Vlaams Belang [Flemish Interest] party, which is striving for the independence of Flanders, became the largest party in Flanders as well as in Belgium as a whole. Next autumn local elections will be held, which are predicted to result in further growth for the Flemish secessionists.

There is a striking difference between the foreign policies of Norway and Denmark, two Scandinavian neighbours. Whilst the appeasing Quisling government in Oslo grovels at the feet of extremists, Denmark valiantly defends the freedom of the West. The same striking difference in attitudes can be seen between two other close neighbours, Belgium and the Netherlands. Whilst the Dutch political elite has finally come to its senses, after the assassinations of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, the Belgians are continuing their tradition of being utterly unreliable allies. [pdf]

An article by Hjörtur Gudmundsson (with Filip van Laenen and Paul Belien)

Carsten Juste, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, has apologized on behalf of his newspaper for offending Muslims by publishing twelve Muhammad cartoons last September (see them here, halfway the page). Previously (as in his open letter to the Saudis) Mr Juste had only “regretted” it, without using the word “apology.” Mr Juste emphasizes, however, that he apologizes for offending people, but not for publishing the cartoons. He explains that for the sake of freedom of expression he cannot apologize for publishing them. He says that Jyllands-Posten has not changed its position on the publication as such. “We believe that if we would go out and apologize [for the publication] then the dictators in the Middle East would decide what we should publish in our newspaper. That is of course totally unacceptable,” Juste told the Danish news agency Ritzau.