Danish cartoon ruling may prompt Islamophobia: OIC
RIYADH: The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a league of 57 Muslim nations, said on Monday that a Danish court’s rejection of a lawsuit against a newspaper for printing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) could provoke “Islamophobia”.
The High Court for western Denmark on Thursday rejected a lawsuit against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published cartoons, leading to deadly protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The court said the editors had not meant to depict Muslims as criminals or terrorists, the cartoons had not broken the law, and there was a relationship between acts of violence and Islam – comments that provoked outcry among Muslim groups in Denmark.
“It is a known fact that acts of terror have been carried out in the name of Islam and it is not illegal to make satire out of this relationship,” the court said.
Islamic Faith: The Islamic Faith Society, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit against the Danish newspaper, said it might take its case to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The Saudi-based OIC, the largest grouping of Muslim countries, said the ruling could encourage “Islamophobia”, a fear or dislike of Islam, which the group has identified as existing in the West.
“The Danish ruling came as a surprise to the OIC at a time when almost all Western governments, including the United States, had made categorical statements rejecting any linkage between Islam and terrorism,” an OIC statement said, adding, “The linkage drawn by the Danish court could create a precedent for exacerbation of Islamophobia”.
Source: Daily Times
Date:6/24/2008
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