Agora

This is a transcript of an interview with Ahmed Akkari on DR TVs newscast at 18:30 Wednesday, February 8, 2006.

The Interview lasts from 8:43 to 12:08 in the newscast.

Interviewer: "Akkari, would you try and explain why you toured the Middle East with a picture taken from a French pig-squaling contest as if it was a picture that had been published in Denmark?"

Akkari: "Ehh.. We actually didn’t do that. It is something alike to media manipulation from some Danish newspapers, what is presented with this picture, because that picture is not what was shown [to the OIC and Arab League] and not in the context in which it is being presented now."

Interviewer: "You know, we have pictures of your predecessor as spokesman for the Community of Islam in Cairo, showing the picture and saying that it is one of the worst pictures. We’ll try and see what he is saying in this clip from Cairo."

[Cuts to picture of people sitting in Cairo around a table, man passing round cartoons while commenting]

Man (In broken English): "This is one of the worst picture can anyone ever imagine. They imagine our prophet [Arabic unitelligible (blessing?)] Hands of a man, praying, and a face of a pig."

[Cuts to studio again]

Interviewer: "This was a clip from Cairo during your tour. I guess there’s not much to be mistaken about? ‘One of the worst pictures’. But that picture did not originate in Denmark?"

Akkari: "That picture is not a part of the cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten and everybody knows that."

Interviewer: "That wasn’t my question."

Akkari: "But that is the issue at stake here…"

[Interviewer interrupts]

Interviewer: "That picture was brought on the tour in the Middle East in the folder your predecessor has on the table in Cairo and is displayed for your coreligionists…"

[Akkari interrupts]

Akkari: "I think we should try and ask in Cairo and in the Middle East in general if it is that particular picture that is making people angry now. If it is so, I shall relent. If not — and I think not — then we have to realize that the issue at stake here is the twelve cartoons in Jyllands-Posten and not a stunt like that."

Interviewer: "Why did you bring that picture with you in your folder?"

Akkari: "To show the provocations one may suffer when publishing a reader’s letter in Jyllands-Posten. They were answers to provocations that hed been received…"

[Interviewer interrupts]

Interviewer: "But the picture that you showed your coreligionists in the Middle East hadn’t been published… made public in Denmark."

Akkari: "Nobody said that."

Interviewer: "Then why did it need to be shown as you say, and as it was said by your predecessor…"

[Akkari interrupts]

Akkari: "It was shown after a series of.. eh.. documents and the core of the matter is to view the folder as a part of a whole. What you just did was to take a few seconds from a conversation. It may easily have been manipulated and it is easy to misinterpret. And if the statements of Danish Experts haven’t been good enough to let us understand that this is manipulation then I can easily understand that some may try to make us take the blame so they.. kind of are not held responsible."

Interviewer: "Ahmed Akkari, you are going in circles, excuse me for being blunt. [Interviewer is audibly indignant] That picture was brought to the Middle East. It was shown as some of the worst pictures shown in Denmark. It comes from a pig-squealing contest in France. Is what you have shown in the Middle East truthful or is it a lie?"

Akkari: "But the questions you’re asking and the way things are presented right now isn’t truth either because you take it out of its context and you don’t inform people as to what the whole of the matter is about. Because what it is about.. it is to show what anonymous pictures Moslems have received as a provocation. I don’t think it is something anybody has claimed that Jyllands-Posten brought and everyone is welcome to go there and ask."

Interviewer: "What is your message to Danes who perhaps, right now, are thinking: ‘That man, he is lying’?"

Akkari: "I think they shouldn’t pass judgment yet because we did not intend to lie in any way. We only hope that all of us will take the responsibility assigned to us by our actions. If it is shown that something is not right, we will of course be willing to correct that, if it is that which has caused all of this anger. But let us try to investigate this together, we are eager to investigate what this is about and if it is that which has caused the angers, then I am going on LIVE tv in a minute to explain it. So let’s hope we can do that together."