Agora

This just in. It is indicated on Jyllands-Posten’s website that they will update this story, and I will follow suit when that happens. So far:

Crown’s Prosecutor: No indictment against JP
The Crown’s Prosecutor dismisses all charges against Jyllands-Posten for having published the cartoons of the prophet Muhammed.

Jyllands-Posten is not to be punished for publishing the hotly debated cartoons of the prophet Muhammed, the Crown’s Prosecutor informs. But Freedom of Speech is not without limits and the law doesn’t allow people unlimited debate on religious subjects, the Crown’s Prosecutor makes clear:

“It is thus not a correct description of existing law when the article in Jyllands-Posten states that it is incompatible with the right to freedom of expression to demand special consideration for religious feelings and one has to be ready to put up with “scorn, mockery and ridicule”,” Crown’s Prosecutor Henning Fode writes.

Faith Community Disappointed
The Islamic Faith Community expresses disappointment with the Crown’s Prosecutor’s decision and is thinking about how to proceed.

“The decision show that the people who made the blasphemy law weren’t familiar with the religious feelings of Moslems”, the spokesman of the Islamic Faith Community, Kasem Said Ahmad, who was among those who reported Jyllands-Posten.

“It sends a wrong message to the rest of the world. I think the decision is liable to have negative consequences for Denmark. It’s just not about the Moslems in Denmark, but also about the 1.4 Billion Moslems around the world,” Kasem Said Ahmad says.

Kasem Said Ahmad will now review the decision and its appendices with representatives of the other Moslem organisations in Denmark who reported Jyllands-Posten. They will review the option of bringing the case to the European Union’s Human Rights court.

The cartoons were headlined “The Faces of Muhammed”. According to Islam it is forbidden to depict the prophet and the cartoons ignited protests in large parts of the Moslem world.

As you will recall, Jyllands-Posten was reported as having broken the near-obsolete law against blasphemy which hasn’t been succesfully used since 1938. The charges were first dismissed by the Prosecutor for Denmark but the case was reopened by the Crown’s Prosecutor to ensure that all options had been tried.

Update: The Crown’s Prosecutor’s decision is available here.
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It’s a dirty job and all that, but need it really be such a dirty job to be a Danish cartoonist?

Cash and a car for the blood of Danish cartoonists
Peshawar, Mar 15
In his office in Peshawar’s historic Mohabat Khan mosque, prayer leader Maulana Yousaf Qureshi smoothes his beard from the white roots to the henna-orange tips.

“There’s no time limit. If someone kills the cartoonist in 50 years he will still get the million dollars,” he says.

In a blazing sermon on February 17, Qureshi promised the money — and a new car — to whoever assassinates any of the 12 Danes whose drawings of the Prophet Mohammed ignited a firestorm of protest across the Muslim world.
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This piece was published in today’s edition of Jyllands-Posten. It was written by Poul Højlund of Pia Causa. It’s good, conservative reasoning about this thing called Islam. Please notice, by the way, that Muhammed is depicted once again in this infidel newspaper from the North.

Update: Poul has a post about this article. If you want to praise or comment on the article, go here.

Democracy before Religion

By Poul Højlund

Islam is an unbreakable monolith of religion and politics. Islam as traditionally interpreted is not compatible with democracy, the author of today’s feature article writes.

“Freedom of Religion is included in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Danish Constitution. This means that I am free to be a Christian and my neighbor can be a Moslem without this interfering with our basic rights or our recognition by society at large. And our neighbor another door over is allowed to believe in absolutely nothing while remaining a co-equal member of our common society.

Freedom of Religion means that if someone by words or deeds attacks my two non-Christian neighbors on account of their beliefs or lack thereof, I’ll be there to defend their rights. In the same manner, I can count on them - if things get to that.”

That is what I wrote in Jyllands-Posten in November of 2002 in the feature article titled “Freedom of Beliefs and Belief in Freedom”, and I still hold it to be true - indeed I don’t see how I could believe otherwise. But in that article I also wrote of the real and present danger of oppression of Democracy. (more…)