Latest caricature of the prophet set to stir new Muslim ire

A French weekly’s publication of cartoons of a naked Prophet Mohammed is just the latest caricature in the West of Islam’s messenger of God that is bound to stir fresh outrage in the Muslim world.

In each case, western officials have said the caricatures, no matter how offensive, are permitted by laws protecting freedom of expression.

The new controversy triggered by the pictures in the satiricial French magazine Charlie Hebdo comes as tempers are already running high over an anti-Islam film made in California and posted on the Internet.

“Innocence of Muslims,” a low-budget film that lampoons the prophet, has provoked angry demonstrations and sometimes deadly anti-US and anti-Western attacks in Arab and Muslim countries in the last week.

The film that was apparently produced by a Coptic Christian filmmaker have also triggered demonstrations in western countries.

The publication in 2005-2006 of 12 cartoons of Mohammed by Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, picked up in France by Charlie Hebdo, led to numerous demonstrations around the world.

The most controversial caricature by Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard depicted Mohammed’s turban with a lit fuse in it.

In Denmark, which at the time contributed troops to the US-led coalition occupying Iraq, Muslim leaders called for an apology.

And in late 2005 Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo issued a statement expressing their “surprise and indignation at the reaction of the Danish government, which was disappointing despite its political, economic and cultural ties with the Muslim world.”

In early 2006, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Copenhagen, while the Arab world boycotted the Danish-Swedish dairy firm Arla Foods.

The Danish prime minister, who remained intransigent on the question of freedom of expression, explained that neither the government nor Denmark could be held responsible for what independent media report.

Jyllands-Posten said it had not intended to insult or disrespect Islam. But it stopped short of saying sorry for printing the cartoons themselves, instead apologizing for the turmoil caused in their aftermath.

When in February 2006 several European media, including Charlie Hebdo, published the caricatures in the name of freedom of the press, the controversy went global.

In the Gaza Strip, armed groups threatened western journalists. In Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Indonesia, Somalia, and Afghanistan violent demonstrations took place. European embassies were attacked and torched and several people were killed. Calls for an Islamist war appeared on the web.

After a week of violence, calls for calm multiplied and the European Union’s foreign policy supremo Javier Solana, who firmly backed Denmark, visited the Middle East in a bid to defuse tension.

In France the director of Charlie Hebdo, Philippe Val, was cleared in 2008 after he was taken to court in February 2007 accused by French Muslim groups of having insulted Islam by publishing cartoons of the prophet.

The appeals court in Paris ruled that he had not insulted Muslims because the cartoons were aimed clearly at Islamist terrorists and not the Muslim community as a whole.

In November 2011 Charlie Hebdo caused further offence when it published an edition “guest-edited” by the Prophet Mohammed that it called Sharia (Islamic law) Hebdo. The magazine’s offices in Paris were subsequently fire-bombed.