OT: How a meeting of leaders in Mecca set off the cartoon wars around the world
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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article344482.ece
By Daniel Howden, David Hardaker in Cairo and Stephen Castle in
Brussels
Published: 10 February 2006
A summit of Muslim nations held in Mecca in December may have played a
key role in stoking outraged protests across the Islamic world against
a series of caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed.
A dossier of the cartoons, which was compiled by Danish Muslims, was
handed around the sidelines of the meeting, attended by 57 Islamic
nations including leaders such as Iran's president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, and the Saudi King, Abdullah.
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alt.atheism
The meeting in Islam's holiest city appears to have been a catalyst for
turning local anger at the images into a matter of public, and often
violent, protest in Muslim nations. It also persuaded countries such as
Syria and Iran to give media exposure to the cartoon controversy in
their state-controlled press.
Muhammed El Sayed Said, the deputy director of the Al Ahram Centre for
Political and Strategic Studies, an independent studies centre, said the
Mecca meeting was a turning point in internationalising the cartoons
issue. "Things started to get really bad once the Islamic conference
picked it up," he said. "Iran and Syria contributed to fomenting
reaction. It came to the point where everyone had to score a point to be
seen as championing the cause of Islam."
The emergency summit of the Organisation of the Islamic conference (OIC)
on 6 December was originally called to address terrorism and sectarian
violence between Shia and Sunni Muslims, but came to be dominated by the
cartoons, originally published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten
in September.
The OIC issued a condemnation of the cartoons: "[We express our] concern
at rising hatred against Islam and Muslims and condemned the recent
incident of desecration of the image of the Holy Prophet Mohamed."
The communique went on to attack the practice of "using the freedom of
expression as a pretext for defaming religions".
After the expanded media coverage in Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon
and the Palestinian territories, the violent protests began. At least 10
people have been killed across the Islamic world as a result of these
protests.
Sari Hanafi, an associate professor at the American University in
Beirut, said the cartoons had provided Arab governments under pressure
from the West for democratic reforms with an opportunity to hit back in
the public opinion stakes.
"[Demonstrations] started as a visceral reaction - of course they were
offended - and then you had regimes taking advantage saying, 'Look this
is the democracy they're talking about'," he told The New York Times.
Ahmed Akkari, a Lebanese-born Dane and spokesman for a group of Danish
Muslims, said the Mecca summit had been the culmination of campaign to
publicise the offending cartoons.
The group assembled a 43-page dossier that included several unpublished
caricatures. However, Mr Akkari denies allegations that the second set
of cartoons - which were faxed to Muslim groups by far-right extremists
after they protested against the original images - were presented to
Muslim leaders without distinction.
The published cartoons in the dossier were in colour and the unpublished
ones were clearly marked and in black and white, Mr Akkari said.
After a number of failed attempts to highlight the issue to Muslim
ambassadors in Denmark, Mr Akkari was part of a delegation that flew to
Cairo in early December where they met the Grand Mufti and the Foreign
Minister, Abdoul Gheit.
"We thought we would mobilise influential people so that they could give
us their voice in Denmark," he said.
Ahmed Abu Laban, a radical cleric and leading critic of the cartoons in
Denmark, said the purpose of the delegation to the Middle East was to
raise awareness, not to stoke anger.
"We have been addressing the issue with a cool head; we were trying to
seek academic and religious help from the Middle East. We are not
professional enough to know what would be the response of media, nor the
interest of politicians there," he said.
Mr Akkari said that the violent fallout was not their intention when
they compiled the dossier. "We did not expect it to end up in such a
situation, and with violence and for people to use it politically. This
has now gone further than we had expected."
Image that launched 1,000 protests
* 17 SEPTEMBER 2005: Danish newspaper Politiken reports a writer failed
to find an artist for a book about Mohamed because of fear of reprisals.
* 30 SEPTEMBER: Twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed are
published in Jyllands-Posten as a protest against self-censorship.
* 2 OCTOBER: Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, hears
complaints from 10 Arab ambassadors.
* 14 OCTOBER: 5,000 people march through Copenhagen to protest against
the cartoons.
* 21 OCTOBER: Mr Fogh Rasmussen refuses to meet the 10 ambassadors,
saying his government is unable to interfere with press freedom.
* 27 OCTOBER: Danish Muslim groups file a criminal complaint against
Jyllands-Posten.
* DECEMBER 2005 - JANUARY 2006: The coalition of Danish Muslim groups
travels to the Middle East. Delegates at the Islamic Conference in Mecca
talk of boycotting Danish goods.
* 7 JANUARY: Prosecutors decide there is no case to answer against
Jyllands-Posten.
* 10 JANUARY: Norwegian Christian magazine Magazinet reprints the
cartoons.
*27 JANUARY: Saudi Arabia calls for a boycott of Danish goods and
recalls ambassador.
* 28 JANUARY: Danish-Swedish dairy giant Arla places adverts in Middle
Eastern papers to calm the row.
* 29 JANUARY: Libya recalls its envoy.Jyllands-Posten prints an Arabic
editorial saying the cartoons were printed as a test of public
expression.
* 30 JANUARY: Editor of Jyllands-Posten apologises as masked gunmen
briefly storm the EU's offices in Gaza.
* 31 JANUARY: Denmark advises its citizens not to travel to Saudi
Arabia.
* 1 FEBRUARY: Seven newspapers across Europe republish the cartoons in
solidarity with Jyllands-Posten.
* 2 FEBRUARY: Jordanian paper Shihan becomes the first in the Arab world
to reprint the cartoons saying its decision was made to show their
readers "the extent of the Danish offence". The editor is fired.
* 3 FEBRUARY: As 50,000 people protest in Gaza, a small group of Muslim
radicals hold a demonstration in London.
* 4 FEBRUARY: Violent protests spread to Damascus.
* 5 FEBRUARY: Danish embassy in Beirut set alight as Iran recalls its
ambassador in Copenhagen.
* 6 FEBRUARY: Protests spread to Indonesia, Malaysia and Afghanistan.
* 7 FEBRUARY: Denmark's embassy in Tehran is attacked.
* 8 FEBRUARY: George Bush accuses Iran and Syria of exploiting the
cartoons.
/end
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