Just a cartoon?

David Bauder
AP in New York

Paris - Unflattering, some say offensive or sacrilegious, newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad are casting a spotlight on the battle between free speech and religious beliefs.

The conflict is focused on Europe, where the cartoons - and the 300-year-old concept of a free press - originated, and where large Muslim populations make the drawings particularly divisive. Newspapers elsewhere, from North America to Asia, have largely avoided the caricatures.

The question of whether to publish has divided newsrooms, cutting to the heart of what it means to be free media in today's interconnected, multicultural world.

"All freedoms, including the freedom of speech, come with responsibility. ... Having the right to cause offence does not make it right to do so," said Terry Davis, the head of Europe's leading human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe.

Others take offence at the very attempt to impose pious respect of the prophet.

Defending the right to disagree

The chief editor of a French daily that reprinted the drawings last week, Serge Faubert, invoked the 18th-century free thinker Voltaire in his defence of France Soir's publication: "I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

The managing editor of France Soir, Jacques Lefranc, was fired after the publication by the newspaper's Egyptian owner.

But others ask whether Voltaire, controversial even in Enlightenment-era France, is compatible with 21st-century Europe.

Some Muslims in Europe - France alone has five million - see unfettered free media as part of democracy. But others take offence at any representation of their prophet, favourable or not. Some Christian and Jewish groups have joined Muslims in condemning the drawings.

In a reflection of the complexity of the issue, Israel's liberal Haaretz newspaper offered understanding of the rage over the caricatures.

"It is impossible not to understand the feelings of insult among Muslims worldwide," it editorialised. "The West's preaching of the value of multiculturalism cannot be taken seriously if it does not include ... religious minorities and Muslims and Christians alike. No society can remain apathetic to offensive publications that insult values held sacred by certain groups within it."

On the other end of the scale, the British tabloid press has been especially outraged at the Muslim world's reaction to the issue.

Myth of Muslim tolerance

"The myth about Muslim tolerance needs to be exploded," wrote Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail, his column published beside a photograph of a protester carrying a sign saying "Behead those who insult Islam."

"Muslims should not be allowed to dictate what is and what is not published about them," he wrote. However, no British newspaper has published the cartoons.

European governments are caught up in the battle.

They cannot backtrack on media freedoms, so fundamental to democracy, but they must soothe religious believers. The dilemma deepened as European embassies and other targets were attacked in the Muslim world as symbols of the decadence that could produce such drawings.

The caricatures began as an exercise in self-censorship last fall by a Danish editor curious about how far cartoonists would let themselves go in portraying the prophet.

To many Muslims, the assignment itself was blasphemy. The resulting drawings, which most agree were artistically unremarkable, ranged from prosaic to literally incendiary, including one in which the prophet's turban was a ticking bomb.

Dozens of European newspapers and magazines reprinted them, saying that the issue was not the cartoons themselves but whether or not newspapers should be allowed to publish them.

"It is modernity at stake now," said Robert Menard, director of media rights group Reporters Without Borders. "We must explain the distinctions between church and state, and between the press and the state, to our colleagues in the Arab world."

Newspapers in the United States have largely avoided publishing the cartoons. The Philadelphia Inquirer published one of the drawings as part of a story about US media not showing the image.

Not shown in the US

About two dozen people picketed the Inquirer on Monday in protest.

"It's disrespectful to us as a people," Asim Abdur-Rashid, an imam with the Majlis Ash'Shura, an umbrella group for mosques in the region, told the Inquirer in a story that appeared on the newspaper's website. "It's disrespectful to our prophet to imply that he's a prophet of violence."

Amanda Bennett, the Inquirer's executive editor, and deputy managing editor Carl Lavin talked with the protesters outside the building and said the newspaper stood by its decision.

"Neither I nor the newspaper meant any disrespect to their religion or their prophet," Bennett said. "I told them I was actually really proud of them for exercising their right to freedom of speech."

The Associated Press has chosen not to distribute the drawings.

"We don't distribute content that is known to be offensive, with rare exceptions. This is not one of those exceptions. We made the decision in December and have looked at the issue again this week and reaffirmed that decision not to distribute," Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll said in response to queries about the cartoons.

Among American television networks, ABC News ran images of the cartoons, very briefly, on World News Tonight and Nightline on Thursday.

NBC has been airing a brief picture that shows only part of the cartoon.

"We felt that in order to convey the essence of the story, it was not necessary to show the entire cartoon," said spokesperson Allison Gollust.

On the other hand, CBS News decided not to use the image on any of its broadcasts, following a lengthy discussion, spokesperson Sandra Genelius said.

"The feeling was that we were able to tell the story without actually showing it," Genelius said.

CNN has been using a picture of the cartoon with the face of Muhammad blurred out, both on its US and international networks.

"CNN's role is to cover the controversy surrounding the publication of the cartoon and not to unnecessarily fan the flames," said CNN spokesperson Laurie Goldberg.

The large dailies in Canada said they did not see the point of reprinting cartoons that could offend many of the country's 750 000 Muslims.

"On the question of can we run it, yes we can," Douglas Kelly, editor in chief of the National Post, wrote in an editorial last week. "The question is, should we run it? The depiction of this image in a newspaper is offensive to some readers and that is of concern."

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