Telegraph staff blogger Anton La Guardia reports on the pathetic concern of the Danish Union of Journalists in the matter of those cartoons:
One would assume that Danish journalists would be eagerly seeking international support for cartoonists facing death threats because of their drawings of the Prophet Mohammed, or perhaps pledging solidarity with Muslim journalists in trouble with their authorities for reproducing them.
But no, the Danish union’s central worry, as set out in a statement translated into English on its website, concentrates on the question of money and the infringement of the cartoonists’ copyright.
Magnanimously, the union declares that it has “decided not to take legal action against the many media which have reproduced the cartoons without permission”.
They’re requiring payment of 250 euros per cartoon, not to go to the cartoonists but to a prize for cartoonists facing social issues. Like rioting and killing over cartoons?
: La Guardia also reports on what is happening to journalists in the Muslim world who have dared run the cartoons:
One of the first was Jihad al-Momani, who published three of the caricatures with a commentary which said: “World’s Muslims, be logical. Which one do you think damages Islam more? These cartoons or the scene of a suicide bomber who blows himself up outside a wedding ceremony in Amman, or the kidnappers that slaughters their victims before the cameras?”
The irrationality of the affair has, if anything, got worse. Momani was first sacked as editor of Jordan’s Shihan magazine, and then arrested. He is now on bail pending charges of “harming religious feelings”.
Similar news has come out in snippets, for instance in this story from al-Jazeera. At the last count at least nine journalists in Muslim countries – Algeria, Jordan, Yemen and Malaysia – have felt the heavy hand of officialdom.
