Open Season on Danish Newspaper Editors

Being a Danish newspaper editor is a risky profession. Fatwas, death threats, terrorist plots, the outrage of the Muslim street, disapproval from Swedish politicians — why would anyone want the job?

The latest trial facing them is… a trial. In Jordan, that is:

Danish editors face trial in Jordan

A Jordanian organisation wants to prosecute the Danes responsible for the printing of the Mohammed cartoons

Eleven Danes have been summoned to appear before the Jordanian pubic prosecutor to answer charges of blasphemy and threatening the national peace. They include the cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons and editors from 10 of the 17 newspapers that reprinted them.

The group behind the announcement is called The Prophet Unites Us, a union of Jordanian media organisations, organisations and private individuals.

‘The public prosecutor decided to summon the Danes for a series of criminal offences. Now the Danes have to meet in Jordan,’ said Zakaria al-Sheikh, the group’s general secretary, to Politiken newspaper.

He explained that the public prosecutor will ask the Danish embassy for help in contacting Danish officials to arrange the meeting of the editors.

Osama al-Bettar, the group’s lawyer, said that if the Danes do not appear, the next step will be to inform Interpol and seek their arrest.

This is the crux of the issue. Not now, but after January 1st — when the Lisbon Treaty goes into effect — will the EU, as a part of the EuroMed initiative, ask Interpol to serve a warrant on the Danish miscreants? After all, under the European Arrest Warrant, all it will take is for one member state of the EU to issue the warrant under one of the listed categories.

The Danes, needless to say, will resist such absurdities:
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The public prosecutor confirmed to Politiken that the editors have been summoned.

However, the Danish foreign ministry has said that a forced deportation is not a possibility. It would require that the printing of the Mohammed cartoons is punishable in Denmark, which is not the case.

In a related story, the Pakistani ambassador in Denmark says, in effect, that the Danes had it coming to them:

Pakistan ambassador: ‘Are you satisfied?’

Terrorism experts and Pakistan’s ambassador in Denmark are linking Monday’s terror bombing to the Mohammed cartoons

Danes need look no further than their own newspapers to find the reason for the car bombing that severely damaged their embassy in Pakistan on Monday, according to Rohan Gunaranta, an international terrorism expert from Pakistan.

‘There is still a lot of dissatisfaction here about the cartoons, as well as the fact that the Danish government still has not condemned them or the people that were responsible for them. As long as that hasn’t happened, Denmark will be under the constant threat of militant muslims,’ Gunaranta said.

Notice here the oft-repeated implied equivalence between the drawing of a cartoon and retaliatory killing. The two acts occupy the same moral classification. Drawing a picture and killing someone are functional equivalents.

Fauzia Mufti Abbas, Pakistan’s ambassador to Denmark, agreed that the Mohammed cartoons, first published in Jyllands-Posten newspaper in October 2005, had incited Muslim anger and were possibly the motivation for the attack, which killed eight and wounded as many as 30.

‘It isn’t just the people of Pakistan that feel they have been harassed by what your newspaper has begun,’ she said. ‘I’d like to know if your newspaper is satisfied with what it has done and what it has unleashed?’

[…]

The matter of the cartoons, she said, was something Danes needed to reflect on.

‘Danes know that they have insulted people around the world by printing and reprinting the Mohammed cartoons, which were done in poor taste.’

OK, here’s another implication: a drawing executed in poor taste (according to Muslim sensibilities) is a capital offense.

It’s the same old thing that we’ve come to expect from Islam. When the honor of Muslims has been insulted, retaliatory action — up to and including the murder of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of infidels — is regrettable, but justified.

It’s justified because… well, you know, because their honor was insulted! What more of an explanation do you need?

Don’t you understand?


Hat tips: TB.