COPENHAGEN,
January 8, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Danish Muslims are planning to
take their legal battle against the Jyllands-Posten daily over
its provocative anti-Prophet cartoons to the country's federal
attorney general and the EU human rights commission after loosing a
local case.
"We
intend to file a lawsuit with the federal attorney general against Jyllands-Poston
for its blasphemous cartoons," Asmaa Abdul Hamid, an activist
representing eleven Muslim organizations, told IslamOnline.net Sunday,
January 8.
The
decision came after the local attorney general in the city of Viborg,
the seat of the High Court for Jutland, a peninsula in northern Europe
that forms the mainland part of Denmark, rejected the case.
Twelve
drawings depicting Prophet Muhammad in different settings appeared in Jyllands-Posten,
Denmark's mass-circulation daily, on September 30.
In
one of the drawings, an image assumed to be that of the Prophet
appeared with a turban shaped like a bomb strapped to his head.
The
blasphemous images have drawn rebuke from the Muslim minority and
triggered a diplomatic crisis between Denmark and Arab and Muslim
countries.
EU
Commission
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"We will take the issue to the EU human rights commission if the lawsuit is rejected in Denmark," Said told IOL.
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A
complaint Abdul Hamid lodged against the daily on behalf of eleven
Muslim organization was turned down on Saturday, January 7, by
Viborg's attorney general.
The
Muslim activist stressed that she would take the issue to the federal
attorney general.
"We
hope he would take a different stance on the issue," she told
IOL.
The
alternative for the infuriated Danish Muslims would be to sue Jyllands-Posten
before the European human rights commission.
"We
will take the issue to the EU human rights commission if the lawsuit
is rejected in Denmark," Qassem Said, the media officer of the
Scandinavian Waqfs, Denmark's main Muslim body, told IOL.
Al-Azhar,
the highest seat of religious learning in the Sunni world, has vowed
to raise the issue of the provocative caricatures with the UN and
international human rights organizations.
Viborg
Attorney General Peter Brøndt Jørgensen rejected the
Muslim case, saying Jyllands-Posten cartoons were not
punishable under Danish laws.
He
stressed that his ruling was not political and took into consideration
the newspapers' right to free expression.
The
verdict was welcomed by Jyllands-Posten's Editor-in-Chief
Carsten Juste.
He
argued it would have been a blow to the Danish freedom of expression
if his paper was indicted.
On
January 4, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged the
Danish people to practice their right to freedom of speech without
inciting hatred against Muslims or other minorities.
Abdel
Rahman Abu Laban, a prominent Muslim figure in Denmark, told IOL on
Friday, November 18, that the Muslim minority in Denmark wants to
"internationalize"
the issue.
Danish
Muslims are estimated at 180,000 or around three per cent of Denmark's
5.4 million.
Islam
is Denmark's second largest religion after the Lutheran Protestant
Church, which is actively followed by four-fifths of the country's
population.
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