Many Saudi markets have placed signs on boycotting Danish products

WORLD CAPITALS, January 28, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Gulf retailers were pulling Danish products from their shelves and ambassadors were being summoned for a dressing down over the publication of cartoons depicting and ridiculing Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) by the main Danish daily.

The Danish Arla company, one of Europe’s largest dairy producers, has placed advertisements in Middle Eastern newspapers to try to stop a boycott of its goods in Muslim countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, reported the BBC News Online.

A spokesman said Arla was facing consumer pressure to dissociate itself from the controversial cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten on.

The company has said its customers appeared to have stopped selling its dairy produce and had begun a boycott of Danish goods.

Major Saudi supermarkets posted notices saying "Danish products are not sold" over their cheese displays, while people were sending text messages urging consumers to boycott Danish products, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Big Saudi supermarket chain Panda said it started withdrawing Danish products on Friday, January 27, while Al-Sadhan supermarkets announced on its Web site that it had stopped selling them.

Twelve drawings depicting Prophet Muhammad in different settings appeared in Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's mass-circulation daily, on September 30.

One of the drawings depicted a man assumed to be the prophet as wearing a turban shaped like a bomb.

The cartoons were reprinted in a Norwegian magazine earlier this month just to add insult into injury.

The drawings triggered a diplomatic crisis and massive popular protests across the Muslim world.

Printed Apology

Skov Christensen has asked Jyllands-Posten to print an apology.

In Kuwait, the Union of Cooperative Societies, the largest retail network, said all Danish products will be withdrawn starting Sunday, January 29, as MPs called for diplomatic and economic sanctions on Copenhagen.

Some 50 companies have decided to stop importing Danish goods, Mohammed Al-Mutairi, the president of the union, told a furious parliament.

Parliament speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi called for a total economic boycott of Denmark to be "a lesson for those who may try to repeat the insult in the future."

Kuwait annually imports about 170 million dollars (183 million euros) a year in Danish consumer goods, mostly dairy products and juices.

The Confederation of Danish Industries has appealed to Jyllands-Posten to print an apology for having commissioned the drawings, the BBC said.

"Time has come for Jyllands-Posten to use its freedom of speech to explain how it views the fact that the paper's Muhammad drawings have offended large groups of people," the group's head, Hans Skov Christensen, wrote in a letter to the Danish daily.

He said Danish companies faced repercussions from customers in the Middle East, including product boycotts, dropped orders, and canceled business meetings.

According to the confederation, the Middle East accounts for annual sales of at least $816 million for Danish companies.

Political Pressure

"I have written a letter to foreign ministers of Denmark and Norway and protested at the insult," said Mottaki.

On the political front, pressures from Muslim countries continued Saturday as Kuwait announced summoning the Danish ambassador over the government's laissez-faire stance on the offending drawings.

"Kuwait strongly condemns and denounces what was published in one of the Danish newspapers," a senior foreign ministry official said.

"It is a great harm" to Prophet Muhammad, he said, adding: "this is one of the forms of despicable racism which has caused disasters for the entire international community."

Iran has also joined the political fray over the cartoons.

"I have written a letter to foreign ministers of Denmark and Norway and protested at the insult on behalf of the Muslim Iranian nation and the Islamic republic," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters Saturday.

"We hope not to see such ridiculous and revolting insults by mercenary writers anymore. They hurt the feelings of more than one billion Muslims."

The Norwegian foreign ministry on Thursday, January 26, asked its diplomats in Muslim countries to express their "regrets" to their host governments about the re-printing of the cartoons.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said Saturday Denmark should have "categorically condemned" the cartoons, reported Reuters.

"The failure to categorically condemn the cartoons by the Danish authorities may set a dangerous precedent, which has already been seen in the republication of the cartoons in Norway," an OIC statement said.

Iraqis took to the streets on Friday, demanding an investigation into the Danish and Norwegian publications and urging the government to send a letter of protest to the Danish and Norwegian governments.

Saudi Arabia has already recalled its ambassador to Denmark in protest at the Danish government's position on the publication of the offensive cartoons.

A majority of Danes, however, feel their government and media should not apologize for the jibes.

A poll for Danish Radio by the Epinion research institute published Saturday showed that 79 percent of Danes surveyed said Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen should not apologize on Denmark's behalf, 18 percent said he should and three percent were undecided.

Rasmussen refused in October to meet with 11 ambassadors of Muslim nations to discuss the issue and reluctantly said in a New Year statement that free speech should not be taken as a pretext to insult religions.

Danish Muslims have said his stance was not "positive" and announced plans to take their legal battle against the Jyllands-Posten to the country's federal attorney general and the EU human rights commission after loosing a local case.