Rallies outside Danish, Dutch embassy against insulting cartoons

"We heard they have reprinted the cartoons to defend the freedom of speech while in fact they have thereby clearly and seriously insulted the Prophet Muhammad and Islam, and this has happened several times," a spokesman of Muslim organization `Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI),Muhammmad Ismail Yanto, said.

At least 11 print media and televisions in Denmark republished or rescreened cartoon drawings of the Prophet Mohammed which originally appeared in Danish newspaper Jylland-Posten on September 30, 2005. They did so following a claim by the Danish intelligence service (PET) that it had foiled a plot to kill Kurt Westergaard, the maker of the Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

Apart from the Danish media, at least three newspapers in Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain also reprinted the cartoons.

Ismail said acts to defame Islam had been committed more than once in the past, among others, in the form of a book like "The Satanic Verses (1989) by Salman Rushdi, and a film like "Submission" (2004) by Dutchman Theo van Gogh.

Therefore, he said, his organization demanded that those responsible for the defamation be given the death penalty and called on members of the Muslim community to defend the honor of the Prophet Mohammed and condemn all forms of insults against Islam.

The cartoons controversy began ...