Surprise: Mohammed Cartoon Rage Still in Effect

I get the feeling somewhere around 2050 they'll eventually carry out a successful attack. These maniacs apparently have very long memories.

Intelligence agency PET has arrested four men on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack against the Copenhagen of Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
According to the agency, the arrests were made in suburban Copenhagen and were made following a long-term surveillance operation in collaboration with the Swedish law-enforcement agency SÄPO.

Three of the suspects are Swedish residents and reportedly arrived in Denmark last night, and PET said the attack was to be carried out “in the coming days”.

All four suspects have Middle-Eastern or North African backgrounds.

In addition to the arrests in Copenhagen, Swedish officials arrested a fifth suspect in Stockholm at the same time.

During the arrests, Danish police found an assault rifle and silencer, ammunition, as well as plastic strips, which are often used by police as hand restraints.

According to PET, the group planned to kill as many people as possible in the building that houses Jyllands-Posten.

And their peaceful co-religionists around the globe would have celebrated mass murder.

Libel Tourism: 95,000 'Descendants' of Mohammed to Sue Over Cartoons

Before you laugh, consider this suit will be taking place in Britain, and there's already precedent for insanity. I'm surprised they've only got 95,000 plaintiffs. Why not just come up with 10 million? A billion?

UP TO 95,000 descendants of the prophet Muhammad are planning to bring a libel action in Britain over “blasphemous” cartoons of the founder of Islam, even though they were published in the Danish press.

The defamation case is being prepared by Faisal Yamani, a Saudi lawyer acting for the descendants, who live in the Middle East, north Africa and as far afield as Australia.

Mark Stephens, a British lawyer who has seen a “pre-action” letter sent by Yamani to 10 Danish newspapers, said it “specifically says” he will launch proceedings in London.

Yamani is expected to justify the action by claiming that the cartoons, including one of Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban, were accessible in Britain on the internet.

Critics say the case is a political stunt and yet another example of how England has become the leading destination for “libel tourism”. The English defamation laws make it easier to bring and win libel cases here than in jurisdictions such as America that place greater emphasis on freedom of speech.

Stephens said the descendants could argue that the cartoons — which first appeared in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005, sparking violent protests around the world — were a direct slur on them.

“Direct descendants of the prophet have a particular place within Muslim society . . . By effectively criticising and making fun of the prophet you are, by implication, holding them up to scandal, contempt and public ridicule,” he said. “So it may be that they will suffer some kind of damage among their own community. The question is, is that defamatory in English law?”

Stephens said a diplomatic backlash could be sparked if a judge refused to hear the case being brought by the Oxford-educated Yamani.

“A lot of judges would throw it out, but it is obviously a very highly charged issue and if they do throw it out it becomes political.”

In a previous case of libel tourism, a Saudi businessman sued an American author whose book on the funding of terrorism was published in the United States but sold 23 copies in Britain via the internet. The businessman was awarded more than £100,000 in damages and costs.

In another example, the Ukrainian Rinat Akhmetov successfully used the courts in London to sue a Ukrainian language website over an article mainly read in Ukraine.

It'll be interesting to see how these 95,000 "descendants" of Mohammed prove they're related.

Westergaard to Sell Mohammed Cartoon

Hey, may as well cash in for all the grief he's endured. Still, imagine the psychotic rage from the Islamists once the bidding goes off.

A DANISH cartoonist whose drawing of the Prophet Muhammad sparked riots across the Muslim world wants to sell the original drawing “to make something out of a difficult situation”.

The small, ink cartoon is locked in a bank vault as Kurt Westergaard, 72, hides from Islamic militants who have vowed to kill him. The threats have made his life miserable but he puts a brave face on his plight.

“At my age,” he said from his police safe house last week, “you are not so much afraid any more.”

His drawing, featuring a bomb in the prophet’s turban, is by far the most famous of a dozen “Muhammad cartoons” published three years ago by Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper Westergaard works for.

It could command great interest at auction. Auction houses, however, were voicing doubts about the wisdom of putting such a controversial item on sale.

Of course, they'll voices doubts. Because they're scared shitless of the Islamist goonsquads.

“It’s too hot to handle,” said Franck Lombrail, an auctioneer in Paris. “It would represent a risk for the public at the sale,” he added.

Flemming Rose, cultural editor of the Jyllands-Posten, called the cartoon “a great cultural icon of the 21st century”, and thought it was only fair for Westergaard to make money out of it. Rose said that on a visit to America last year he had autographed posters of the cartoon collection, which had sold for £500 each.

Westergaard has been moving from one safe house to the next with his wife, a retired kindergarten teacher, since police foiled a plot to behead him in his home in November. Several Danish newspapers recently reprinted the drawing in solidarity with him, prompting fresh protests.

Fresh protests? They haven't stopped protesting for three years already.

Anyway, if auction houses are too scared to get involved, there's always the Internet.

One option might be to put the cartoon up for sale on the internet. A less well-known Muhammad cartoon went for £1,500 in an internet auction. Already Westergaard has had offers: on Tuesday, he received a letter from Martin McNally, who is serving life in America for hijacking an aircraft in 1972, offering to buy the cartoon.

“What is he planning to do with it?” asked Westergaard, an affable figure with a wry sense of humour. “Will he hang it up in his cell?”

Westergaard hopes that the cartoon is worth more than the £2,500 suggested by McNally. His wife, meanwhile, has proposed selling all of the Muhammad cartoons for £50,000 to “a rich Arabian oil sheikh” who could then burn them in Mecca. The cartoonists would get half of the money. The rest would be donated to needy Muslims.

“She thinks that is the best way of getting out of it,” said Westergaard, chuckling.

He seems resigned to a life on the run. “This will go on for the rest of my life, I am sure,” he said. “There is no way out.”

Offend Muslim Fanatics, Wind Up Homeless

Surely all those guardians of free speech out there will be willing to open their doors to this man, won't they?

Two years ago Kurt Westergaard was in his Copenhagen home drawing pictures. One of them was of the Muslim prophet, Muhammad. Now Westergaard is homeless.

Draw a picture offensive to Muslim extremists, and you might find yourself without a roof. Ask Kurt Westergaard, one of the twelve Danish cartoonists whose autumn 2005 Muhammad caricatures lead to violent protests throughout the Muslim world. He was booted from his police-protected hotel room on Feb. 15 for being "too much of a security risk." And now the 73-year-old cartoonist and his wife are without a place to live.

Westergaard was forced to leave his actual residence in November after the Danish security and intelligence agency, PET, informed him of a "concrete" plan to murder him, according to the paper that originally published the cartoons, Jyllands-Posten. Westergaard and his wife have been living under police protection since.

PET had been gathering information about the plot for several months, leading to a Feb. 12 raid (more...) carried out in the western Danish city of Aarhus. Five suspects -- "people with a Muslim background," with both Danish and foreign citizenship -- were taken into custody. The Associated Press quoted PET as stating that the raids were intended "to prevent a terror-related murder...[and to do so] at an early phase to stop the planning."

In response to last week's arrest, a number of Danish newspapers republished the original cartoons the following day (more...). Among those reprinted, of course, was Westergaard's caricature: Muhammad with a lit bomb in his turban. "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case," the Copenhagen paper Berlingske Tidende wrote, "and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper will always defend."

Any of those limousine liberals at the New York Times willing to put him and his family up?

I didn't think so.

Maybe the next time Prophet Obama gives one of his hour-long stemwinders he can mention the intolerance of Muslim fanatics.

Speaking of Muslim fanatics, the unindicted Hamas co-conspirators from CAIR are at it again, trying to silence a great voice of freedom.

Bashman says bring it on.

More at Gateway Pundit.

Update: Allahpundit has some thoughts on Westergaard.

Dreaded Cartoons of Blasphemy Murder Plot

You ever get the feeling these psychopaths won't rest until they "avenge" the dreaded Mohammed cartoons of blasphemy?

Neither do I.

Danish police said Tuesday they have arrested three people suspected of plotting to kill one of the 12 cartoonists behind the Prophet Muhammad drawings that sparked a deadly uproar in the Muslim world two years ago.

Two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan origin were arrested in pre-dawn raids in western Denmark, the police intelligence agency said.

The Dane was suspected of violating Danish terror laws but likely would be released after questioning as the investigation continues, said Jakob Scharf, the head of the PET intelligence service. The two Tunisians would be expelled from Denmark, he said.

Just great. I'm sure they'll learn their lesson and become nice law-abiding citizens.

The agency did it [sic] mention which cartoonist was targeted. However, according to Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the drawings on Sept. 30, 2005, the suspects were planning to kill its cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

"There were very concrete murder plans against Kurt Westergaard," said Carsten Juste, the paper's editor-in-chief.

The cartoons were later reprinted by a range of Western publications, and they sparked deadly protests in parts of the Muslim world.

Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

Westergaard, 73, and his wife Gitte, 66, had been living under police protection, Jyllands-Posten reported.

"Of course I fear for my life when the police intelligence service say that some people have concrete plans to kill me. But I have turned fear into anger and resentment," Westergaard said in a statement published on Jyllands-Posten's Web site.

PET, the police intelligence service, called the action "preventive," saying it decided to strike "at an early phase to stop the planning and the carrying out of the murder."

In the uproar that followed the publishing of the cartoons, Danes watched in disbelief as angry mobs burned the Danish flag and attacked the country's embassies in Muslim countries including Syria, Iran and Lebanon.

It was more like orchestrated outrage that followed many months later. But why quibble with the facts?

Jyllands-Posten was evacuated several times because of threats and posted security guards at its office outside Aarhus and in Copenhagen.

The paper initially refused to apologize for the cartoons, which it said were published in reaction to a perceived self-censorship among artists dealing with Islamic issues, but later said it regretted that the cartoons had offended Muslims.

Our very existence offends them.

Update: More at Hot Air, Jawa Report.