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Muslim groups to exhibit 'muhammad dogs'

the local: sweden's news in english, 17th August 2007 18:07 CET

Two Muslim groups have indicated their willingness to exhibit controversial sketches by artist Lars Vilks after galleries in western Sweden declined to show the artworks. Inspired by Sweden's recent 'roundabout dogs' craze, Vilks composed a series of sketches portraying the Muslim prophet Muhammad as just such a creature. The well-known artist took his pictures to galleries in Värmland and Bohuslän. However, both refused to show the drawings on the grounds that the security risk was too great. But now two groups - the Secular Muslims in Sweden (SEMUS) network and the magazine Minaret - have taken a joint decision to exhibit the sketches.

"This will take place at an established musical and cultural venue in Stockholm. Negotiations are underway and I think it will be ready at the beginning of next week," SEMUS spokesman Hooman Anvari told news agency TT. Anvari believes that there is a very good chance that the exhibition will go ahead as planned. "Partly because there's a public interest in generating a nuanced discussion on this issue and partly because Lars Vilks has agreed to participate," he said.

While he himself considers the drawings to be tasteless, Anvari is adamant that they should be put on display. "Our intention is to create a nuanced debate around freedom of speech, religious freedom and democracy. These issues tend to cause polarization if they are not tackled in the right way," he said.

Iran summons swedish envoy
iran focus, 28 agosto 2007

Tehran, Iran, Aug. 28 - Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned on Monday Sweden's envoy in Tehran over the recent publication of a caricature of Islam's Prophet Mohammad - deemed to be offensive - in a Swedish daily, the state broadcasting corporation reported. The Iranian Foreign Ministry protested to the Swedish charge d'affaires over the publication of the drawing in the Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda.

The state-run news agency ISNA report that the Iranian Foreign Ministry had condemned the caricature as an “offence to more than one billion Muslims around the world”.

Swedish paper sparks fresh cartoon row

gwladys fouché, guardian unlimited, august 28, 2007

Iran has summoned a senior Swedish diplomat to protest against the publication in a local newspaper of a drawing of Muhammad showing his head on a dog's body, calling it "an insult against the prophet". The Swedish chargé d'affaires, Gunilla von Bahr, was summoned to the Iranian foreign ministry yesterday. "A protest was given to her because of the publication in a newspaper of a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad," a Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman, Sofia Karlberg, said today. "She was told it was an insult against the prophet. We consider the matter closed."

The row follows the publication earlier this month of a hand-drawn sketch by Swedish artist Lars Vilks in Nerikes Allehanda, a local newspaper in Örebro, a city in southern central Sweden. Mr Vilks' drawing depicted Muhammad's head on a dog's body in a street with traffic around it.

Nerikes Allehanda decided to publish the drawing following a row in the Nordic country this summer over Mr Vilks' attempt to exhibit his series of drawings about Muhammad. At least two galleries declined to show the pictures, citing security fears. "Alongside the picture, we published a comment piece saying that it was serious that there is self-censorship among exhibition [galleries]," said the Nerikes Allehanda editor-in-chief, Ulf Johansson. Nerikes Allehanda has a circulation of about 65,000 copies.

The row in Sweden echoes the one that began in Denmark in September 2005 when one of the country's top daily papers, Jyllands-Posten, printed 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad, after a children's book author complained that he had difficulties finding an illustrator for his book on the life of the prophet. These drawings sparked violent protests across the Muslim world, culminating with the burning of the Danish embassy in Damascus and its consulate in Beirut in February 2006. The editor who published the cartoons, Flemming Rose, had to go into hiding for an extensive period with police protection.

Asked whether he was concerned, before the publication of Mr Vilks' drawing, that Nerikes Allehanda might face a similar backlash to Jyllands-Posten, Mr Johansson said: "Of course I was [concerned], but I still went ahead with it." Regarding Iran's reaction, he added: "I am not that interested in what they said, it's a special kind of regime."

A week after the publication, a group of about 60 people demonstrated outside the newspaper's office to protest.

The right to riducule a religion

lars ströman, nerikes allehanda (sweden), 28 agosto 2007 13:38

Artist Lars Vilks has made three drawings ridiculing the prophet Mohammed. The prophet is portrayed as a “roundabout dog”. So far three art exhibitions have declined to publish his pictures. The Art Association in Tällerud said no. Then the school Gerlesborgsskolan in the county of Bohuslän said no. Now the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm has also said no.

This is unacceptable self-censorship. A liberal society must be able to do two things at the same time. On the one hand, it must be able to defend Muslims’ right to freedom of religion and their right to build mosques. However, on the other hand, it is also permissible to ridicule Islam’s most foremost symbols – just like all other religions’ symbols. There is no opposition between these two goals. In fact, it is even the case that they presuppose each other.

Therefore it is quite logical that the Muslim newspaper Minaret, together with the association Secular Muslims in Sweden, is planning an exhibition displaying Lars Vilks’ drawings. Religion is a more sensitive area than politics. Religious belief is more personal and therefore if a religious symbol is violated or ridiculed, this can be felt to be a personal insult. This does not only apply to Muslims.

In 1979, the Monty Python team made the film “Life of Brian”. It is not about Jesus but about Brian, a young man who was born and who lived contemporarily with the founder of Christianity. “Life of Brian” was forbidden in Norway under the law forbidding blaspheme. In the USA, there were voices calling for the film to be forbidden. John Cleese pointed out that God no doubt can take care of himself. I am a practicing Christian myself and I think “Life of Brian” is a very funny film.

The background to Lars Vilks having problems getting his drawings exhibited is the so-called caricature crisis which Denmark was subjected to in January 2006. There were riots outside embassies in Muslim countries. The dairy giant Arla’s sales in the Muslim world plummeted. There were diplomatic consequences. On the surface, the issue was the newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishing a series of caricatures of Mohammed. Of course it was correct of Denmark to assert its freedom of the press. But the caricatures were rotten. They had similarities to anti-Semitic drawings done by pro-Nazi drawers during the 1930s and 1940s. For a number of years now, xenophobic forces in Danish politics have had too much space to manoeuvre. For instance, the sister party of the Swedish Democrat party has gained direct influence. For many Muslims in Denmark, the drawings in Jyllands-Posten were an expression of increased intolerance.

It is somewhat more difficult to see through the political game that has been going on in the countries where embassy buildings were subjected to riots. But it would seem to be the case that the riots – at least in some instances – were not as spontaneous as it would appear. It could have been a way of directing attention towards an external enemy.

The Danish government was not able to do two things at the same time. Right from the start, the government should have said that the caricatures in Jyllands-Posten were poor and of bad taste, while at the same time making it clear that in a democracy, it is permissible to make caricatures that are rude and of bad taste.

Now, some really lousy caricatures published in Denmark, have resulted in one art gallery after another refusing to display Lars Vilks’ three drawings. People are afraid that something unpleasant is going to happen. “I think the drawings are good. But there is also a sense of fear here at the local heritage centre that it will lead to problems and conflict,” says Märtha Wennerström, responsible for the art exhibition in Tällberg (SvD 21/7). So art galleries are allowing themselves to be frightened by a diffuse threat. They are giving the message that it is easy to be frightened into silence.

The right to freedom of religion and the right to blaspheme religions go together. They presuppose one another. What happens if a fundamentalist Muslim wants to express his faith through pictorial art? Quite clearly, it will be easy to persuade art galleries that the pictures are unsuitable, that they may lead to conflict. So the restriction of Lars Vilks’ possibilities to express himself may also negatively affect Muslims’ right to express themselves.

Lars Ströman
Editorial-writer

Swedish paper defends publishing Mohammad drawing

reuters, 29 agosto 2007 - 1:23PM BST

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish newspaper on Wednesday defended its publication of a drawing depicting the head of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad on the body of a dog, following an official protest from Iran. Daily Nerikes Allehanda published the drawing last week, prompting the Iranian government to summon Sweden's charge d'affaires in Tehran on Monday to object to what it called a disrespectful drawing.

The drawing was by Swedish artist Lars Vilks and was part of a series which art galleries in Sweden had declined to display. The newspaper published the image in what it called a defence of free speech. "This is unacceptable self-censorship," the newspaper wrote in an editorial on its Web site on Wednesday, referring to the reluctance by galleries to exhibit Vilks's drawings. "The right to freedom of religion and the right to blaspheme religions go together," it wrote.

Last year, Muslims around the world launched a firestorm of protest after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that were reprinted by other European newspapers.

Sweden's Muslim Council, an umbrella organisation for Islamic groups in the country, took issue with Nerikes Allehanda's arguments. Helena Benauda, chair of the council, said she was surprised because the newspaper had been involved in a dialogue with Muslims following the Danish controversy. "I think they did understand our point of view -- that you should not publish pictures that could be seen as racist, xenophobic or anti-Semitic," Benauda told Reuters.

Ulf Johansson, editor-in-chief of Nerikes Allehanda, said there was a difference between how his newspaper was approaching the issue and the Danish case. "This newspaper has always been very eager to defend Muslim rights in Sweden and freedom of religion overall. But we are also very clear that the freedom of speech goes hand-in-hand with that."

Islam, nuovo scandalo vignette. "Maometto oltraggiato in Svezia"

andrea tarquini, repubblica, 30 agosto 2007

BERLINO - La Svezia rischia una guerra delle caricature con il mondo musulmano, simile alle polemiche che esplosero quando, all'inizio del 2006, in Danimarca furono pubblicate le vignette su Maometto. La situazione è simile: un disegnatore, Lars Vilks, si è visto censurare da diversi musei svedesi alcuni suoi disegni, uno dei quali raffigurava il Profeta dell'Islam come un monumento a un cane piazzato al centro di un grande incrocio. I tre maggiori quotidiani del paese e una testata locale allora le hanno pubblicate per protesta.

Il clima è teso. I musulmani cominciano a scendere in piazza. Le loro prime manifestazioni di protesta si sono svolte a Oerebro, dove è pubblicato Nerikes Allehanda, uno dei giornali "colpevoli". Nuovi cortei sono attesi, o temuti, per oggi. I governi iraniano e pakistano hanno protestato convocando al ministero degli Esteri i rispettivi rappresentanti dell'ambasciata reale. Ma il governo di Stoccolma ha reagito con calma: "In Svezia vige la libertà di stampa, quindi le autorità non vogliono e non possono per legge immischiarsi nella vicenda".

Non si registrano, o almeno non ancora, violenze contro media o istituzioni pubbliche svedesi, ma il timore è forte. Al Riksdag, il Parlamento di Stoccolma, il partito liberale popolare ha chiesto con un'interrogazione come voglia reagire al caso della vignetta di Maometto ridotto a cane, cosa pensa della libertà dell'arte e al tempo stesso come vuole garantire l'ordine pubblico. Cecilia Wikstroem, vicepresidente della commissione Cultura, ha detto che dopo il caso danese l'autocensura è diventata un riflesso automatico esagerato. Ha ricordato la cancellazione dell'Idomeneo a Berlino, in una messa in scena in cui il re di Creta decapitava Maometto, Gesù e Buddha.

Tutto è cominciato quando Vilks ha cercato di organizzare mostre delle sue vignette. Molti musei le hanno rifiutate: troppo pericoloso, hanno detto. Ma i media cartacei hanno reagito indignati: il Dagens Nyheter, il quotidiano più influente, e i tabloid Expressen e Aftonbladet, hanno pubblicato le vignette. A Teheran il presidente Ahmadinejad ha minimizzato, parlando di "stupido errore di un giornale insignificante". Ma ha anche avanzato il sospetto di una "congiura sionista". Vilks, forse per smentirlo, ha allora pubblicato vignette antisemite.

Another Blasphemous Caricature

Arab News, Friday, 31, August, 2007 (18, Sha`ban, 1428)

JEDDAH, 31 August 2007 — The Organization of the Islamic Conference yesterday condemned the publication of a blasphemous caricature of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) by Swedish artist Lars Vilks in the Nerikes Allehanda newspaper. The Swedish daily published the drawing, part of a series by Vilks, last Friday after art galleries had declined to display it. The newspaper argued the publication was in the defense of free speech.

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu strongly condemned the newspaper for publishing the blasphemous caricature and said that this was an irresponsible and despicable act with mala fide and provocative intentions in the name of freedom of expression. He said the caricature was intended to solely insult and arouse the sentiments of Muslims of the world. Ihsanoglu said: &l

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