Danish Nadeem (Osnabrück, Germany) 2 February 2006

on Bomb in Turban, by Peter Philipp

The depiction of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Danish press seems to keep the clear intention to offend and provoke around 1793.12 million Muslims population across the globe. Islam is a faith and hope for this population. If Islam is not respected out of ignorance, it should not be a subject of insult out of prejudices and stereotyped image of Muslims.

I have seen these pictures and must say that they are truly problematic, especially when one considers that the foundation of Islam is based on the fact that "There is no divinity but God and Muhammad is his prophet.

Of course if a democratic state preserves the right to the protections of freedom of speech and press, it also encompasses the right to respect religious faith of the people.

Democracy is of no avail if civil liberties, like religious rights are not recognized and protected by the state. They are secured to promote social progress.

Carsten Juste, the editor of Jyllands-Posten, repeated late last week that the daily will not apologise for publishing the cartoons: "We will not apologise, because we live in Denmark under Danish law, and we have freedom of speech in this country. If we apologised, we would betray the generations who have fought for this right, and the moderate Muslims who are democratically minded."

Such remarks are unhealthy for social and cultural understanding, it is rather an arrogant and conservative view. If they (Jyllands-Posten) have the right to provoke people, then those people have the right to be offended and express boycott peacefully.

Media should enjoy freedom of speech in its absolute to express opinion, but it should have special concern in sensitive issues which is known to elicit such a large outcry among the human population, I don't see any help to anyone by such publication rather a bad image more hate and more communal divide is created, keeping a neutral view on this issue do we think even it is ethically good?

Since media drives our world opinion, we should now at least be aware of "good media" and "bad media".