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Letters to the Editor
 
Freedom is not to insult

• WHILE in principle I agree wholeheartedly with Alan Beale’s hostility to religion, (Letters, March 2), the case of the Danish cartoons or to be more precise caricatures (there is a difference) is not as simple as it might first seem.
These caricatures were first published on September 30 2005 by Jyllands-Posten a Danish newspaper of extreme right wing persuasion with a strong line in Xenophobia.
They were published to provoke a response and when after a week that response had not come, journalists were sent to speak to Islamic religious leaders known for their fundamentalist views to ask “Why Don’t you protest?” Eventually they did react, alerted their co-thinkers in the Middle East and the tragic events of the last few weeks resulted.
It is important to stress here that none of this had anything to do with free speech or even attacking the iniquitous practices of any religion.
Were we talking about an article in a progressive publication attacking Islam for its treatment of women, gays, children those of other religions or the non-religious I would go to the barricades with Albert to defend them but caricatures in a paper of the kind I have described which has never defended free speech, would not publish anything critical of Christianity or of the Danish establishment in general is something quite different.
These caricatures can be compared to anti-Semitic caricatures published by the nazis’ newspapers which paved the way for the Holocaust. A similar process is now happening in Denmark and other European countries with the Muslims.
Edmund McArthur
Black Cat Press, Lamb’s Conduit Passage
WC1


Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, Camden New Journal, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@camdennewjournal.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Tuesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for reasons of space.
 
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