The Danish government’s defence of the publication by a Danish newspaper of caricatures of the prophet Mohammed, including one with the 7th century Arab religious leader wearing a turban with a bomb attached to it, has provoked widespread protests by justifiably angry Muslims around the world.
Ahmed Abu-Laban, who leads a mosque in Copenhagen’s Muslim neighbourhood and has been blamed for instigating the protests against the cartoons, told the US Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRN) chain on February 7 that Danish officials had brought the crisis on themselves by not criticising the cartoons when they were first printed.