Who’s winning the free speech debate 10 years after the Danish Muhammad cartoons were printed?
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Politico looks at who is winning the free speech debate 10 years after the Danish Newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and ignited a debate, violent and deadly protests and retaliation, and has sent cartoonists into hiding.
Despite the 10-year anniversary of the event, which set off the biggest political crisis in Denmark since World War II, no Danish newspaper republished the cartoons. Jyllands-Posten has an official policy of not doing so which it admits is because ?violence works.? Other newspapers claim that republishing the cartoons is not ?relevant,? or that there is no need to do so, since ?everybody knows what they look like.? Of course most of us also know what the Queen looks like, yet when she celebrated her 75th birthday in April her picture was everywhere to be seen on print and TV.
Outside Denmark the sugar coating of the ?jihadist?s veto? has also taken hold. On October 1, PBS?s Newshour aired a piece on the anniversary of the cartoons (in which both Flemming Rose and I appeared). In an ?editor?s note? the news anchor explained that PBS has a ?policy of not showing images of the prophet Muhammad,? since they are ?offensive? to some viewers. Yet when in June PBS covered the fallout from Donald Trump?s derogatory comments on Mexicans, Newshour had no qualms about quoting verbatim from Trump?s comments, although they were clearly offensive to many Mexicans.
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