Sunday, November 04, 2007

MidEast terror-threats against Danish Election

Denmark is in the middle of an parliamentary election, and one of the parties, the outspoken anti-salafist Dansk Folkeparti (Danish Peoples Party or DPP) produced an ad in the beginning of the campaign:


Text reads: Freedom of speech is Danish,
censorship is not



Gates of Vienna covered it pretty well when the ad first appeared.
It is of course a reference to the Motoon-crisis Denmark went through last year. The drawing originates from a 400 year old translation of the Koran and you would think an old sketch like that would be incapable of hurting anyones feelings.

Never the less, the thought of someone picturing their precious prophet pisses your average Terrorist Joe off big time. So now the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Palestine, a group responsible for numerous suicide-attacks and assassinations on Israeli civilians, are threatening Denmark with retaliation.

This from the daily Jyllands-Posten: (link in Danish, my translation)

The Palestinian terror organization al-Aqsa Martyr Brigade is now directly warning DPP:
"This party is dealing with the blood of the Danish population," says a spokesman for al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade Khaled al-Jabbari who brings up the subject at an interview with Jyllands-Posten in Gaza


Is that a threat?
"No, it's not threat, it's warning. We do not want to see the Danish people as enemies, but this could push towards actions," he says and announces that he himself is ready to participate actively in actions against Danish institutions to defend the Prophet.

I'm not quite sure what "institutions" Mr. al-Jabbari is referring to. Surely he can't be talking about the Danish Foreign Ministry that has forked out 31 million US dollars of taxpayers money in less than ten years to the poor Palestinians.

But back to the story:
"I have heard that a Danish party is using the Mohammad drawings in its campaign and I have a message to the Danish people that this is the same as stabbing us in our hearts. They (the DPP) must be living on the moon to do something like this, for it is very insulting and not acceptable."

He warns that the brigade will put the DPP on it's list of enemies.

"They will not only be the enemy of the al-Aqsa Brigade, but to many Muslims," he says.



Needles to say, the leader of the DPP, Pia Kjærsgaard is outraged:
This is utterly insane, and we will under no circumstances bend to a terrorist organization. It is not us who have made the drawing, it's a 400 year old drawing of Mohammad that we use as a symbol of freedom of speech," she says.



Prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberal Party - liberal in the European sense of the word that is) is also outraged:
"It is of course completely unacceptable that a terror organization such as the al-Aqsa Brigade is attempting to intimidate Danish democracy," says Fogh and underlines that "we will in no way give in to that kind of pressure and influence from the outside."

Danish security police have heightened the overall protection of the campaigning politicians after the "warning" from al-Aqsa.

Funny thing though. Nowhere is it stated in the ad that it's Mo who is pictured. It could be Sheik Yerbouti for all al-Jabba the Hut knows.




Update: Exile is also on the case. Go read him, he's got some good comments on this affair.

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