Mo-cat cartoonist released

An update on the Mohammed the Cat crisis in Bangladesh back in October last year.

The text in the strip says:

* Boy, what is your name?
- My name is Babu.

* It is customary to mention Muhammed before the name.

* What is your father's name?
- Muhammed Abu

* What's this in your lap?
- Muhammed cat

This was of course such an insult on Islamic feelings that violent mobs of Muslims took to the street and demanded the cartoonist's death. The 23-year old boy was arrested for “hurting people’s religious sentiments.”

The cat-toon also lead to the killing of at least nine Christians and the torching of churches in Nigeria, of all places.

Now it seems the poor boy has been released from prison:

A BANGLADESH cartoonist jailed for allegedly insulting Muslims with a reference to the Prophet Mohammed has been released, court and prison officials said today.
Arifur Rahman, 23, was detained last September after the cartoon appeared in a weekly satirical magazine published by the mass-circulated Bengali daily Prothom Alo.

Prosecutor Shahidul Haque Bhuiyan said a magistrates' court in the capital Dhaka ordered that proceedings be dropped after the complainant in the case repeatedly failed to turn up for hearings.

Questions now are:

A: How long before the riots starts again in Bangladesh. It must be an insult to Muslim sensitivities to free a Godless blasphemer like Rahman.

B: How long will Rahman be allowed to keep his head?

C: How many Christians will die on the other side of the globe because of this ridicule of the Prostate Mohammad?

D: How many cats have been named Mohammad in the meantime?

All Keffiyeh and no Camels

Memri has found this little tidbit showing a spokesman for something called the Salah al-Din Brigades in Gaza. Note the plural. There must be a great many of them. Than again, maybe not. As one can see in the clip there seem to more press than Brigadistas at this little demonstration against Denmark.

The Spokesman, casually sporting a keffiyeh is issuing a statement, mostly - if not solely - consisting of an apparently never-ending rant of threats against Denmark and the cartoonists and diplomats and just about everything else he can somehow associate with Denmark.



Oh dear, I think I'll sleep under the bed tonight just in case the Mighty Warriors™ of the Salah-Al-Din Brigades (who knows, perhaps all of them!) comes crashing through my door.

Anyway, if you can be bothered to spend 10 minutes of your life watching an insane, erm, Richard-head, the clip can be seen here. It's really quite amusing. No really, it is!

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Inside the heads of an honorable Muslim family

First some background:

Back in 2002 the body of a 14 year old girl of Iraqi origin was found floating drowned in the harbor by a fisherman in the small town of Præstø in Denmark. The girl had suffered several severe blows to the head and had been pushed into the harbor and left to drown. She was identified as Sonay Ahmad Mohammad, who had come to Denmark four years before along with her mother to be rejoined with the head of the family, Ashraf Ahmad
Muhammed.

Ashraf came to Denmark in 1996 as a refugee from Saddam Hussein's regime. The family moved into a row house and was apparently functioning well in the community. They took courses in Danish and were well liked. Sonay went to school with no problems, save one: She was became to Danish for her parents likings! She dated Danish boys and went to parties.

Her father began to beat her to try to keep her in fold, and - on the mother's request - even tried to strangle her. The school noticed that Sonay started to show up with bruises and she eventually confided in her teacher, who reported the abuse to the police and the girl was instantly removed from her family and put in a foster home.

Never the less, just four months later, county officials ignoring warnings from the municipality gave Ashraf permission to spend time with his daughter.

Next thing you know, Sonay is found floating in the harbor. Suspicion is quickly focused on her father, and despite his not-guilty claim he was convicted to 14 years in prison followed by a life-long deportation to Iraq. The sentence was appealed to the Supreme Court but was confirmed.



Now, - and this is where it gets a little complicated - Sonay's mother, Suheyla, was convicted of human smuggling by getting her brother-in-law, Jabbar, into Denmark on false papers and made him marry her sister whom she had also gotten in on false papers. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 5 years eviction.


OK, so much for the background. Danish TV2 is airing a documentary about this case later this month, and they have leaked an intercepted letter Ashraf send from his cell to his brother Jabbar back in 2005. Apparently things were not going too well in the family. The letter can be seen here (in Danish. Doc. my translation.) It's a bit incoherent and ranting, but the threat is none the less apparent.

I beg you my brother, I suffer every hour and every day. For Gods sake, please do one thing. No one will own the world (get this world for himself) neither you, me or anyone else. Do a good deed and you will be rewarded and do not help the infidels. It is written in the Qoran: God does not like the infidels.

It is stated in the Tradition: He who follows a nation will become one of them, therefor his place is in the fires of Hell. I ask you to listen to me and help your brother and a poor woman whose children are waiting for her.

These are my last word to you. I tell you, this world is too small and perhaps we will meet in Iraq or in some other country, God's earth is wide. If you do not help Suheyla [His wife] in this matter you will get conflicts with me. I will kill you like I killed the infidel Sonay. She used to make corruption *) every day with the infidel pigs. She made corruption twice in front of me and I murdered her with my own hands.

That is corruption. God, praised and glorified says: Do not corrupt the earth, and the infidels say that they are good.
[...]
I have Fatwa on cassette, if you understand you will weep, and I have friends, we are all united in God's religion only.

Salutations my brother. God will guide you in the right direction.

So, you might think this is just another madman killing his own offspring and threatening his brother with the same fate, because he's trapped in some 7th century mindset.

Well, not quite. Get a load of this: This article from 2003 cites Sonay's mother - remember, the one who got her sister and her brother-in-law to Denmark on false papers and then forced them marry each other, the one who ordered her husband to beat up her own daughter? Here's what she had to say :

I've bought two houses in Kirkuk in Iraq. As refugees we have got so much money from the Danish State that we have been able to save and buy the houses in cash.

My husband is in prison and I'm waiting for him. I have been granted an apartment and I get money from the system, so there is no reason for me to go back to Iraq.

Indeed, why should she go back? Perhaps to see her two remaining children?

"I'm afraid something will happen to my children, or that they should witness something happening to me. That's why I've sent them to Iraq where they live with my mother and my sister."

Ah, but of course, she is the victim! How thoughtless of me. All this time, I had the understanding that it was her daughter who was the victim. Silly me.

Anyway, isn't that nice of us. We take in a family of oppressed refugees, set them up, give them a monthly income, give them language courses, send their kids to school and the response is what? They murder their own 14 year old daughter because she gets to Western for their liking. They smuggle in two relatives on falsified papers and make them marry each other. And they get enough money from the hard-working taxpayers (that would be me!) to buy two houses in Iraq in cash. And they need to live here as refugees while it's perfectly safe for their small children to be in Iraq. Give me a frigging break!

Excuse me for wondering. But what the F*** are these people doing here? Or, perhaps more to the point: Why the F*** are we paying tax money to scum like that?
(Sorry, just had to vent.)

I'll post more on this when the doc had been aired.

(h/t to Uriasposten)


*) The Danish text is "lave fordærvelse," a rather peculiar expression. I take it the letter have been translated from Arabic into Danish. I translated it into Corruption in lack of a better word.

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Westergaard illustrates his feelings

Kurt Westergaard has made a new drawing about his feelings over the newest row over the Motoons, with his own comments in both Danish and English.

The drawing is an artists interpretation of the ordeal he and his family have to go through over a little ink on a piece of paper.

I've nicked it from the bi-weekly magazine of the Danish Union of Journalists, Journalisten.

Click on the pics for larger images.



And just to prove that Mr. Westergaard is not an Islamophobe but rather a "Religionophobe", he has added an Imam to an older drawing from his hand, one that created some discontent amongst devoted Christians, though nobody threatened to cut off his head, nor did any rabbit express its desire to eat him on TV.

The sign on the cross reads: "Office hours: Sundays 10 to 11 AM and 2 to 3 PM."






BTW, he also recently created this:

Cartoonist dies, age 89

One of the mo-cartoonists, Erik Abild Soerensen, has passed away, Flemming Rose reports.

“Prophet! Daft and dumb. Keeping women under thumb.”

According to Flemming Rose, police turned up offering protection because of the death threats back in 2006. His answer?

”I have passed the age of 85, I am sick and I have just lost my wife. Can it get worse? I don’t think so.”

May he rest in peace.

Denmark to Sudan: Screw You!

After the "President" (read dictator) of Sudan once again have threatened Denmark with a boycott over the reprinting of the so-called "Prophet" Mohamed, the Danish Minister of Development, Ulla Tørness, have decided that boycott is a two-way street.

Sudan owes some two billion kroner (400 million US dollars) to Denmark, and the Danish government was negotiating with the Sudanese to release that debt.

Not anymore. This from Berlingske Tidende: (Link in Danish, my excerpt.)

The answer [to the boycott threats] will be, according to Minister of Development Ulla Tørness, that Denmark will not release Sudan's debt.

"In the international negotiations about releasing Sudan's debt, it will be Denmark's viewpoint that Sudan shall not have a release," says Ulla Tørness.

Sudan's ambassador has been summoned to a meeting, where he is to explain the calling to a boycott.

Denmark will not withdraw the humanitarian aid of some 52 million dollars that is going primarily to Darfur and the southern Sudan.

"Wanna play hardball? OK, I'll show you what hardball is!"

Cartoonist on TV

The famous Kurt Westergaard, creator of the "bomb in the turban" was interviewed on Danish TV earlier this month, shortly after a plot on his life was foiled by the Security Police.

The interview is in three parts, each around 8 minutes, and with English subtitles.

He's a brave old geezer, that much I can tell you.



Part 1:



Part 2:


Part 3:


(Via snaphanen)

Hamas Rabbit to Cartoonist: I'll Eat You!

So, you're a Palestinian kid. On your way home from school you helped your older brothers launch a few dozen rockets into Israel. You're naturally tired so you relax with a bit of TV before homework and dinner time. And this is what you see.




(Via Hodja)

Not exactly the Teletubbies, more like a depraved Bugs Bunny.
A transcript can be seen here.


My only question is this: Why - in the name of all that is holy - why is the western world pouring an additional 7,4 billions dollars into this cesspool of hatred and intolerance?

The Palestinians have been showered in money and aid for decades and their only response is "kill the infidels who sends us money and aid!"

I say f**k'em! Death threats and boycott, eh? Well, boycott is a two-way street. Buy as many Israeli goods you can get your hands on, and shun anything from the Muslim world. (Apart from oil, that should be an easy task.)

Oh, and bye the bye Assud. Rabbits are excellent on the dinner plate. Thought you might want to know.

Petition

I received this in an e-mail yesterday and thought I'd pass it on. It's from the dutch branch of Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) and is a call to support Denmark.

I bring it in its entirety:

To: The People of Denmark through SIOE/SIAD

The Danish People are confronted with a jihad against their freedom and the fundamental values.

Now is the time for all Europeans to join forces and stand side by side with the free Danes in their time of tribulation, as the struggle for their freedom is our own. No longer can we afford to think in national terms, the jihad launched against Denmark is the same as is being waged against all Europeans.

If we want to ensure freedom for our children and grandchildren than not only must join forces it is our duty. Remaining inactive is no option and utterly unacceptable.

Sioe Netherlands will hand your signatures over during the upcoming demonstration in Denmark.

Sign this petition right now we owe it to the brave people of Denmark.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

You can sign the petition here.

Hizb demo in Copenhagen

Yesterday a large demonstration organized by the fundamentalist Hizb ut-Tahrir took place in Copenhagen, protesting the reprinting of the Mohammed-cartoons. About a 1000 participants took the streets and listened to the spokesman, Fadi Abdullatif - a man convicted for racism and death threats against Jews and the Prime minister in Denmark.

Said Fadi Abdullatif got up on his soapbox and used his freedom of speech to attack the freedom of speech of others. According to Danish daily Politiken the pious Muslim spake thus:

"We are gathered here today becouse Freedom of Speech is a cursed instrument in the hands of politicians".

"In Islam we are duty bound to speak the truth, freedom of speech is the freedom to lie"

Can you say Taqiya mr. Abullatif?

Once again our dear prophet is subjected to insults and attacks. It is part of a camaign to make us give up our faith but they will never win," said Abdullatif at which point the crowd began chanting: God is Great.

"Only the Caliphate will be able to stop these insults. A state that reacts with the sword and not with words. A state that shows the price for insulting the Prophet."

"The time has come to end the silence and submission. Arise and establish a Caliphate that lives for the sake of Islam and defends the Koran, Muhammed and his sharia."

This footage (as well as the photos above) was found at Steens blog (Video 3:00)
Is this Copenhagen or Gaza?


At least they make no secret of their intentions. We live in interesting times.

UPDATE: Steen informs me that he is not the one who made the footage. Original post corrected.

Intifada in Copenhagen ?

It would seem like Denmark is experiencing an intifada light these days - or rather nights. For the fifth night i a row smallish groups of Muslim immigrant "youths" have stirred up trouble in the streets of Copenhagen, setting fire to garbage containers and ambushing the firefighters.

At least that's how it started out, but now things seems to be getting out of hand.



The riots are spreading fast and are becoming more violent with "carbacues" and attacks on media reporting in the area. Trucks from DR TV and TV2 have been stoned and a photographer from Jyllands-Posten was wrestled to the ground and kicked in the head by half a dozen "youths."

Here's a small time line with thanks to TV2: (My excerpt.)

Feb. 9: The trouble starts when a garbage container is set ablaze and rolled out into the street in Nørrebro. Firefighters are attacked with rocks and needs police backup to put the fire out. All is calm again around midnight.

Feb. 10: Containers are set on fire as well as several cars and once again firefighters need police protection. The police uses teargas to disperse the vandals. 11 are arrested.

Feb. 11: More container-fires as well as bonfires in the street. The trouble spreads to Vesterbro - another neighborhood - two cars are burned. One arrest.

Feb. 13: The trouble has now spread all over Copenhagen. Two cars are set on fire in Vesterbro, four people arrested in conjunction with that crime. The neighborhoods and suburbs Tingbjerg, Ishøj, Rødovre and Taastrup are plagued by fires.
In Århus, Jutland a city bus is bombarded with rocks and have to be escorted out of danger by police.

Feb 14: In Tingbjerg four postal vans are set ablaze. An apartment building in Nørrebro has to be evacuated in the middle of the night as a fire nearby is threatening to spread. The power grid is sabotaged and an entire neighborhood is blackened out around 1 am.
All in all 17 people have been arrested for arson and disturbing the peace. 14 cars have been burned as well as 20 garbage containers. There are 14 reports of vandalism such as smashing store windows.




The excuse from the "youths" at the start up was that it was "unjust" that the cops picked on them at routine checks "only because we're colored!" Then came the thwarted assassination plot on the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and the subsequent decision to deport two Tunisian nationals. This apparently was soooo unjust to the Muslim community that a carbeque seemed to be in in order.

The police is on high alert from now and on through the weekend. I wish it would rain cats and dogs, that should cool tempers, but alas it's going to be cold and clear tonight.

I realize this isn't anything like the riots in Paris last summer - heck this probably isn't anything like a normal night in Paris, but it's quite unusual in Denmark.

So far at least!

Murder Plot Against Cartoonist Foiled

A plot to murder one of the 12 cartoonists who published the Motoons, was foiled early this morning when police and the Danish Security and Intelligence Service arrested 3 persons in Århus - Denmark's second largest city and home to Jyllands-Posten's headquarters.

This from Jyllands-Posten: (Link in English.)

Early Tuesday morning, Danish police arrested several people with a Muslim background suspected of conspiring to kill Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten.

Kurt Westergaard is one of the 12 cartoonists who on 30 September 2005 published cartoons of Muslim prophet Mohammed.

The group arrested includes Danish as well as foreign citizens. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service have followed the group for months.

The cartoons and an explanatory article led, as is well known, to the so-called Mohammed crisis involving violent demonstrations, the boycott of Danish goods and the burning of Danish embassies.

Kurt Westergaard’s cartoon depicting the prophet wearing a bomb turban with a lit fuse attracted particular attention. What the cartoonist wanted to say with his cartoon was that many people exploit the prophet to legitimize terror. However, the cartoon was widely seen as a depiction of the prophet as a terrorist.

Note that there's no mention of religion in the article. Must be those dammed Methodists again.

The police explicitly calls the plot "attempted terror related homicide!" What's wrong with these insensitive officials? Don't they know the wording is "Anti Islamic Activity"?

Anyway, there will be a press conference later today, and I'll update this as I know more.


UPDATE: Apparently only 3 persons where arrested though initial reports said 5. Original post corrected.
One is a 40-year old Moroccan with Danish citizenship who will be released after interrogation, the other two are Tunisian nationals. They are being held until they can be expelled administratively as they are seen as a threat to national security. (You don't say...)

Security police said they didn't want to take any chances and moved preventive at an early stage after the group had been under surveillance for several months.

The target, Kurt Westergaard, 73, and his wife have had round-the-clock protection and have been forced to move around the last 3 months as the terrorists allegedly were plotting to assassinate him in his own home.


UPDATE 2: See also WaPo, CNN, BBC, Guardian, and Times for more. (With thanks to Western Resistance for the links.)

Al-Jazeera demands MoToon-apology - from Iceland !

WTF?

The president of Iceland sits down for an interview with Al-Jazeera while on a trip to Qatar, and all of a sudden the journalist wants to know if Iceland will apologize for the Danish Cartoons:

Here is what president Grimsson said to radio Iceland about the interview:
”In fact he tried to put pressure on me regarding two things. He asked if I would apologize for the behaviour of the Danes, and if I would ask forgiveness for what they did, this insult, this provocation, this disgrace – he used very strong words – that the Danes had demonstrated with the publication of these caricatures. But of course this was not part of my responsibilities. And to tell you the truth I didn’t expect that this case was still alive and such a hot issue that the most important tv-station in the Arab world found it necessary to raise it during a visit by the president of Iceland, and they wanted to discuss it in detail.”

This thing just won't go away, will it.

Iceland has been independent since 1944.

(Via Flemming Rose )

Merry Christmas

Well, I'm off to spend a couple of days in the bosom of my family.

I hope everyone has a merry X-mas and may your wishes come true when Santa makes his rounds.

Here's what I would like in my Christmas Stocking:







I'm telling you Santa, I have been nice all year! :-)

Muslim Striptease

(With thanks to Danish blogger Hodja.)

Tribute

A salute to the Danish fighting men in Iraq and Afghanistan who paid the highest price to protect our freedom:

Why the Motoons

Very good interview of Flemming Rose, the Danish editor who published the Motoons. In it, he explains the idea behind them and how the unrest that followed has changed the way we discuss Islam.

Its well worth ten minutes of your time.



(Hat tip: Idioten.)

Stop the clocks, She is dead!!

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message She Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Helle - my love, my life, my hope - farewell.
One day we shall be together again.
I yearn for that day.

May you rest in peace.

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.

Another Motoon crisis

This would be somewhat boring if it weren't for the terrible repercussions. An innocent cartoon published in a newspaper in Bangladesh led to the slaughter of nine Christians in Nigeria. (Hat tip: Kim Møller at Uriasposten)

This from Blogcritics Magazine:

Recently, a 20-year-old Bangladeshi Muslim cartoonist sketched a cartoon that appeared in a Bangla newspaper. It was intended to caricature the local culture where everyone tends to add “Muhammad” before their name. In the cartoon, when an elderly Muslim priest asks a little boy carrying a cat, what was its name; the boy answers, ‘Muhammad Cat.’ This created outrage among Bangladeshi Muslims. The leader of Khelafot Andolon (Caliphate Movement) Maulana Ashraf stated that: “the cartoon indicates disgrace of the Muslim prophet by naming a cat ‘Muhammad'. Similar to the Danish Cartoon incident prophet Muhammad has been defamed in Muslim majority Bangladesh.” The head cleric of Bangladesh’s National Mosque, said: "This is a grievous offense, this is dangerous."

But of course it is... Naming a cat after the most admirable man ever to have walked on the face of the earth... Blasphemy! Blasphemy I tell you!

Muhammad the Cat flees Mekka in 622 AD

I haven't been able to find the actual drawing, but according to this blogger the transcript of the heresy reads like this:

The text of the cartoon is a conversation between a boy and an aged person.
* Boy, what is your name?
- My name is Babu.
* It is customary to mention Muhammed before the name.

* What is your father's name?
- Muhammed Abu

* What's this in your lap?
- Muhammed cat

No wonder the religion of peace has its followers in an uproar.

But it gets a lot worse:

GENERAL Secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Mr Samuel Salifu has condemned the killing of Christians in Tudun Dankande local government area of Kano State.

He called on the state government to bring the perpetrators to book, warning that Christians would no longer condone any attack on them.

Salifu who spoke with newsmen in Kaduna weekend said that reports reaching him from Kano state said there was trouble in Tudun Dankande local government area of the state Friday where nine Christians, including a youth corper serving in the area were killed and their property destroyed over an internet cartoon said to have emanated from a 20-year-old Muslim boy from Bangladesh.

"Information available to me is that almost all the churches within that local government area have been razed down and shops belonging to Christians had also been burnt including their houses. We have been told that they have been ejected and their property brought down and burnt.

Seems like the Christians in Nigeria has all about had it with all this insane violence:

He [Salifu] said Christians and their leaders were getting worried because both the Christian leaders and Muslims had been holding series of meetings within and outside the Nigerian Inter Religious Council (NIREC) to see how to bring about peaceful coexistence between followers of the two religions. Salifu regretted, however, that "the more we continue to meet with Muslim leaders the more some of these people attack our people.

"It is clear that the cartoonist is from Bangladesh and he is a Muslim, so why should they now visit their anger on Christians unless they are lunatics and if you call them this type of name, they say they are angry, but they go killing.

"They cannot control their anger, they take knives and slaughter. When you tell them what they are doing is wrong, they will turn round and start to kill. Very soon, there would be a lot of blood shed unless they stop this nonsense because the church is getting fed up.

The hapless cartoonist - needles to say, have been thrown in jail, the entire press in Bangladesh has apologized profoundly - needles to say to no avail, and meanwhile churches are burning in Nigeria, thousands of miles away.

These people are mad. As in frothing around the mouth mad. As in rabid. As in certifiable.

If only...

Update:
Commenter Atheist has kindly pointed me to the blasphemous cartoon: