This entry was posted on
Friday, February 10th, 2006 at
8:36 am and is filed
under Tolerance.

Independent – How a meeting of leaders in Mecca set off the cartoon wars around the world: A summit of Muslim nations held in Mecca in December may have played a key role in stoking outraged protests across the Islamic world against a series of caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed. A dossier of the cartoons, which was compiled by Danish Muslims, was handed around the sidelines of the meeting, attended by 57 Islamic nations including leaders such as Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Saudi King, Abdullah… Ahmed Akkari, a Lebanese-born Dane and spokesman for a group of Danish Muslims, said the Mecca summit had been the culmination of campaign to publicise the offending cartoons. The group assembled a 43-page dossier that included several unpublished caricatures. However, Mr Akkari denies allegations that the second set of cartoons – which were faxed to Muslim groups by far-right extremists after they protested against the original images – were presented to Muslim leaders without distinction… Mr Akkari said that the violent fallout was not their intention when they compiled the dossier. “We did not expect it to end up in such a situation, and with violence and for people to use it politically. This has now gone further than we had expected.”

A quiet word of advice for Mr Akkari… when the car leaves the ramp and becomes airborne, you will find the steering wheel to be of very little use.

UPDATE – a related item… Talk Politics – Aren’t we forgetting someone, Condi?