A huge car bomb exploded outside the Danish Embassy in the Pakistani capital on Monday, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more, officials and witnesses said.

The blast echoed through Islamabad and left a crater over a meter deep in the road in front of the main gate to the embassy. Glass, fallen masonry and dozens of wrecked vehicles littered the area. People, some bloodied, ran helter-skelter in a state of panic.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri recently called for attacks on Danish targets in response to the publication of caricatures in Danish newspapers depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

In related news: “Muslim hard-liners intolerant of tolerance rally.”

slamic hard-liners broke up a religious-tolerance rally Sunday in Indonesia, beating demonstrators with bamboo sticks and calling for the deaths of members of a Muslim sect they consider heretical, witnesses said.

About 200 Christians, moderate Muslims and members of Ahmadiyah – an Islamic group the government is considering banning – gathered at the national monument in the nation’s capital of Jakarta to celebrate the country’s tradition of pluralism, said Gunawan Mohamad, a prominent magazine publisher who took part in the rally.

At least 12 people were injured after members of the Islamic Defenders Front rushed the square, waving flags and swinging sticks, organizer Anick Tohari said.

“Repent or die,” shouted men dressed in green and white Islamic outfits as they punched and kicked bleeding protesters, video footage showed.

Denmark responds. No submission:

Per Stig Møller, the foreign minister, blamed the attack on ‘dark forces that want to destroy Pakistan’s relationship with others’.

‘We will not give them that victory,’ he said at a press conference in Copenhagen. He that the relationship between the Danish and Pakistani governments is as strong as ever, saying that the bombing ‘is also an attack against Pakistan’s government and their security people’.

The minister said that both governments are working together to find out who is behind the attack.

Other embassies in relevant countries have been put on alert and their security is being reviewed as a result of today’s event, he said.

Police in Halifax are investigating a complaint about a political cartoon that some members of a local Islamic group claim is a hate crime.

The cartoon, published April 18 in the Chronicle Herald newspaper, depicts a woman in a burka holding a sign that reads, “I want millions,” and she says, “I can put it towards my husband’s next training camp.”

The cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon is a reference to Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, a woman from Nova Scotia whose husband was arrested in 2006 in an anti-terrorism raid. Qayyum Abdul Jamal was released from jail after charges against him were stayed on April 15.

Zia Khan, director of the Centre for Islamic Development in Halifax, said the cartoon goes beyond what can be considered free speech.

“You would not put a native American Indian with feathers and say I need money in order to cull white people’s heads. You wouldn’t do that. This would be libelous,” he said. Khan’s group called police on April 21. He said the group also filed a complaint with the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission.

Under the Criminal Code of Canada, a hate crime is committed to intimidate, harm or terrify an entire group of people to which the victim belongs. The victims are targeted for who they are, not because of anything they have done. Dan Leger, the Herald’s director of news content, said the cartoon does not take aim at all Muslims.

“The whole purpose of that cartoon was to comment on the outrageous demands of this individual for compensation long before any hearing into her case had ever been held,” he said.

In an interview with the Herald before the cartoon ran, Jamal said she wanted to sue the federal government for what her family has gone through and told the reporter, “I want millions,” Leger noted. “[MacKinnon] depicted her exactly the way she looks and used her own words, and that’s the genius of cartooning that you’re able to do that,” he said.

Indeed, the cartoonist is depicting Jamal exactly how she looks. Not as some bigoted steretype, but as an exact representation.

The cartoon (click on pic for full-size):

The real thing, via Robert Jago:

An accurate depiction of a jihadi shakedown artist?

Off with your head!

Well, the bloggers have now formally been hit with lawsuits. Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury is one of the defendants. She reports:

Richard “The Boy Named Sue” Warman has finally filed his statement of claim.

Canada’s busiest litigant, serial “human rights” complainant and — the guy Mark Steyn has called “Canada’s most sensitive man” — Richard Warman is now suing his most vocal critics — including me.

The suit names:

• Ezra Levant (famous for his stirring YouTube video of his confrontation with the Canadian Human Rights tribunal after he published the “Mohammed Cartoons”)
• FreeDominion.ca (Canada’s answer to FreeRepublic.com)
• Kate McMillan of SmallDeadAnimals.com
• Jonathan Kay of the National Post daily newspaper and its in-house blog
• and me, Kathy Shaidle of FiveFeetOfFury.com

Richard Warman used to work for the notorious Human Rights Commission, which runs the “kangaroo courts” who’ve charged Mark Steyn with “flagrant Islamophobia.”

Richard Warman has brought almost half these cases single-handledly, getting websites he doesn’t like shut down, and making tens of thousands of tax free dollars in “compensation” out of web site owners who can’t afford to fight back or don’t even realize they can.

The province of British Columbia had to pass a special law to stop Richard Warman from suing libraries because they carried books he didn’t approve of.

Richard Warman also wants to ban international websites he doesn’t like from being seen by Canadians.

The folks named in his new law suit are the very bloggers who have been most outspoken in their criticism of Warman’s methods…

…We can only fight this man’s attempt to silence conservative opinion if we have international support: both moral and financial.

This lawsuit will cost me at least $30,000 to fight.

And fight it I will.

Ezra Levant’s post on the lawsuit spree is here. The PDF of the complaint is here. Levant writes:

Warman’s not just suing me. He’s suing some of the biggest names in the Canadian blogosphere – from Kate McMillan of Small Dead Animals to Kathy Shaidle of Five Feet of Fury (or, Five Feet of Furry, as the lawsuit says on page 2), to Free Dominion, the largest conservative chat site in Canada. Warman’s goal is breathtaking in its chutzpah: he wants to muzzle the Canadian conservative Internet. It’s not just his goal – it’s the goal of the CHRC itself, and its friends at the Canadian Jewish Congress, who have stated their goal is to “tame” the Internet – or at least those voices they disagree with. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the CJC was bankrolling Warman’s lawsuit – they’ve done joint legal work together before, and Warman’s number one defender is on the CJC’s legal committee. The CJC hates conservatives, and this would be a way for them to do damage to the conservative blogosphere without taking the political flak for it.

Take a look at the language Warman’s lawsuit uses to smear Free Dominion. At paragraph 17, Warman calls them an “extreme right-wing discussion forum”. Look at that language – hardly distinguishable from the CHRC’s and CJC’s boilerplate insults reserved for neo-Nazis. That’s what this lawsuit is about: an attempt by the CHRC’s biggest star to try to marginalize Canadian conservatism. And why not? The CHRC has moved from targeting white supremacists to targeting mainstream conservatives like Mark Steyn; the Alberta HRC has already gagged Christian pastors and taken a run at Calgary’s bishop, and two years ago they charged me with publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Surely attempting to criminalize conservatism is just the next, natural step for these congenital censors.

At Ezra’s, Kathy’s, Connie and Mark’s, and Kate’s blogs, you can find “Donate” buttons.

I’ve pitched in $100 to each blog. Can I find at least 10 readers out there who can match? If you can pitch in anything at all, please take time today to do so.

As I said when I wrote about the coming attack last month, their fight is our fight. Time to put our money where are mouths/hearts/blogs are.

***

The Nose on Your Face is selling t-shirts with all profits going to the bloggers being sued by Richard Warman. Go here.

A reader tells me that the Dutch word for solidarity is “Solidariteit.”

Peace be with you:

Some 5,000 Afghans chanted “death to Denmark” and “death to the Netherlands” in Kabul on Friday, protesting against the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers and a Dutch film on the Koran.

Sporadic demonstrations have sprung up across the deeply conservative country in recent weeks against the cartoons and the film with protesters demanding Danish and Dutch troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan and their embassies shut down.

Protesters gathered around a mosque in the west of the Afghan capital after Friday prayers chanting “death to Denmark,” “death to the Netherlands, “death to America” and “death to Jews.”

Demonstrators burned Danish and Dutch flags and also an effigy of Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders, who is due to release a film thought to be critical of the Koran later this month. Wilders has given few details of the film, but in the past he has called Islam’s holy text a “fascist” book that “incites violence.”

One unidentified speaker addressing the angry crowd through a megaphone from the back of a truck said the Afghan government should expel Danish and Dutch troops and close their embassies within two days or “we will take action.”

The Netherlands has some 1,650 troops, mainly in southern Afghanistan and 14 Dutch soldiers have been killed fighting Taliban militants. Denmark, meanwhile, has 550 troops in northern and southern Afghanistan and 11 of its soldiers have been killed.

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden this week warned that Europe would be punished for the cartoons, first published by a Danish paper in September 2005. The images ignited violent protests across the world, including in Afghanistan, when newspapers around the world reprinted them the following year.

A UPI writer whines that it’s all the Jylland-Posten’s fault:

In Pakistan’s largest riot, 70,000 people gathered in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where I traveled last week, burning cars and cinemas. In Lahore, my birth city, at least two protestors were killed when a mob burnt Western fast-food chains, while in Islamabad students launched petrol bombs at various embassies.

They were protesting “Fitna” — “Ordeal” in Arabic — a forthcoming short film by controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Wilders, who has called the Koran a “fascist” book, has promised to release his film this month. They were also protesting the decision of several Danish newspapers to republish the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed that provoked deadly riots after their first airing in 2006.

In a post-Sept.11 environment, where relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in the West are at best precarious, at worst distrustful, and above all central to everyone’s security, the Danish editors might have known that reprinting the cartoons would provoke destructive behavior rather than encourage peaceful dialogue.

The editors might have considered that respect for democratic traditions and values does not necessarily trump the need to tolerate religious communities that are particularly sensitive to safeguarding their Prophets, icons and scriptures.

The editors might have shown restraint, knowing that any supercilious remark or one-time ribaldry against the Prophet and the traditions of Islam could unsettle Muslims worldwide.

But the editors did not. And now we have seemingly taken another backward step in trans-religious relations. The best would have been for the editors to think twice and refrain from fanning fires. The least they could do now is offer an apology.

So, the “new” bin Laden tape is threatening a “reckoning” with Europe over the Mohammed Cartoons. The Religion of Perpetual Outrage strikes again:

Osama bin Laden warned in a new audiotape of a “severe” reaction for Europeans’ publication of cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in what experts saw as a direct threat of a new attack in Europe.

The message, posted late Wednesday on a militant Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group’s media wing al-Sahab, showed a still image of bin Laden aiming with an assault rifle.

“The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God,” said a voice believed to be bin Laden’s, without specifying what action would be taken.

…The five-minute message, bin Laden’s first this year, made no mention of the fifth anniversary Wednesday of the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq.

Probably because the “new” tape is old. Rusty at The Jawa Report concludes:

This is an old audio, probably from 2006, of bin Laden. As Sahab must have been embarrassed that they had nothing to offer the world on this the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, so they hurriedly released an old audio they had lying around. The fact that there was no accompanying banner is evidence that they threw this together last minute.

Also no mention of the upcoming Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam film, set for release this Sunday.

So what explains the timing?

AP notes:

It came as the Muslim world marks the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday Thursday and amid the reigniting of a two-year-old controversy over Danish cartoons deemed by Muslims to be insulting.

In the message, bin Laden described the cartoons as taking place in the framework of a “new Crusade” against Islam, in which he said the pope has played a “large and lengthy role.”

“You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings,” he said, according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, another U.S. group that monitors terror messages. “This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.”

Bin Laden dismissed as “excuses” Europe’s citing of freedom of expression to justify the publishing of the cartoons.

“If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions,” according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, another U.S. group that monitors terror messages.

Also: “Adam Raisman, senior analyst at the SITE Institute, said that the tape’s release coincides with an increased buzz in online jihadi forums calling for revenge against Europe over the cartoons.”

The jihadis hardly need Osama’s goading to get their juices flowing. The Taliban are ready to use “Fitna” as an excuse to attack NATO troops. “Moderate” Muslim-dominated Indonesia is warning of a backlash against the film.

March Madness is here.

***

More at SITE and Laura Mansfield.

Hat tip: Brian at Snapped Shot. Thanks, Brian. I needed a laugh this morning.

Are you ready for March Madness? As I noted at Hot Air last month, the Religion of Perpetual Outrage is gearing up for the debut of Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam mini-documentary, “Fitna”–which is reportedly set for completion sometime today. (Go to the Fitna The Movie site for more info.) Combined with the recent re-publication of the Danish Mo cartoons, these unacceptable acts of free speech have Muslim “scholars” demanding that heads roll. Literally.

From the Yemen Observer:

The re-publication of the Prophet cartoons by seventeen Danish newspapers last week was denounced by Muslims the world over. The controversy is not one of press freedom, but rather it feeds cycles of hatred and ignorance which only increase the gulfs between religions, according to the Prime Minister, Dr. Ali Mohammed Mujawr, in a support meeting organized by the Al-Eman University last Monday calling for defending the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

In his speech, Mujwar called for an international law that criminalizes religious insults and enforces mutual respect of religions, calling on all rationalists in the West to avoid such negative acts. “This can only increase the instability in relations among Islamic and Western nations,” said Mujwar.

The publication of these cartoons has nothing to do with press freedom, a device used by some as a shield to insult others. This was an act that violates human values, laws and rights, satisfying only the devilish whims of those who put the cartoons to print, said Mujwar.

Mujwar then urged all religious scholars, preachers, and university professors present to show the story of Mohammed (PBUH) and his great rectitude to young generations as a model and to show how any damage to Muslims feelings will further hatred, extremism, and clashes between civilizations.

Religious scholar, Mohammed Ismael al-Hjji, asserted that insulting the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) is an insult to all religions and urged all Arabian and Islamic nations to boycott all those who scorn Islam and Muslims. He also ordered the Yemeni parliament to issue a law that criminalizes anybody dealing with those who insult Islam in any way.

The sheikh of all sheikhs in Yemen, Sadeq Abdullah bin Hussien al-Ahmr, said that one’s freedom ends where another’s freedoms begins, and that freedom does not allow one to trespass other’s. “Muslims today stand unified against a clear and organized attack on all Islamic symbols,” said al-Ahmr.

Al-Ahmr said the hidden goals behind the republication of the cartoons is to spread the culture of terrorism, violence, and hatred and to record the angry reactions from some Muslims as to be their alibi to attack Muslims in their war against terror that they aim to associate with Islam.

He then asked all Arabian nations to take strict actions to defend Islam and the prophet and to boycott all Danish products.

Rector of the Al-Eman University, Shiek Abdul-Majeed al-Zindani, said that insults like the ones the Danish newspapers printed are a tactic used by one who is bankrupt and helpless and that insults are organized for a purpose. Al-Zindani also announced that the University is now working to launch its satellite Arabic-English channel for the purpose of clearing any misunderstanding about Islam and to help show the real image of Islam that Western media often distort. He said the Arabian and Islamic nations can help in showing the real image of Islam and that its teachings that are based on peace, love and forgiveness.

You see, this is all our fault!

About 1,000 Afghans, incensed by the republication of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers, marched on Sunday demanding withdrawal of Danish and Dutch troops.

The protesters, mostly religious clerics in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, also condemned plans by a right-wing Dutch politician to broadcast a film on the Koran.

Afghanistan’s Religious Affairs Ministry has called the reprinting of the cartoon as an attack against Islam. Several other Islamic countries have demanded that the film by the Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders must not be released.

The cartoons were first printed in a Danish paper in 2005. They gained little initial attention but were later reprinted outside Denmark, sparking protests across the Muslim world in which dozens of people, some in Afghanistan, were killed. Danish newspapers reprinted one of the images again last month in protest at what they said was a plot to murder the cartoonist who drew it. At least two Dutch papers published pictures of the Danish newspapers, with the cartoon visible.

“We demand the … withdrawal of Danish and Dutch soldiers from Afghanistan,” said Mawlavi Shoaib, a religious figure and one of the organizers…The protesters warned they would launch bigger demonstrations, unless their demands over the expulsion of Dutch and Danish forces were met by the Afghan government.

“Peace, love, and forgiveness,” eh?

Close to 3,000 students in Mauritania marched through the streets of the capital Nouakchott on Thursday in protest at the reprinting of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad by Danish newspapers this month.

Some shouted demands for a boycott of Danish products, while others carried banners with slogans such as “We will protect the Prophet Mohammad and we will sacrifice ourselves for him.”

“We are against those Westerners who insult the Islamic world with these cartoons,” said one of the demonstrators, 25-year old student Mohamed Ould Abderrahmane.

“We should wage jihad on them,” added one of his fellow students, Alpha Sow, 27.

In their own words. Not ours.

Via Weasel Zippers comes news that jihadi-targeted Danish artist Kurt Westergaard’s Mohammed cartoon is up for sale. The WSJ reports:

Kurt Westergaard is in hiding from Islamic militants who want him dead. Now, the Danish cartoonist says he’s ready to part with the source of his travails, a small ink sketch of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

But first there is the ticklish question of price.

“I would like to think that it has some value,” says Mr. Westergaard, the 72-year-old creator of one of the world’s most famous cartoons and one that inflamed Muslims world-wide. “It is a symbol of democracy and freedom of expression. I think I should have a little money for this,” he says.

The drawing is locked in a bank vault while the cartoonist shuttles between temporary havens the Danish secret police have found for him around this blustery port city. His is by far the best known of 12 Muhammad-related cartoons published in September 2005 by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. But how do you fix the value of something that auction houses won’t touch, that museums won’t hang on their walls and that still inspires murderous passions?

Two weeks ago, Danish authorities said they had foiled a plot to kill Mr. Westergaard in his home. Seventeen Danish newspapers, outraged and eager to show solidarity, reprinted his drawing. Muslims again took to the streets. Iran and others demanded an apology. “I always had a feeling this cartoon crisis would not end,” says Mr. Westergaard. “Now I know.”

Yet the new round of trouble may only increase the cartoon’s worth eventually. “Things gain value from public interest and history,” notes Sebastian Lerche, a director of Denmark’s biggest auction house, Bruun Rasmussen. He is quick to add he has no interest in testing the market: “We see no point in offending millions of people,” he says.

Some Muslims here want the bomb-in-a-turban drawing destroyed. Salah Suleiman, an activist in a mosque that helped whip up the fury over it in early 2006, delights in the artist’s troubles and says no amount of money can save him from God’s wrath: “He is living like a rat…. He is living in hell already.”

Mr. Westergaard’s wife, a retired kindergarten teacher, has also suggested destruction, by selling the cartoon to a wealthy Arab who “can then burn it in the central square in Mecca.” Mr. Westergaard says he likes the idea of getting money from an oil sheik but would prefer the cartoon stay intact and in Denmark.

The difference between us and them:

A less-famed Muhammad cartoon sold for around $2,900 in an Internet auction, but that was in late 2005, before the global uproar. The artist in that case donated the cash, which came from an anonymous buyer, to earthquake relief in Pakistan.

In an event last year at the Reagan Library in California, Mr. Rose, the Danish culture editor, saw the cartoons’ selling power. He autographed posters featuring his newspaper’s original cartoon edition, which sold out in minutes for $1,000 apiece.

Money has played a role on the other side of the barricades, too. When Muslims started burning Danish flags and ransacking Danish property in early 2006, extremists joined in a bidding war to get Mr. Westergaard killed. The bounties they offered ranged from a new car to a million dollars.

I mentioned Sudan’s anti-Denmark dress rehearsal earlier this week. The follow-up: No debt relief for you, Sudan.

Denmark said Thursday it will oppose any debt relief deal for Sudan in response to the Sudanese president’s comments urging the Muslim world to boycott Danish goods over the publication of a Prophet Muhammad cartoon.

Interior Minister Ulla Toernaes said she summoned Sudan’s ambassador to Denmark to demand an explanation of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s comments a day earlier.

Al-Bashir said Wednesday that he would bar Danes from Sudan and told tens of thousands of people at a government-backed rally in Khartoum that the Muslim world should boycott Denmark because of a cartoon reprinted recently in Danish newspapers.

Danish newspapers reprinted a cartoon showing Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban on Feb. 13 to show their commitment to freedom of speech after police uncovered a plot to kill the artist who drew it.

The drawing was one of 12 cartoons first published in a Danish newspaper in 2006 that triggered major protests in Muslim countries. The republication again sparked protests in several Muslim countries, including Sudan.

Sudan owes Denmark nearly $405 million and after Sudan’s government and southern rebels signed a peace agreement in 2005, international donors said they would consider debt relief.

Meanwhile, brace for Fitna and the coming paroxysm of rage against the Netherlands over Fitna–which will be complete by Sunday. It’s coming soon to a jihadi theater near you. The CSM reports:

Outrage continued to rise this week in parts of the Muslim world over the depiction of Islam in Danish newspapers earlier this month and the possible release of a film in the Netherlands critical of the religion.

Muslims in Sudan, Pakistan, Turkey, the Middle East, and other parts of the Islamic world, have been angered over the republication of one cartoon from a 2005 series that satirized Islam’s prophet Muhammad. Muslims regard visual depictions of the prophet Muhammad as blasphemous.

Governments in Europe are also bracing for protests against the possible broadcast of an anti-Islamic film by right-wing Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders that links Islam to violence. Mr. Wilders says the film, which he plans to broadcast on the Internet and possibly television, will be finished Sunday, Reuters reports.

Memo to ABC News stuntpeople: Hey, how about sending an undercover actor wearing a shirt with Westergaard’s cartoon and American, Danish, and Dutch flag pins into a Friday mosque crowd?

***

Snapped Shot: Happy Rage Friday! Brian Ledbetter is also holding a contest in support of Denmark to counter the jihadi effigy-burners. Weigh in.

President Omar al-Bashir said Wednesday that he would bar Danes from Sudan and told tens of thousands of people at a government-backed rally that the Muslim world should boycott Denmark because of a reprinted cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

“We urge all Muslims around the world to boycott Danish commodities, goods, companies, institutions, organizations and personalities,” al- Bashir told the crowd outside the Republic Palace in downtown Khartoum.

“Down, down, Denmark!” shouted the crowd. Al-Bashir vowed that “not a single Danish foot will from now on desecrate the land of Sudan.”

It was not clear whether al-Bashir planned to act on his rhetoric and force out the hundreds of Danes who work in Sudan, most in aid organizations, with a dozen in the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Sudan. Danish diplomats in Khartoum said they had not been notified of a new trade boycott and that Sudanese authorities had not notified them about expelling Danes.

Seventeen Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoon showing Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban this month in a gesture of solidarity after police said they uncovered a plot to kill the cartoon’s artist.

Sudan was one of the nations where large protests were held against Denmark in 2006 when the cartoon and 11 others depicting Muhammad and Islam were first published. In riots that followed around the Muslim world, dozens of people were killed and several Danish embassies were attacked, while Danish goods were boycotted.

Danish exports to Sudan are minimal, consisting mainly of dairy products. In 2006, they amounted to $23 million, a drop of 26 percent over the previous year.

But Sudan is one of the largest recipients of Danish aid and Danish aid groups that operate there include the Danish Refugee Council and the Danish Red Cross, which runs large projects to alleviate suffering in the western Darfur region.

Sudan received $26 million in Danish aid in 2006 and a $100 million humanitarian and reconstruction package is planned through 2009.

Why don’t any of our American officials weigh in like this German official did? Can we find just one who will? Just one? Anyone?

Germany’s interior minister expressed respect for the newspapers’ decision to reprint the cartoon, according to comments released Wednesday.

“I have respect for the fact that Danish newspapers have now all printed the Muhammad caricatures, on the basis (that) we will not let ourselves be divided,” Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted as saying by the weekly Die Zeit.

“Actually, all European newspapers should now print these caricatures, with the explanation: ‘We also find them lousy, but the exercise of press freedom is no reason to practice violence,’” Schaeuble added.

Buy Danish:

Pakistan’s telecommunications regulator said Tuesday it has lifted restrictions on YouTube that knocked out access to the video-sharing Web site in many countries for up to two hours over the weekend.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority told Internet service providers to restore access to the site after the removal of what it called a “blasphemous” video clip, authority spokeswoman Nabiha Mahmood said.

Pakistan ordered the site blocked on Friday over a clip featuring a Dutch lawmaker who has said he planned to release a movie portraying Islam as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.

Mahmood said attempts to access the offending clip on Tuesday afternoon brought up a message explaining that it had been removed on ethical grounds.

She said the authority had posted a complaint through the Web site — a facility open to any registered user — but had not been in contact with the administrators of YouTube.com, which is owned by Internet giant Google, Inc.

While several other videos featuring the politician, Geert Wilders, would remain visible to Pakistani Internet users, Mahmood said the one which was removed had been “totally anti-Quranic” and “very blasphemous.”

She said it promoted Wilders’ upcoming movie, but provided no details about its content.

The authority aimed to restrict the site only in Pakistan, but the move inadvertently cut access for many of the world’s Internet users for up to two hours on Sunday.

YouTube said the next day that it was caused by a network in Pakistan.

“We are investigating and working with others in the Internet community to prevent this from happening again,” YouTube said in an e-mailed statement.

This isn’t the first time a country has blocked YouTube over alleged “insults.” Turkey did it last March.

Internet jihadis who depend on YouTube to disseminate their hateful, murderous filth, meanwhile, are breathing a sigh of relief.

All hail AllahTube! (Photoshop credit – Jawas)

***

Howie at the Jawa Report:

Oh the Irony, an attempt by Pakistan to block Muhammad cartoons on youtube will also block the thousands upon thousands of copies of terrorist propaganda!

Sweet!

I was almost upset that Pakistan blocked Youtube there for a minute. But considering the infestation of pro al-Qaeda propaganda on Youtube and Youtube’s poor performance in removing pro terror users and videos. I’ve decided that the ban will block far more pro al-Qaeda propaganda than videos that are offensive to Islam.

Pakistan is a market where al-Qaeda seeks to radicalize and recruit young Muslims through their presence on the web. Any reduction in the amount of al-Qaeda propaganda available there is welcome in my book.

Brian at Snapped Shot spotlights some of the early outbreaks of fire and fury at Denmark, America, and Wikipedia. Check out his full photo gallery. Here’s a sample:

What’s next?

Watch out: They’re going to be burning snack foods.

Senior Muslim figures have said that they are shocked that a number of Walkers snacks contain traces of alcohol and eating them is therefore against their religion.

Lawhawk:

I have to wonder just how many of the protesters actually know what Wikipedia is.

Demonstrations also took place in Indonesia and Kuwait, where one of the signs indicated that the demonstrators are more than willing to sacrifice their sons for the cause. How comforting.

Ridiculous, right? Reminds me of…the American media. Remember when CNN and the Dallas Morning News did the same thing? I do!

Nothing adds fuel to the fire of the Cartoon Rage like the worldwide media’s Cartoon Dhimmitude.

***

RedBlueAmerica.com has a package on Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

Lawhawk takes note of the NYT taking a pass. As expected.

An e-mail from a reader on the other side of the political aisle, but on the same side as the Danes and the Sammenhold coalition:

Hi Ms. Malkin,

First let me say that I am an Obama supporter with liberal/libertarian views on many issues, so I suspect we would disagree on more issues than we would agree. I do want to let you know, however, that you deserve a lot of credit for your efforts in promoting solidarity with Denmark and the Danish newspapers publishing the muhammed cartoons. I am no fan of our current president, but I remember when the cartoon controversy first erupted, I thought to myself, “Well, perhaps Bush and I will be on the same page for once.” Instead he disappointed me again by responding with a weak-kneed and tepid call to respect the religions of others. I expect many on the Democratic side of the aisle would have responded similarly.

In my opinion, no true liberal would ever call for tolerance of a religion in such opposition to free speech, women’s rights, and freedom of and from religion, and in such support of mindless violence. When those cartoons were first published, I wish every American newspaper had reprinted them, and that our president had taken a much firmer stance in support of free speech. If I had owned a Danish flag, it would have flown from my house for that period of time.

So again, I disagree with a lot of what you say, but encourage you to keep up the good work on this issue. You seem to be the strongest voice for this right now. Thanks for keeping it alive.

Matt
Durham, NC

The “youths” are baaaack. In Denmark, 17 “youths” were arrested for rioting over the re-publication of the Mohammed Cartoons. A photographer for the Jyllands-Posten, the brave paper that published the cartoons two years ago and re-printed them again this week after the arrest of jihadi plotters who targeted one of the cartoonists for murder, was injured:

Bands of youths set fire to cars and trash bins overnight in a fourth consecutive night of vandalism mostly in immigrant neighborhoods of the Danish capital, police said.

Seventeen people were arrested, Copenhagen Police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch said, adding police were not sure what sparked the violence.

Some observers said immigrant youths were protesting against perceived police harassment and suggested the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers Wednesday, may have aggravated the situation.

“They feel provocations and discrimination by the police that stop then now and then to check them,” Copenhagen social worker Khalid Al-Subeihi said. “It doesn’t make it easier when the cartoons come back again.”

The youths set dozens of fires in several districts of Copenhagen, torching cars and trash bins and in some cases hurling rocks at police.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Muslim | Denmark | Danish | Prophet Muhammad | Jyllands-Posten | Aarhus | Noerrebro

Newspaper Jyllands-Posten said one of its photographers received minor injuries when he was attacked by vandals in the Noerrebro district.

Gateway Pundit has much more.

And since it’s Friday, you can count on more agitation and violence after the mosques let out across Europe and the Middle East. The burning flames of perpetual outrage are eternal.

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Hamas is on board:

Thousands of supporters of the Islamist group Hamas protested in the Gaza Strip on Friday against the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad that sparked Muslim outrage two years ago.

Hamas, which controls the coastal Palestinian territory, demanded that the Danish cartoonist be brought to trial and that an official apology be made to Muslims. It urged an end to what it called organized campaigns to spread hatred of Islam.

“We are all a sacrifice to the Prophet Mohammad, our blood, our property and our families are all a sacrifice to him,” a Hamas activist shouted through a loudspeaker after Friday prayers in the Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

Danish newspapers said they reprinted a cartoon showing the Prophet with a bomb in his turban in protest over a plot to murder the cartoonist. The original drawing published in September 2005 sparked criticism and riots in the Muslim world.

At least 4,000 Hamas supporters took part in the rally on Friday, many waving green Hamas flags and others holding banners condemning the cartoons and urging Muslims to take action against Denmark.

“Muslims must not be silent against these cartoons which are offensive to the great Prophet Mohammad,” one banner read.

The Mo Cartoons are a pretext, of course. Just as they were the first time around. We’ll need to look deeper. If you’ll recall, Iran was attempting to bully Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program at the time the first cartoon riots spread.

Allahpundit’s wondering, too.

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Rage Boy is back in the house.