The diplomatic crisis over the Mohammed cartoons is developing by the day. The "last straw" so it seems, was the Saudi boycott of Danish products.
The Confederation of Danish Industries has appealed to Jyllands-Posten to print an apology for having commissioned the drawings, the BBC said.
"Time has come for Jyllands-Posten to use its freedom of speech to explain how it views the fact that the paper's Muhammad drawings have offended large groups of people," the group's head, Hans Skov Christensen, wrote in a letter to the Danish daily.
He said Danish companies faced repercussions from customers in the Middle East , including product boycotts, dropped orders, and canceled business meetings.
According to the confederation, the Middle East accounts for annual sales of at least $816 million for Danish companies.
Today Jyllands-Posten caved in and featured an apology in both Danish and Arabic on their website, signed by Carsen Juste, the chief editor. You can get an easy "online translation" of their Danish apology. I will try to translate their Arabic one.
Offentliggjort 28. januar 2006 16:25 / Opdateret 28. januar 2006 17:33
Ærede borgere i Kongedømmet Saudi-Arabien
Tillad mig denne mulighed for at korrigere nogle misforståelser omkring de tegninger af profeten Muhammed, som nu har ført til en boykot af danske varer i Deres land.
Tegningerne blev bragt for fire måneder siden som led i en dansk debat om ytringsfrihed - en rettighed, som vi sætter højt i Danmark.
Initiativet er blevet udlagt som en kampagne mod muslimer i Danmark og verden over. Det må jeg kategorisk tilbagevise. Det var ikke vores hensigt at krænke nogen på deres tro. At det alligevel er sket, var altså utilsigtet. Det har vi beklaget mange gange i løbet af de seneste måneder. Både i vores egen avis, i andre aviser, på tv, i radio og i internationale medier. Vi har samtidig gennemført møder med repræsentanter for det muslimske samfund i Danmark. De har fundet sted i en positiv og konstruktiv ånd, ligsom vi også på anden måde søger at etablere en givende dialog med de danske muslimer.
Vi er kede af, at sagen har nået det nuværende omfang og skal derfor gentage, at vi ikke havde til hensigt at krænke nogen, og at vi ligesom det danske samfund i øvrigt respekterer trosfriheden.
Med venlig hilsen
Carsten Juste
chefredaktør
Source: Jyllands-Posten (Danish), Islam Online (English)
3 comments:
Nooooooooooo. Tell me it is not true :-(
Da###### @@@#$%^%
Snouck
The matter doesn't end just by apologyzing, the complete hang up of the criminals till death is required. Unfortunately their isn't any Islamic governament if muslims were united under only one flag then they all should have attacked these countries or compell them to hand over all the criminals and had hung them up.
But it is their fortune that all the muslim governments are slaves of america and europe. But wait these all governments will be turned down with their masters. wait!
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