Canada: Foreign Policy: Follow-up on Cairo newspaper Al-Fagr's taste for Danish cartoons

First, yesterday's refWrite story has been updated. You may want to review it before reading further on today's news developments.

Second and new to refWrite today: while Copenhangen Post which broke the compelling background story regarding the Egyptian press yesterday, claimed Al-Fagr Arabic newspaper in Cairo was an "opposition" paper politically, the truth is, as now pointed out by the Cairo Instititue for Human Rights Studies website, Al-Fagr, tho not government owned, took "a blantantly biased stance in favor of the ruling party's candidates" during Egypt's more recent Parliamentary elections (while in the earlier Presidential elections, it gave "only" 38% of its coverage to Mubarak ... I guess that's "opposition"!). On the CIHR page cited above, notice the third item (bold heading) which I quote in part:

The state-owned press continued to take a blatantly biased stance in favor of the ruling party’s candidates. The most extreme in this behavior was Al-Akhbar newspaper with 83% of its total coverage of various political parties and powers going to the NDP, followed by Al-Masa’ at 75%, Akhbar Al-Yawm at 67% and Al-Ahram at 62%. Among the independent press, coverage of the NDP reached its highest levels in Sawt Al-Umma newspaper at 84%, Al-Fagr newspaper at 82%, and Al-Dustuur at 75%, although it must be noted that the majority of such coverage in these newspapers was critical of the NDP. [underlines and bolds are mine - Politicarp]

Next, the American rightwing Christian online news source of huge circulation, World Net Daily has now carried the story with greater detail, including a live link to an importance source - the blog Freedom for Egyptians (take a look! - P).

While Muslims across the world have rioted in the past week against countries whose newspapers have published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, there was no uproar when the same caricatures were prominently displayed in an Arab newspaper four months ago.

The images originating in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September were reportedly featured on the cover and inside pages of Egypt's al-Fagr (the Dawn) in October, during the holy month of Ramadan. According to the Freedom for Egyptians blog, al-Fagr included the cartoons on the front cover and page 17 of its edition dated Oct. 17. The headline, when translated, is said to read: "Continued Boldness. Mocking the Prophet and his wife by Caricature."


Muhammad cartoons on page 17 of Egypt's al-Fagr newspaper [o]n October [17,] 2005 (courtesy: Egyptian Sandmonkey blog)

"The Egyptian paper criticized the bad taste of the cartoons but it did not incite hatred protests," notes the blog. "It would have been better that this [current] holy war against Denmark be launched during the holy month of Ramadan as many Muslims believe that Jihad during Ramadan would have been more worthy. This irrelevant outrage timing is but a sign that this violent response to the cartoons is politically motivated by Muslim extremists in Europe and the so-called secular governments of the Middle East. I want also to mention that despite the fact that all editors who tried to reprint the cartoons in the Middle East nowadays were arrested, the Egyptian editors went unharmed."

To date, at least 10 people have been killed in Afghanistan alone from Muslim riots in connection with the cartoons, though protests have been taking place in many countries throughout Europe and the Mideast. Some 4,000 angry Muslims took to the streets of the Egyptian capital of Cairo this week, though there were no protests when al-Fagr published the images during Ramadan in October. [All underlines , bolds, and square-bracketted textual inserts mine. Also, WND carries pictures as part of its analysis. refWrite and I still regard the original publication and later provocative republication in Europe were abusive of freedom of the press, but especially abusive of the general Muslim population in Europe. - Politicarp]

Further, Michelle Malkin's blog carried this quote (since removed along with the material for which I criticize her position below), this quote from Swedish Radio online's English-language secion:

A far-right Swedish party's website showing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad has been shut down by the Internet hosting company after pressure from police and the foreign ministry, fearing it would fuel Muslim anger.

The anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats had invited readers to send in cartoons for publishing on its website alongside the Danish cartoons, which have sparked violent demonstrations by Muslims around the world.

After Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds warned of "grave consequences for Swedish people and Swedish interests" and said Muslim countries were already reacting, the web hosting company Levonline pulled the plug, a company director said on Friday.

"We have been in contact with the foreign ministry and SAPO (security police) and in consultation with them we decided this was best," its deputy director Anna Larsson told Swedish Radio.

With Malkin, we get the clearest indication of how the ultra-rightwing, Christian or no. is quite tendentious in its reporting of these historical developments in a unidimensional way, rather than using a "multifactoral approach" (historian Thomas McIntire, University of Toronto). The whole aim seems to be to make Muslims look bad, with no respect for the core religious sensibilities of law-abiding constructive Muslim citizens who were deeply insulted by these attacks. But, my sense is, that by and large these cartoon attacks come from secularist Humanist atheists in Europe who would use the same techniques on the core-values of Judaic-believing Jews and of Christians, if they felt either community were on the way to commanding a politial majority. Does freedom of the press mean absolute freedom? That's the question for Europe and North America, and it is a question of greater priority than what nefarious forces have abused further the vulnerabilities of peaceful Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike.

Today, Malkin, God bless her, carries this very interesting item on Jacques Chirac's approach (formerly the great secularist but since the French riots ...); she also discusses further aspects of the present French situation.

Finally, Rantings of a Sandmonkey gets the credit now for digging up the Oct17 cartoon special published in Cairo by al-Fagra. Sandmonkey should be the first blogger to whom the professional organizations of journalists give their tope awards and monetary emoluments this year. refWrite, for its small part, names Sandmoneky as Blogger journalists of the Year. - Politicarp

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