CAIRO — The Egyptian government has summoned the ambassador of Denmark in Cairo to protest the reprinting of blasphemous cartoons in Danish newspapers, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday. The Information Ministry also said it has banned issues of four Western newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal and Britain’s The Observer, because they contained the reprints, the state-run Middle East News Agency reported.
Under a decree issued by Information Minister Anas Al-Fiqi, Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Die Welt, Britain’s Observer and the US Wall Street Journal will not be sold, the MENA news agency said. “Any newspaper or magazine which publishes anything offensive to the Prophet (peace be upon him) ... and reprints the offensive caricatures of the prophet or anything offensive to the three heavenly religions will be banned,” Fiqi said.
Protests and riots erupted in many Muslim countries in 2006 when the cartoons first appeared in a Danish daily. At least 50 people were killed and three Danish embassies attacked. “The insistence of the Danish media to insult Islam again is unfortunate since the incident of publishing the cartoons has undoubtedly confirmed that such shameful acts only lead to more tension,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Egypt is the most populous Arab country and is home to Al-Azhar Mosque, the highest seat of Sunni Muslim learning. The Egyptian Football Association said yesterday it had called off two friendly matches between the Egyptian and Danish youth teams, also because of the cartoons.
Ahmed Shoubeir, vice president of the football association, said the reprints were “provocative.” “This is hurting the feeling of Muslims in a way that we have never seen,” he said.
Also yesterday, thousands of students held a protest against the cartoons in the university of Assiut, south of Cairo. The protesters, led by the state-appointed president of the university, called for boycotting Danish goods. As the protest ended, hundreds of student supporters of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood gathered at the same spot to condemn the caricatures.
Egyptian police detained 13 university students affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the strongest opposition group in the country, security officials said. The authorities routinely detain Brotherhood activists and have intensified a crackdown against the Islamist group ahead of nationwide local elections set for April 8.
One security official said the 13 students were detained on Monday in the Mediterranean Sea city of Alexandria, a day after police rounded up at least 47 members of the group in three other cities.
