ISTANBUL/JABALYA, Gaza Strip — The Organization of the Islamic Conference denounced yesterday the reprinting of a blasphemous Danish cartoon, warning it could lead to confrontations between Muslims and Christians. “By reprinting these cartoons we are heading toward a bigger conflict and that shows that both sides will be hostages of their radicals,” OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu told AFP in Istanbul.
“It is not a way of improving your rights and exercising your freedoms when you use these rights for insulting the most sacred values and symbols of others and inciting hatred,” he said. “This is a very wrong, provocative way — unacceptable.”
Several Danish newspapers on Wednesday republished one of 12 drawings, which had already caused bloody riots in the Muslim world in 2006, after police uncovered an alleged plot in the Scandinavian country to kill the cartoonist.
“The people who are doing this put themselves with the radicals, the fanatics and extremists who are using their beliefs as justification to hurt others,” Ihsanoglu said. “This is not the way to improve relations between East and West, between Islam and Christianity.” The drawing has triggered fresh uproar in Muslim countries.
Thousands of supporters of the Islamist group Hamas protested in the Gaza Strip yesterday against the reprinting of the caricature. 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 organized campaigns to spread hatred of Islam.
“We are all a sacrifice to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), 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.
At least 4,000 Hamas supporters took part in the rally yesterday, 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 Muhammad,” one banner read.
“We urge Arab and Muslim countries to exert their efforts and to use all pressure tools under their control to stop these organized campaigns that spread hatred of Islam under so-called freedom of expression,” a Hamas statement said.
Hisham Abu Taha adds from Gaza:
Masked men blew up the library of the YMCA in Gaza early yesterday, destroying the building but causing no injuries. Security sources said they were investigating whether it was an attack on a specifically Christian symbol, and whether it was related to the reprinting of the Danish cartoon.
The YMCA is well-known center in Gaza City among the Muslims and Christians as it provides various activities for the youths, the center also contain a kindergarten. YMCA Director Issa Saba said that the attack occurred in the night from Thursday to yesterday. He added that the library contained some 10,000 non-religious books.
Hamas movement condemned the attack as a coward act. It called on the Interior Ministry in Gaza to chase the attackers and bring them to justice. The Palestinian Presidency also condemned the attack. A spokesman of the presidency said that “President Mahmoud Abbas condemned this coward attack against a national association, that is providing services for the people since decades.”
