AMMAN, 22 May 2008 — A coalition of Jordanian media outlets, professional syndicates and political parties plan to launch a national campaign on June 10 for the boycott of Danish and Dutch products to protest anti-Islam moves in the two European countries, organizers said yesterday.
The campaign, entitled “The Messenger Unites Us,” came into existence after a dozen of Danish papers reprinted blasphemous cartoons in February.
The controversial pictures were originally printed by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, sparking a spate of protests across the Arab and Islamic worlds. Dutch products were recently added to a list of blacklisted Danish goods after Dutch MP Geert Wilders released a short anti-Islam film on the Internet in March.
Organizers of the campaign said they had decided to delay the launch to give ample time for local agencies of Danish and Dutch products to sell the already imported goods.
“Following our initial launch, we scaled back our boycott efforts after receiving complaints from local traders. We gave traders enough time — until June 10 — to sell their stock after which the campaign will be in full force,” campaign spokesman Zakaria Al-Sheikh said.
He pointed out that the campaign would include highway billboards, posters, printed T-shirts, bumper stickers and the like “to inform consumers not only to boycott foods but anything associated with Denmark and the Netherlands such as airlines and shipping agencies.”
Campaign organizers also decided to institute legal action against those involved in “demeaning the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him),” arguing that their behavior violated the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and several articles of the Jordanian Penal Code.
The court has already heard the testimonies of head of the Jordan Bar Association Saleh Armouti, Christian and Muslim lawmakers, former chairman of the Jordan Press Association Tarew Momani and a representative of the International Council of Churches, Odeh Qawas.
A list of 10,000 signatures protesting the “unlawful spread of hatred” was submitted to the tribunal, according to Al-Sheikh. The court is expected to decide this week whether or not to proceed with the case after it studies evidence regarding the actual impact of the reprinting of the controversial cartoons in Jordan and worldwide.
Meanwhile, Jordan’s military court sentenced eight Al-Qaeda-linked militants yesterday to life in prison for plotting a 2004 chemical attack on the US Embassy and other sites in the kingdom.
The men — alleged associates of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi — were sentenced to death in a previous trial in 2006, but an appeals court overturned that because the prosecutor was apparently one of the plot’s targets.
—With input from Agence France Presse
