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Islamic scholars call for new law in cartoon protest
By Bill Bowder
THE CHURCH TIMES
2/20/2006
ISLAMIC religious scholars in Britain have called for a change in the law to stop publications of images of Muhammad, after protest rallies in London and an international outcry against cartoons of the Prophet published in Denmark and elsewhere.
One cartoon showed the Prophet with a bomb on his head.
The 300 scholars met under the auspices of the Muslim Action Committee at the Islamic Centre in Small Heath, Birmingham, on Wednesday of last week. A further rally against the cartoons is expected in London this weekend.
Protest marches continued during the week in many countries. Reports said police in Islamabad fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of 6000.
Last week, the Pope spoke of a 60-year-old priest from Rome, Fr Andrea Santoro, reportedly killed by a 16-year-old boy while praying in his parish church in Trabzon, Turkey. Many now think he should be made a saint. His death had been seen as linked to the protests.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town, speaking in Nairobi at the All-Africa Conference of Churches Ecumenical Centre named after him, said he hoped Muslims would forgive "what has upset them very deeply".
The Bishop of Copenhagen, the Rt Revd Erik Svendsen, and the Bishop of Haderslev, the Rt Revd Niels Arendt, wrote to Dr Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi at Al-Azhar University, Cairo, whom they had visited with the Danish Ambassador in 2003, to express their re-gret. They wanted him to help bridge the widening gap between cultures.
The Bishop of Tunsberg, the Rt Revd Riksaasen Dahl, acting head of Norway's Lutheran bishops, condemned the violence. The challenge was "for the Church of Norway, priests, and preachers to strengthen our perception of what is holy", the daily Aftenposten said last Friday.
The Bishop of Durham, Dr Tom Wright, objected to the "thought police" who were changing the moral climate of Britain. In a House of Lords debate on freedom of speech last week, he said it would be "a mistake" to confine the debate to the Danish cartoons and their aftermath, "regrettable though they are" .
There was a "moral climate change, which is comparable to other forms of climate change and equally dangerous", he said. People were frightened to express their views in the pub for fear of being reported.
"I did not think that I would see such a thing in this country in my lifetime. The word for it is tyranny - sudden moral climate change enforced by thought police."
Freedom was not the right to be gratuitously rude or offensive, "but to speak the truth as we see it, while simultaneously paying great attention to listening to the truth as others see and speak it".
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