Insult, Mock and Ridicule

No, the above title is not the name of a law firm - it's a horse, The horse is dead, but it's being flogged so often, that every now and then the dead horse springs to life.

When Jyllands-Posten originally published the 12 cartoons, they were accompanied by an article in Danish. Let me quote Wikipedia's translation:

The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is of minor importance in the present context. [...] we are on our way to a slippery slope where no-one can tell how the self-censorship will end. That is why Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Muhammad as they see him. [...]

Unfortunately this quote was too long for many people, so a much shorter version soon started to circulate: "Jyllands-Posten have said they published the cartoons in order to insult, mock and ridicule Muslims"

Is that a fair summary? No, it's not - because it says the opposite of the original article. Flemming Rose wrote that we couldn't have one group demanding special treatment and special considerations. Newspapers should be free to criticize all religions, unions and political parties. As I have pointed out, Jyllands-Posten has printed cartoons satirical of Christianity before.

However, the short version is more catchy (and infinitely more useful) so it appears often. One example was in CBS's sixty minutes - as Samuel Rachlin explains:

The editor of Politiken, Toger Seidenfaden, who was presented by Bob Simon as a defender of Jyllandsposten has, in fact, been one of the fiercest critics of the paper, a competing paper. Seidenfaden is an adamant campaigner against the government. He is now being charged with having launched a vendetta against the government, and his paper has lately been busy with publishing numerous corrections of major errors in its coverage of the cartoon scandal. In the TV story, he gets away with saying “They (Jyllandsposten) explained on their front page that they were doing this, and I quote, “To teach religious Muslims in Denmark that in our society, they must accept to be scorned, mocked and ridiculed.” He is committing one of journalism’s worst sins, misquoting a source.

Tøger Seidenfaden said - and I quote!

Seidenfaden's newspaper, Politiken was also the paper with their own vendetta against Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen. Politiken falsely claimed that Jyllands-Posten ignored warnings when they printed the cartoons.