COPENHAGEN: Seven Muslim organizations will file suit in Denmark s highest court against newspaper editors who in 2005 first published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed, one of the groups said Thursday.
We believe that Muslims have been treated unjustly and that is why we want to take this case before the Supreme Court, Assaad Bilal, a spokesman for one of the organizations, told AFP.
The groups, which are all based in Denmark, have until August 14 to appeal two lower court rulings against them.
We have asked our lawyer, Michael Havemann, to ask the Justice Ministry to have our case tried in the Supreme Court, Bilal said.
They wanted the harshest possible penalty for the Jyllands-Posten daily s former chief editor Carsten Juste and culture editor Flemming Rose, he added.
In its ruling last June, the Appeals Court ruled that the caricatures, which sparked angry and in some cases deadly protests across the Muslim world, did not aim to insult followers of Islam, as the plaintiffs had charged.
The court also found that the most controversial of the cartoons, featuring the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse, was of a satirical nature and does not refer to Muslims in general or to the [plaintiff] organizations or their members.
The court also emphasized that terrorist acts have been committed in the name of Islam, and it is not illegal for these acts to be made the object of satirical representation.
Bilal however insisted the Danish paper had unfairly presented the Prophet Mohamed as a warrior and a terrorist and had consequently insulted all Muslims.
If their case is rejected by the Supreme Court, the Muslim organizations plan to take this case before the European Court for Human Rights, he said.
They also had other plans, he added, without elaborating. -AFP
