After the Danish newspaper published those controversial cartoons on the prophet Mohammed, Arab embassies in Copenhagen lobbied the Danish government to do something about it. Since the country has freedom of expression, the government couldn't do anything about it so the embassies sent the cartoons back to their own countries to make Mount Everest out of a molehill.
For a while, I wondered what it was the ambassadors wanted done about it. Now, we have been given some idea.
Two Algerian editors were arrested for publishing cartoons. The journalists face three to five years for 'insulting the prophet.' Even though the magazines are moderately pro-Islamist and the cartoons were published to demonstrate why Muslims should be upset about it.
Interestingly, The caricatures of Prophet Mohammed have been condemned by political and religious leaders in Algeria, but the controversy has not sparked a lot of reactions within the wider public, according to the BBC.
Perhaps the ambassadors don't realize that 'insulting the prophet' may be a crime in Algeria, but it's not in Denmark.
Another BBC article wonders about the hypocrisy of this whole debacle. Mass hysteria erupted at the publication of a couple of Danish cartoons supposedly insulting Islam, while there's a flood of anti-Semitic propaganda available in Cairo and many other Arab capitals.
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