Bin Laden Threatens Europe Over Muhammad Cartoons
Posted on March 20, 2008 - Filed Under bin Laden, terrorism |
Yesterday an audio tape was released with a voice purported to be Osama bin Laden, warning Europeans that they face a “severe reckoning” for the cartoons that have appeared in newspapers and magazines of the prophet Muhammad.
“This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and the reckoning for it will be more severe,” the recording says. By casting the founder of Islam in such a way violated “the etiquettes of dispute and fighting,” said bin Laden.
Like all bin Laden recordings, he goes on other tangents as well. He points out that Muslims do not mock Jesus. He also believes there is no free speech in Europe since some European countries have laws against denying the existence of the Holocaust. He chastises Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah as “the crownless king” and claims he could have prevented the cartoons if he cared about the issue.
There was only one small passing reference to President Bush. It seems bin Laden is aware of the fully aware of the presidential cycle. He sited Bush as “your aggressive ally . . . who is about to depart the White House” — and instead focused his remarks to “the intelligent ones in the European Union”
According to the Washington Post, “In 2006, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad, prompting protests throughout the Muslim world. Followers of the faith generally consider depictions of the prophet blasphemous. Other European publications reprinted the cartoons, citing the right to free speech. Last month, a cartoon showing Muhammad with a bomb for a turban was reprinted in Danish newspapers after police in Copenhagen said they had disrupted an assassination plot against the illustrator.”
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