Protests against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad continued today in several countries, although major violence declined. As governments continued to appeal for calm, the gulf separating free-speech advocates on one side and religious-minded activists on the other remained as wide as ever.  

Iranian Vice President Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, on a visit to Indonesia, rejected the charge as a "lie."

But picking up on the story, "The New York Times" today quoted Middle East experts who say the public campaign against the cartoons got a huge boost following a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Mecca in December.

At that summit, 57 Muslim heads of state issued a joint communique expressing concern at what they called "the desecration of the Prophet Muhammad in the media of certain countries." They warned against "using the freedom of expression as a pretext to defame religions."

It was at that point that boycotts of Danish goods began and that politicians in several Arab countries became publicly involved in anti-Danish rhetoric -- even though the cartoons had been published several months before, without much notice.

According to experts interviewed by the newspaper, Muslim leaders hoped to accomplish two goals by giving the cartoons a high profile. They hoped to outflank Islamic opposition movements by positioning themselves as true defenders of the faith. And they also hoped to slow American-led demands for democratization by stoking popular wrath against  the freewheeling Western media.

Worldwide Protest

The crisis, however, has now acquired a momentum of its own.

In Indonesia again today, student protesters gathered outside the Danish Embassy in Jakarta to demand that the editors of the newspaper that originally printed the cartoons be punished.

Protest leader Abdul Rachim, with the world media clearly in mind, formulated his demands in English: "We want from this demonstration to show to the embassy of Denmark and to the Denmark government that we want the [Danish] government to punish the magazine which published the picture of Prophet Muhammad because this insults the Muslim community."

Totalitarianism With A Different Face

Philippe Val, editor of the French weekly "Charlie Hebdo," which reprinted the drawings this week, remained uncompromising. He told Reuters, in an interview on 8 February, that in his opinion, Europe's media should not back down on their commitment to free speech.

"Any concession is an encouragement to totalitarianism," he said. "Today, it's about Islam, tomorrow it would be something else. Totalitarianism changes its shape and doctrine in order to survive. So, today it's about the Islamic extremism. But any concession fuels violence."

Meanwhile, a man identifying himself as senior Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah told the AFP news agency by telephone from Afghanistan that 100 militants have enlisted to become suicide bombers since the appearance of the cartoons.

Dadullah also said the group has offered a reward of 100 kilograms of gold to anyone who killed people responsible for the drawings. At current prices 100 kilograms of gold is worth about $1.9 million.

In a more encouraging sign, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was due to meet a Danish parliamentary deputy of Turkish origin later today to discuss the possibility of Turkish representatives mediating in the ongoing row.

In a letter to Rasmussen, the Turkish-born member of the Danish parliament, Huseyin Arac, suggested that Turkey could host a meeting between Denmark and other Muslim countries on the issue. He did not give further details. Arac comes from Aarhus, the city where the Danish newspaper "Jyllands-Posten," that first published the drawings, is published.