In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a dozen cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, not to denigrate Islam or to offend Muslims, but to initiate a debate about self-censorship and to assert free speech. Months later, there emerged an international crisis, as many Muslims called for censorship and some others reacted with violent riots and attacks, resulting in at least 200 deaths globally, the vast majority of which were in Nigeria.
Now, 15 years later, an opinion poll commissioned by the government-appointed free speech commission as part of its recently released report on the state of free speech in Denmark has shown that the underlying tension is still present in society. The poll shows the majority of Danish Muslims are still in favor of banning “criticism of Islam.” As many as 76 percent of immigrants and descendants from Muslim-majority countries, including Turkey, Lebanon, Pakistan, and Somalia (the four biggest immigration groups in Denmark with Muslim backgrounds), think it should be illegal to criticize Islam. Merely 18 percent of the Danish population aged 16 to 74 hold the same opinion. Immigrants from two non-Muslim-majority countries, Vietnam and Sri Lanka, have views more or less similar to the population at large.
Read Full Article »