Muslims Express Anger and Hope at Danish Conference

The New York Times:

By SOUAD MEKHENNET

COPENHAGEN, March 10 — Denmark sought Friday to tamp down the fierce Muslim protests over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad at a conference with Muslim preachers and scholars that produced calls for dialogue but also fresh protests over the Danish government's refusal to apologize for the publication.

Financed by the Danish Foreign Ministry, the conference prominently featured Amr Khaled, a 38-year-old preacher from Egypt who has built up a large following among young Muslims and women for his youthful style and sermons that apply Islam to the issues of modern life. Mr. Khaled sought to emphasize that "we are here to build bridges for dialogue," and suggested that a continuing boycott of Danish goods in Arab countries could stop if Danes and their government reached out with initiatives like help for small businesses, or health care.

Other participants were less conciliatory.

"We are here today, because we want to tell you that every Muslim in the world is very angry," said Tareq Alsuwaidan, general manager of the Kuwaiti satellite channel Al Resalah.

"We request an official apology from your government to the Muslim nation as it happened in Norway," he said. He also demanded that the European Union enact a law "that forbids the insult to religious figures."

Facing huge Muslim protests and some attacks on Danish embassies over the cartoons, which were first published in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September, the government in Copenhagen has refused to apologize, saying it cannot be held responsible for the actions of an independent newspaper.

The cartoons were later printed in other newspapers across Europe, and led to violence in several Muslim countries, including deaths in Libya, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Sunni Muslim tradition bans any image of the prophet, because depicting him risks insulting him or encouraging idolatry.

The boycott of Danish products is continuing. The Danes have not given an estimate for the harm inflicted on Danish commerce.

The conference drew a Danish church representative and two academics and three experts from the Arab world, as well as 25 young people from the Arab world and 25 from Denmark, some of whom were Muslims. Their views of the purpose of the gathering were quite disparate: Neelam Fida, a young Pakistani, said for example that he saw it as a new chance for dialogue, while Hassan al-Dabbagh, a 25-year-old from Jidda, Saudi Arabia, said the conference was "a chance to defend my prophet and show the Danish people why we get upset, and try to find a solution for the problem."

Several people at the conference said that Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark exacerbated the crisis by declining to meet with Muslim ambassadors who protested the drawings last fall, before fury had spread to much of the Muslim world.

Jyllands-Posten has apologized for offending Muslims, but stands by its decision to print the drawings, citing the freedom of speech.

"Freedom of speech shouldn't be absolute," said Al Habib Ali Aljifri, an Islamic scholar from Yemen, noting that many European countries do not allow anti-Semitic speech. "We must come to an understanding of rules governing freedom of expression." In the Muslim world, the conference on Friday was criticized before it even opened, with some saying no Muslim should have attended.

Sheikh Youssef el-Qardawi, 79, who is based in Qatar and is host of a weekly show on Al Jazeera television, said the trip to Copenhagen looked like surrender. "You have to have a common ground to have a dialogue with your enemy," he said on Al Jazeera. "But after insulting what is sacred to me, they should apologize."

No imam from Denmark was invited to the conference, and there was criticism that it was not open to more people or a broad section of the Danish public.

Imam Ahmad Abu Laban, who is based in Denmark, organized trips by Danish imams to Egypt and Lebanon last autumn that helped stir outrage in the Arab world about the cartoons. In an interview, he criticized the government for failing to deal with imams at home and said Danish Muslims would ignore any conclusions coming from a conference to which imams had not been invited.

Several participants made clear that they feared a lot of new extremism on both sides. "We feel there are forces of extremism that are aiming to light fires and transform Denmark from a peaceful country to a country which will suffer from conflicts," said Mr. Khaled, the Egyptian preacher.