Prophet cartoon in South African paper sparks new row

JOHANNESBURG - Days after an alleged Al Qaeda operative detailed sketchy plans to attack the football World Cup over cartoons of Prophet Mohammed, a newspaper in South Africa has caused controversy by also publishing cartoons of the Prophet.

A cartoon by award-winning satirist Jonathan Shapiro in the Mail & Guardian weekly newspaper Friday shows the Prophet grumbling to a psychiatrist about the furore in the Muslim world created by a Facebook page called Everybody draw Muhammad Day.

“Other prophets have followers with a sense of humour!” the turbaned, bearded figure, who is stretched out on the psychiatrist’s couch, complains.

Thursday evening, the Mail & Guardian won an eleventh-hour court case taken by the Council of Muslim Theologians to try to bar the publication of the cartoon.

The council had warned of a possible violent backlash and said the timing was bad, given the alleged threat to the World Cup.

“My view is no cartoon is as insulting to Islam as the assumption Muslims will react with violence,” the newspaper’s editor Nic Dawes defended.

Friday, the paper reported it was receiving a flood of angry calls, and had even received death threats against the cartoonist.

A spokesman for the Media Review Network, a group that lobbies on Muslim affairs, told Johannesburg’s 702 radio station he was “greatly” disappointed by the ruling and appealed for calm in the Muslim community.

Shapiro, aka Zapiro, is renowned for his provocative images, which usually poke fun at politicians.

His latest sketch comes days after an alleged Al Qaeda operative was arrested in Iraq on charges of terrorism, including a plot to target the World Cup in South Africa.

Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani, a Saudi national, told journalists he had discussed with friends an idea to attack the Danish and Dutch teams or their supporters to avenge perceived insults in those countries against Muslims.

A Danish newspaper in 2006 sparked outrage among Muslims after publishing 12 cartoons of the Prophet.

The Netherlands has seen a rise in anti-Islam sentiment in recent years since a Muslim murdered a filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, who had made a critical film about Islamic culture.