Region | Sudan
Sudan president threatens to boycott Denmark
Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir is threatening to expel Danish organisations, snub its officials and boycott the country's products in reaction to cartoons republished in Denmark criticising the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), the presidential palace and state news agency said on Sunday.
- AP
- Published: 22:18 February 24, 2008
Khartoum: Sudanese President Omar Al Bashir is threatening to expel Danish organisations, snub its officials and boycott the country's products in reaction to cartoons republished in Denmark criticising the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), the presidential palace and state news agency said on Sunday.
Al Bashir met with the leaders of his ruling National Congress Party on Saturday to devise a response to Denmark after 17 Danish newspapers published a cartoon earlier this month that shows the Prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban.
The president "has directed that all Danish officials and diplomats should not be received by Sudanese officials and that all Danish organisations operating in the country should be expelled and all Danish goods boycotted," the state-run Suna news agency said yesterday.
It was not clear when these measures would be enacted. The Danish embassy said it had not been notified. "I have not received anything officially, so I cannot comment," said Karin Soerensen, the Danish Charge d'Affaires in Khartoum.
Sudan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said it had not been advised on the presidential ruling. "As far as this ministry is concerned, we have not yet received anything," spokesman Ali Sadiq said on the telephone.
But the Sudanese presidential spokesman, Mahzoub Faidul, said the measures against Denmark would be enforced shortly. "This is official policy, it should be enacted within two or three days," Faidul said.
Aid groups
Several aid groups from Denmark operate in Sudan, including the Danish Refugee Council and the Danish Red Cross, which runs large projects to alleviate human suffering in the western Darfur region.
Officials at the NCP, the president's party, said they expected a public announcement of the measures on Wednesday, when a large demonstration is planned in Khartoum against the Danish cartoon.
The drawing was one of 12 cartoons that sparked protests in Muslim countries when they were first published in 2006. Danish newspapers said they reprinted it this month in support of free speech after three men were arrested in an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist.
Al Bashir, who came to power in an Islamist and military coup in 1989, has imposed the Sharia law on northern Sudan, where large protests were held against the Danish cartoons.
Sudan is now setting up a committee to protect the Prophet from the "insults" and the "campaign led by some countries," Suna reported.
This new organisation, called "The Sudan Forum for Defending the Prophet Peace Be Upon Him," gathers government officials and Sudanese civil society, Suna said.
Hassan Osman Rizig, an NCP official, also called for more international coordination among Muslim and Arab states to "stand against these unjust attacks to which Islam and Muslims are being subjected".
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