OIC chief flays Danish government

Riyadh: The secretary general of the Organisation of Islamic Conference compared the wave of protests raging in the Muslim world over the blasphemous cartoons to the world reaction to the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

He also blamed the arrogance of the Danish government for aggravating the situation.

"The Danish government behaved with a superiority complex and treated the issue carelessly until the people took up the issue," he said. Ekmal Al Deen Ihsanoglu made these remarks while addressing a seminar held at the court of prominent Saudi writer Abdul Maqsood Khoja in Jeddah.

Several other well-known figures, including Arab and Saudi intellectuals and authors attended the function. The OIC chief commended the people of Saudi Arabia for launching a massive protest against insults aimed at the Prophet.

"The people of Saudi Arabia started an Islamic revolution against those who had hurt their religious sentiments and Islamic values. The Saudi boycott of Danish products, which was followed by other Arab and Muslim communities, was really a turning point in Islamic history. We took a firm decision in a matter involving mockery of the Prophet, even though this position was weakened to a certain extent because of the violent incidents like the attack on some European embassies."

Addressing the seminar, Ihsanoglu gave a detailed description of the steps taken by OIC to solve the stalemate from the very first day.

"In the beginning, we tried to convince the Danish government about the gravity of the issue and asked them to persuade the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which carried the offensive cartoons, to apologise. But their reply was that it was an issue between the Muslims and the newspaper.

"Then, we requested the government to entertain the Muslim ambassadors who want to explain the issue to the concerned government officials. The Danish government had rejected this request too," he said.

According to Ihsanoglu, OIC, after failure of all these efforts, contacted the Danish prime minister to intervene in the issue.

"However, his reaction was also the same. He expressed the government's inability to intervene in a matter involving freedom of expression. The prime minister also told us to take the matter to court. Therefore, we approached the United Nations seeking justice on the issue," he said.

The OIC chief observed that the Danish government's reaction to the UN Human Rights Committee's report on the issue was also disgusting.

"This negative approach prompted OIC to take a decision to boycott an exhibition on Middle East and dialogue of civilisations that were to be organised by the Danish government," he added.