Lars Vilks’ “Modog” Cartoons had al-Quaeda offer $100k for his Head
Monday, September 17th, 2007
Terrorism is the war of the poor, and War is the terrorism of the rich. — Peter Ustinov
Lars Vilks is a Swedish cartoonist who drew the series of cartoons entitled “modog” portraying prophet Muhammad with a dog’s body.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi – the leader of al-Quaeda in Iraq offered $100k bounty for the murder of Lars Vilks and additional $50k for Ulf Johansson, the chief editor of the Nerikes Allehanda where cartoons were published. al-Quaeda group further offered 50% bonus if Lars Vilks was “slaughtered like a lamb” – which means to have the throat cut.
Lars Vilks seems to be able to keep his cool and says: “It’s good to know how much one is worth”. Following the incident, another Swedish national daily paper – Dagens Nyheter republished the cartoon and its editor Thorbjörn Larsson said:
We live in a country where freedom of expression is not dictated by fundamentalists, nor by governments. To me, publishing it was the obvious thing to do.
al-Quaeda’s Abu Omar al-Baghdadi called Lars Vilks a criminal when he announced the $100k award be put on his head.
Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt initiated talks with ambassadors of Muslim based countries in Sweden in an attempt to defuse the tension. Free press and the right of free speech and expression are not punishable by Swedish law.
There certainly are risks and consequences involved when one exercised their right to expression. Just as you have the right to speak, so do they have the right to disagree. This is the point of free speech. And that’s what western civilizations are (or should be) all about – fundamental freedoms, such as the aforementioned freedom of speech, as well as freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of peaceful assembly and so forth. This freedom of speech right certainly gets misused by whiny little bitches who use word “censorship” each time somebody exercises their right to object, but that’s not the point.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi has made a reference to giant Swedish companies such as Ericcson, Scania, Volvo, Ikea, and Electrolux stating that al-Quaeda would strike the economy of these companies as part of their revenge against Lars Vilks’ cartoons. Now, if al-Quaeda said they were going to boycott Swedish products and companies, I could in a sense understand that as that is how you exercise your fundamental freedoms and you are entitled to choose who you do business with and who you don’t. But to put a price on the head of an artist???
