THE Danish media and Government have accused a group of Danish imams of stoking up the “cartoon wars” by touring the Middle East with a dossier to seek international support for their protest.

The clerics, whose trip was organised by Imam Abu Laban, of the Islamic Belief Society, were accused of showing more offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad than those published by the daily Jyllands-Posten, including one of Muhammad looking like a pig and another of him having sex with a dog.

Although Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons last September, the wrath of the Islamic world did not fall on Denmark until after the imams’ tour in December and last month.

As the row escalated, Danes blamed their Muslim minority for fuelling the furore, in which Danish embassies have been attacked and Danish companies boycotted across the Middle East. Newspapers in almost 30 countries have now printed the original pictures of Muhammad, one of which shows him wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, has already angrily accused the imams of “double speak” in telling Arab media not to buy Danish goods, while insisting in the Danish media that they do not support the boycott.

Mr Rasmussen said: “Some people are speaking with two tongues. The Government watches the news circulated in Arabic countries very carefully so we can catch these false stories and correct them immediately.”

The centre-right Government said yesterday that it would exclude the imams from talks on integrating ethnic minorities. Rikke Hvilshoj, the Integration Minister, said: “I think we have a clear picture today that it’s not the imams we should be placing our trust in if we want integration in Denmark to work.”

The integration of ethnic minorities has become a priority for the Danish Government, which has also introduced some of the strictest immigration controls in Europe. Out of a population of 5.4 million, Denmark has 180,000 Muslims.

Resentment of Muslims has led to a surge of support for the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), which has described Islam as a terrorist religion and has said that it is an inferior civilisation.

Mr Rasmussen’s Government relies on the support of the DPP, whose leader, Pia Kjaersgaard, wrote in a newsletter this week: “The seeds of weeds have come to Denmark — Islamists and liars — who have fuelled the lethal fire through their tour of the Middle East. We will deal with them.”

Jyllands-Posten drew back yesterday from breaking another taboo. The newspaper had planned to call the bluff of an Iranian newspaper and print cartoons about the Holocaust.

The Tehran newspaper Hamshahri, which has close links to the Iranian regime, had accused the West of double standards in denigrating Islam while being frightened of appearing anti-Semitic. It announced a competition for Holocaust cartoons.

Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of Jyllands-Posten, who commissioned the 12 cartoons of Muhammad in the name of freedom of speech, said that he would print the Iranian cartoons. But last night his Editor-in-Chief, Carsten Juste, trumped him. “Jyllands-Posten does not want to publish Holocaust drawings of an Iranian newspaper under any circumstances,” Mr Juste said.

“I have committed an error,” Mr Rose admitted later. “I am 100 per cent with the newspaper’s line and Carsten Juste in this case.”

A WORLD OF ANGER

IRAN

Hundreds of demonstrators pelted the British Embassy in Tehran with stones yesterday. About 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Danish Embassy, calling for the expulsion of the Ambassador

FRANCE

President Chirac condemned “obvious provocations” after the Paris weekly Charlie Hebdo reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and published one of its own

AMERICA

“I have no doubt that Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and have used this for their own purposes,” Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, said. President Bush called for an end to the violence but noted that press freedom should be exercised with sensitivity

AFGHANISTAN

Police shot and killed four protesters to stop hundreds from storming a US military base in the southern town of Qalat

TURKEY

For a second day police interrogated the suspected killer of an Italian Roman Catholic priest. The suspect, 16, apparently told interrogators that he killed Father Andrea Santoro to avenge the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet

WEST BANK

European observers pulled out of Hebron after their offices were attacked

NORWAY

Formally protested to Syria over the attack on its Embassy in Damascus last weekend

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