Killer-cartoons?

Rangin Dadfar Spantan , Afghanistan’s minister of foreign affairs, didn’t mince words at a press conference in Copenhagen this week.

”Killder-pictures! Killer-words!” he said on Monday about the republishing of the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammed by 17 Danish papers after Danish police had foiled a plot to kill cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, author of the cartoon depicting Muhammed with a bomb fuse in his turban.

”I condemn in every possible way that the right to free speech is being used to insult one billion Muslims. It’s a result of islamophobia. Instead we need to use our right to free speech to enlighten our people and promote cultural dialogue that is being threathenend by two kinds of extremists: Those fighting on the battle field and those who are sitting behind their desks.”

He was comparing the Taleban to me and other editors in the Danish press and sounded like a commissar from a Soviet puppet regime. What does he know about a billion Muslims’ feelings?

Let me remind you that Mr. Spantan spent 20 years in Germany as a refugee from the Soviet occupation. He was a professor of political science at the university of Achen, and used to be an active member of the Green Party before he returned to his native country three years ago. So this is a man who should know better.

Fortunately, Denmark’s minister of foreign affairs Per Stig Moeller, didn’t let this kind of stupidity pass unnoticed.

”It’s difficult for me to put Danish soldiers’ life in danger in order to support a government where one is at risk to be condemned to death for values that we believe to be an inseparate part of democracy and the modern world.”

Denmark has several hundred soldiers in Afghanistan and a few have lost their life.