UK Muslim leaders call for law change, ban on publication of Muhammad cartoons News
UK Muslim leaders call for law change, ban on publication of Muhammad cartoons

[JURIST] In response to the publication of Muhammad caricatures [JURIST news archive] in European newspapers, British Muslim leaders on Wednesday called for the UK Parliament [official website] to amend the country's Race Relations Act [text; backgrounder] to protect Muslims as well as Jews and Sikhs, and to change the rules governing the Press Complaints Commission [official website] allowing it to ban British newspapers from publishing the blasphemous cartoons. The leaders praised the press from refraining to publish the cartoons so far and announced a protest march in London for February 18.

The cartoons, originally printed in a Danish newspaper in September, were recently reprinted in leading newspapers [JURIST report] in France, Germany, Spain and other European countries. Muslim Action Committee spokesperson Shaikh Faiz Saddiqi compared the cartoons with the impact on Islam of Salman Rushdie’s controversial 1988 book The Satanic Verses [Wikipedia backgrounder]. From the UK, the Guardian has local coverage.