Authorities Rally Around Lars Vilks

An incident of potential offense, whereby a Swedish newspaper ran a picture by artist Lars Vilks where Muhammed was depicted as a dog, that late last week seemed to be playing itself out in a rational flurry of meetings and listening and expression of societal principles, blew up like a canister of paint in a bag of money on Saturday when it was reported that an extremist group was offering a bounty for the killing of Vilks and the newspaper editor. In fact, there were gradations of offers from the group, whose shorthand press designation seems to be Al Qaeda in Iraq, including a 50 percent bonus is throat-cutting were involved, which I guess is sort of the "nothing but net" of assassination or something like that. Free speech advocates and those at least slightly irked by the thought of monetized throat-cutting as a stand-in for a letter to the editor have let their position of support be more widely known.

You can hear one of the editors here. Swedish firms have been put on alert to watch out for sudden violence. Lars Vilks is now in hiding. The Algerian ambassador to Sweden criticizes the violence represented by the bounty here.
 
posted 3:55 am PST | Permalink
 

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