The Danish artist whose Mohammed cartoons sparked a fury in the Islamic world has told a Dutch newspaper he will give up drawing cartoons. Kurt Westergaard told regional daily De Limburger that “there are too many people now who are forced to live in isolation because of my cartoons”.
Mr Westergaard, who is 75, published a number of satirical drawings of the Prophet Mohammed in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten. He has received a number of death threats since the cartoons appeared. On New Year’s Day 2010 a Somali attacker attempted to kill Mr Westergaard in his home, in the presence of one of his granddaughters. Since the attacks Mr Westergaard is under the constant protection of security guards.
The cartoonist told the Dutch newspaper that he was “sent away on an involuntary holiday” in November by his employer, the Jyllands Posten. “I repeatedly asked people on the newspaper staff whether I constituted a security risk and had to stop working. They always said, no, you aren’t. But since November, it feels like I am. I’ll be talking to them again soon. But I already know I will stop making cartoons.”
Some of the drawings showed the Muslim Prophet carrying a bomb in his turban, in an allusion to terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists. The publication of the cartoons in 2005 led to a fierce debate between people who found the drawings blasphemous, and those who wanted to uphold the universal freedom of speech.
