Book on Mohammed cartoons will go ahead: Danish editor

"The book will come out as planned," Karsten Blauert of Jyllands-Posten Editions told AFP.
"The Tyranny of Silence" is due out on Thursday, five years to the day the cartoons first appeared in Jyllands-Posten newspaper.

Although it will not reprint the drawings separately, its inside pages will feature "a picture of the front page of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper that had the Mohammed cartoons on it," Blauert said.

Asked about the possibility of a strong reaction to its publication, he said: "It's clear that a lot of things are happening, but everything is taking place as planned, and nothing will change that."

The book is by Flemming Rose, who was the Jyllands-Posten's cultural editor when on September 30, 2005, the newspaper ran its front-page spread featuring 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The drawings sparked outrage across the Muslim world and led to violent protests against Denmark and Danish interests in 2006. Rose himself has since received numerous death threats.

In an August interview Rose insisted he was not trying to be provocative with the new book, stressing that he simply wanted to "tell the story of the 12 drawings and put them into a context of (other) pictures considered offensive.
It was important to write the book because, he said: "Words should be answered with words.

"That's all we have in a democracy, and if we give that up we will be locked in a tyranny of silence."
Norwegian police said yesterday that an Iraqi Kurd being held in Norway on suspicion of planning bombings had admitted that his target was the Jyllands-Posten. (