Tutu steps into cartoon row

2006-02-09 12:01

Nairobi - Former Anglican archbishop and Nobel peace laureate Desmond Tutu appealed on Thursday for Muslims to forgive the offence caused by cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad and reject violence.

Tutu, who remains a powerful international moral authority despite his retirement, expressed empathy with the anger caused by the publication in Europe of the cartoons but said violent protests were unacceptable.

"We are in deep distress at what has proved to be offensive to our brothers and sisters of the Muslim faith," he told a meeting of the All-Africa Conference of Churches in the Kenyan capital.

"It is our message of hope that they will be able to find it within themselves in the end to forgive what has upset them," Tutu said, noting that Christians would take offence at similar portrayals of Jesus Christ and Jews at Holocaust revisionism.

"Our hearts are pleading with them to be persuaded for peace," said Tutu, who was in Nairobi for the launch of a "Desmond Tutu Centre" by the church conference. "If their protests (are to) continue, let them be peaceful and dignified."

The cartoons, deemed blasphemous, first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September but have since been reprinted in other European publications, sparking violent protests in the Muslim world in which several people have been killed.

South African Muslims are to stage protests outside Danish missions in Cape Town on Thursday and in Pretoria on Friday.

South Africa, which has a Muslim population of some 1.5m, said on Wednesday it understood Muslim outrage over the cartoons.

- AFP