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Osama: Offenders must be killed
24/04/2006 15:58 - (SA)
Dubai - Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has called for people who ridiculed Prophet Muhammad to be killed, weighing into the furore that erupted after a Danish newspaper ran cartoons lampooning Islam's holy messenger.
The Saudi-born militant said: "Heretics and atheists, who denigrate religion and transgress against God and His Prophet, will not stop their enmity towards Islam except by being killed."
Bin Laden's remarks were part of an audiotape, which Al Jazeera television aired excerpts from on Sunday. The television station later published a full transcript on its website.
The Doha-based satellite television channel had aired excerpts of the tape in which bin Laden accused the West of waging a "Crusader-Zionist" war against Islam, citing the isolation of the Hamas-led Palestinian government and the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region as examples.
Cartoons sparked violent protests
Anger over the cartoons, which a Danish newspaper first published last year, outraged Muslims who considered drawings of the Prophet to be blasphemous.
The caricatures, which were reprinted in several Arab and European newspapers, sparked violent protests in which more than 50 people were killed. Consumers in Muslim countries had also boycotted Danish goods.
Denmark's government had refused to apologise for the cartoons, saying it couldn't say sorry on behalf of a free and independent media and that freedom of speech was sacred.
Bin Laden said: "The insistence of the Danish government to refrain from apologising and its refusal to punish the criminals and take action to prevent this crime from being repeated... shows that the notions of freedom of speech have no roots, especially when it comes to Muslims."
- Reuters
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