We received this note of appreciation from Mohammed Al-Asadi , formerly the editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer:

A million Thanks to the “American Daughter” and to everybody who has shown care and concerns for my situation during my imprisonment and trial. The trial is still ongoing and the newspaper is also closed down. We can’t print the newspaper up till this moment, we only work on the website www.yobserver.com

Thanks for you all. I am really indebted to you all!

The print version of the Yemen Observer was closed by the Yemeni authorities when they published small thumbnail pictures of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. The on-line version continues its excellent English language coverage of events in Yemen here:

Al-Asadi has resigned his position with that paper to spare them further government reprisals, and has started his own on-line newspaper, which is currently under development:

It is awe-inspiring to consider the courage of this man, who continues to practice his profession of journalism while his ongoing trial before the corrupt Yemeni authorities threatens to end his life. He stands among Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi, Oriana Fallaci, Thomas Paine and others in his crafting of words as a force for freedom.

Here are some remarks from his announcement for his new venture:

Yemen Mirror is a newly born English language newspaper. It emerges within the most difficult times for the freedom of expression in the Republic of Yemen.

The Mirror seeks to be recognized as Yemen’s first real independent newspaper published online in English from within Yemen. It aims to provide professional and objective coverage to all news and current affairs with equal opportunities for diverse opinions.

The Mirror is founded and headed by Mohammed Al-Asadi, a Yemeni journalist who quite recently served about two weeks in the prison in accusation of republishing the controversial Danish cartoons.

Our previous coverage of the events in Yemen is here.

Comprehensive background and a good Blogosphere round-up from thirty days ago can be found in Michelle Malkin‘s archives here.

One weblog which continues to provide comprehensive ongoing coverage of the situation in Yemen is Armies of Liberation. We recommend frequent visits.

We are extremely privileged to publish an article by Danish clinical psychologist Richardt Thomas Lionheart, A conference of literature on the cartoons and the clash of cultures. We encourage our readers to study his thoughtful exegesis of all twelve Jyllands-Posten cartoons and particibate in the conversation that he invites.

The cartoon controversy began when Danish author KÃ¥re Bluitgen sought an illustrator for a children’s book he had written about the life of Mohammed. When he tried to find an artist to illustrate the book, he discovered that his fellow Danes were frightened of the project. Eventually an artist agreed, on condition of anonymity, and the book was completed. You can see the illustrations here:

The episode exposed a growing fear of free expression in Denmark, brought on by a perceived threat from their immigrant Islamic population. Concerned about the loss of this basic human right, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten drew a “line in the sand.” Late last September the editor offered about forty artists an opportunity to draw editorial cartoons of Mohammed. Only twelve had the courage to accept, and now they are in fear for their lives.

The original twelve cartoons were well-done, in terms of the western tradition of humor as political commentary. The Danish Islamic imams added three egregiously offensive images to the collection themselves, one being an adaptation of a French newspaper article about a completely unrelated pig-calling contest.

Having thus misrepresented the situation, the Danish imams then travelled throughout the middle East stirring up hatred for their Danish hosts, partially on the basis of this false information. They instigated damaging attacks against the economy of the country that had welcomed them as guests.

Returning to Denmark, they sought to pursue legal action in the Danish court system. On March 15, their case in the Danish court system was dismissed. From Rigsadvokaten:

The Decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions in the case of Jyllands-Posten’s Article “The Face of Muhammed”

I have today decided not to institute criminal proceedings in the case of Jyllands-Posten’s article “The Face of Muhammed”, which was published on 30 September 2005 and where complaints were filed against Jyllands-Posten for violation of Sections 140 and 266 b of the Danish Criminal Code. My decision is that there is no violation of the said rules of the Danish Criminal Code….

My decision in the matter cannot be appealed to a higher administrative authority. This follows from Section 99(3) of the Danish Administration of Justice Act.

Henning Fode

Freedom of expression is protected under Danish law, and so the imams essentially had no case. It is the duty of the Danish Director of Public Prosecutions to refuse cases that would simply be a waste of the taxpayer’s money. So now the imams are taking their case to the United Nations. From The Brussels Journal (article here):

The Islamic Faith Community, an umbrella organisation of 27 radical Muslim organisations in Denmark, is lodging a complaint against the state of Denmark with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva …. The reason for the complaint is [the] refusal of the Danish director of public prosecutions to press criminal charges against Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published 12 Muhammad cartoons in September 2005….

The western countries have traditionally valued freedom of expression. Presumably the Islamic population of Denmark knew that when they immigrated to that country which so kindly welcomed them. Now they are cast in the light of ungratefully biting the hand that feeds them. One publication guesses at the real motives of the Danish imams:

Those who believe that the whole issue has to do with 12 cartoons are naïve. Denmark is being punished for its alleged Islamophobia. Its crime is not the publication of 12 drawings in Jyllands-Posten, a paper in the rural province of Jutland. Its crime is the staunch refusal of the Danish Vikings to allow Muslim immigrants to impose their laws upon their host country.

In short, the radical Islamists are seen as intending to infiltrate and take over the western countries. Against this background, there are reasonable scholars from both the western and eastern traditions who are calling for dialog and understanding. We are deeply pleased to have the opportunity to publish one of them.

References:

Here is a complete list of our coverage.

The coverage by the Blogosphere in general has been summarized in a “trackback” listing by Michele Malkin.

Weblogs linking to this article:

CommonSenseAmerica
United Conservatives of Virginia

Eleven days ago, we posted an article about the death-penalty trial of Mohammed Al-Asadi, the editor of the leading Yemeni English-language newspaper. In case you missed the background information, you can read our original report:

One weblog that continues to provide excellent coverage of this affair is Agora. We urge our readers to remain current by reading all of their recent article

A lengthy interview with Al-Asadi was published in Danish-language Information. The good folk at Agora have kindly provided a translation into English. Here’s an excerpt:

Mohammed al-Asadi had become a known face in Yemen: He had been presented as a criminal on national TV and in government-friendly newspapers. He was also a known face outside of Yemen: Newsweek did a telephone interview with him in prison where they called him a “martyr for the free press” and BBC World has told his story. This Friday Mohammed al-Asadi didn’t wish to be recognised. All he wanted to do was to go to Friday Prayers, so he walked towards a Mosque in a part of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, where he doesn’t usually go:

“When I entered, I bowed my head and listened. The preacher warned against a terrible sinner among us, against one in Yemen who has dishonored our religion and our prophet. He talked of how disgraceful this man was. I realised that I was who he was talking about. I was their sinner. I dared not lift my head. I covered my head with my scarf and looked down. There and then I realised how bad things are. If the others in the Mosque had recognised me, they would have killed me. With their shoes if they had nothing else to do it with.”

Do you want to know, dear readers, how truly incompetent the CBS journalism is?

On the evening of February 19, 2006, the CBS program 60 Minutes discussed the cartoon controversy in Denmark. (Transcript here.) In a piece titled The State Of Denmark, Correspondent Bob Simon gave a biased presentation that misrepresented the situation so egregiously that many Danish citizens, journalists, and bloggers were offended.

The next day one of the Danish folk who had seen the broadcast wrote to Michelle Malkin. She posted his fairly long letter in which he contradicted the CBS portrayal of Denmark:

….as I am anxious to let off steam I hope you don’t mind me writing to you….The reason for my upset is the CBS ’60 Minutes’ programme of last night. You see, I have always enjoyed this programme thinking it was based on sound journalistic research. But now I have gotten serious doubts.

This time I am in a position to judge the validity of the statements about Denmark made in the programme by Bob Simon as I am Danish and have followed the cartoon issue since the beginning….

Expose the Left was quick to point out the bias in the television program:

February 20, 2006
60 Minutes Piece Makes Danish Look Responsible for Muslim Riots

On last night’s edition of 60 Minutes, correspondant Bob Simon did the first investigative report about the Mohammed cartoons and how they have effected the Muslim world. In an extremely sarcastic tone, Simon referred to the Danish newspaper who published the cartoons as a “bastion of free speech”. The report makes Denmark look like an unfriendly country….

Kim Priestap summed up the situation with one well-aimed sentence:

It is unfair for the Danes to be portrayed the way they were by 60 Minutes. It’s slanted journalism at its worst.

Five days later, Blue Star Chronicles drew the obvious comparison between the Danish fairy tale and the bad journalism:

The Emperor’s New Clothes
Saturday, February 25, 2006

I watched a 60 Minutes segment the other night in which Bob Simon ‘investigated’ the roots of the Cartoon Riots. With an air of authority and superiority, he portrayed the Danes as child-like and living in a land of fantasy. He implied the whole affair had been set off by the naivete of the Danish nation. He implied the Danes were shocked by the realities of the world focused on them. Oh really? As I was watching this display of overt propaganda, I was seroiusly offended….

Yesterday, the Danish blog Punditokraterne posted a terrific response by a highly respected and impeccably credentialed Danish journalist. Samuel Rachlin, a Danish TV anchor, is a graduate of Copenhagen University and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and the Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. From his guest commentary on the blog:

The Correspondent’s New Clothes
By Samuel Rachlin

The picture of Denmark presented by CBS and its 60 Minutes magazine on American TV as a country of aggrandizing, arrogant bigots, blond models and happy-go-lucky fools out of tune and touch with the real world has nothing in common with the country I call home….

This kind of journalism does not have much in common with the tradition of Ed R. Murrow or what his associate, Fred Friendly, taught me at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University when I took my degree there in the late 70ies. The snide asides and sarcasm that permeated the narrative do not mix with the high quality journalism I have learned to expect from 60 Minutes. What we got was a presentation so biased, distorted and corrupted by so many inaccuracies and innuendos that it was impossible to recognize Denmark. I am sorry to say it, but it is shameful for the profession that both Bob Simon and I belong to….

We urge our readers to visit Punditokraterne and read all of this excellent article.

We first discovered this piece through a post at Pia Causa, so a tail wag goes to that blog.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006
60 Minutes: Go Dig Your Grave

Samuel Rachlin is sharp and to the point, – and he sums it up on behalf of all of us….

Do you want to know, dear readers, how truly incompetent the CBS journalism is? When we studied journalism (as an elective, not our main field of endeavor) we learned that the first rule was — to spell the last name of the subject correctly. If you got nothing else right, if you couldn’t spell, if you were dreadful at grammar, at least write down the last name of the person being written about, and make sure it was spelled correctly. Our teacher called it “the first rule of journalism.”

The whole cartoon controversy began when a Danish author of books for children had difficulty finding an illustrator who was willing to draw the pictures for the book. So this author is at the heart of the whole story. His name is KÃ¥re Bluitgen.

Here are some paragraphs from the CBS transcript:

….The riots, reaching from Jerusalem to Jakarta, can all be traced back to the most unlikely of places: a cluttered work space in the apartment of Kare Buitgen, a writer of children’s books.

“Well, it’s sad to see what happens now,” Buitgen says. “I wrote a book about the Prophet Muhammad to promote better understanding between cultures and religions here in Denmark.”

Buitgen had trouble finding someone to illustrate his book. Muslims don’t permit representations of their prophet, and illustrators were afraid of offending the Muslim community in Denmark.

Buitgen’s problem became known to the editors of Denmark’s largest newspaper. Its cultural editor, Flemming Rose, said he was offended by what he called this self-censorship. He explained himself in an interview that aired on the BBC….

CBS consistently misspells Bluitgen’s last name.

Previous coverage:

The Jyllands-Posten Cartoons: article

The Jyllands-Posten Editorial Cartoons: images

The Jyllands-Posten Cartoon Wars, A Perspective: article

Origins Of The Cartoon Wars: article

The Bluitgen Illustrations: images

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. They also have one of the highest birthrates in the world, a fact not unrelated to their poverty. There is little arable land in this country plagued by frequent sandstorms, where the average age of the approximately 21 million inhabitants is less than seventeen.

Merging the northern and southern parts of the country in 1990, Yemenis have tried to put in place the elements of democracy with their recently forged constitution. It calls for a republic, with universal suffrage over the age of eighteen. Supported by World Bank initiatives and favorable deals from the International Monetary Fund, they had been struggling to become a modern country. Although the national language is Arabic, beginning in the seventh grade, English is taught in the public schools.

However, in order to grow and prosper, a nation needs a forum for the free and honest exchange of ideas. And this Yemen does not have. Their legal system is not secular, as are the judiciaries of some of the more prosperous Arab neighbors. It comprises two branches, a commercial court system and a general system based on the Quran. The latter is the source of their present shame.

After a promising start, Yemen has in recent years been backsliding into a morass of governmental corruption led by greedy politicians. A notable characteristic of this decay is the persecution of Yemeni jouralists, who might expose the rot at the core of Yemen’s hope for the future.

Abdul-Mahid al-Zindani is the leader of the Islamist political party and a member of the current government, the Chairman of Islah Shura Council (judiciary). He has imprisoned Mohammed Al-Asadi, the editor of the leading Yemeni English-language newspaper. The print operations of the Yemen Observer have also been suspended. (The talented journalists associated with the newspaper have so far managed to keep their website edition online.) And al-Zindani has commissioned a team of 21 lawyers to prosecute the case and seek the death penalty for the editor.

Al-Zindani is a leading radical Islamic cleric in Yemen. He is the founder and leader of the Al Iman University in Sanaa, Yemen, whose 5,000 strong student body is recognized as a breeding ground for terrorists. He is a known associate of Osama bin Laden, linked to financing and weapons procurement for al Qaeda. Two years ago he was officially named a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States government.

So the classical battle lines are drawn. There is the greedy politician, using religious rhetoric to dupe an impoverished populace out of their oil revenues, with all the power of the government at his disposal. And there is the educated newspaper editor who could potentially expose him, with only the now-silenced power of his pen, sitting apparantly helpless in a jail system notorious for human rights abuse. Vaclav Havel, Lech Walensa, and Nelson Mandela have been there before him.

The world cannot afford to sit idly by and watch this drama play out. The world is too “flat,” we are too interconnected. Every citizen of the globe who understands the practical value of freedom of expression has a personal stake in the outcome. As a minimum, we urge all of our readers to express their concern to their US Congressperson and to their two US Senators.

Yemen maintains an embassy in the United States. Contact them.

Embassy of the Republic of Yemen
2319 Wyoming Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20008
Telephone: (202) 965-4760
Fax: (202) 337-2017

Remind them of the statement made by their President in his innaugural speech a scant two years ago:

President Ali Abdullah Saleh
January 11, 2004

“Democracy is the choice of the modern age for all peoples of the world and the rescue ship for political regimes particularly in our third world. It is the way to achieve security, stability, development and better future for our countries.”

“Human rights are tightly connected to democracy and the state of law and order. Therefore, we should remove anything that contradict them and stand against all forms of discrimination, oppression and exploitation for the human being and his rights.”….

A lengthy list of United States companies doing business in Yemen can be found here. Express your concerns to the public relations departments of these companies. If you are a stockholder in any of them, communicate with the boards of directors.

It is too easy to respond to the offenses of militant Islamofascists with a knee-jerk reaction. The sound-bite observer sees battle lines drawn between Judeo-Christian culture and Islamic peoples. This patterns after the memories of Allies versus Axis (WWII) or the Free World versus Communism (Cold War).

But the looming Armageddon is much more complex in demographics, and much more epic in meaning. One “army” is a coalition of brain-washing theocrats who would take the entire globe back to the Dark Ages. Standing against them are men of good will everywhere, of all faiths, who believe in essential human dignity and want to move the world into a harmonious and prosperous future.

There are insurgents who blow buildings up, and there are masons who construct them. There are imams who program young minds with hate, and caring educators who teach wonder, curiosity, and imagination. There are terrorists who maim and behead, and there are health care workers who heal. There are destroyers, and there are builders.

No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Additional references:

Newsweek: ‘Of Course I’m Afraid’ — an interview with the prisoner

Pia Causa: Demands for Capital Penalty for Al-Asadi

Freedom’s Zone: Help Save A Man’s Life: Yemen editor faces capital punishment for printing cartoons.

From MEMRI:

Wafa Sultan: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete….

Yemen: Failure or Democracy?

….A variety of international organizations and reports have highlighted increasingly dysfunctional Yemeni institutions and governance….Transparency International has noted widespread and growing corruption, ranking Yemen near the bottom of the corruption scale. The qualification assessment for the US funded Millennium Challenge Account determined the Yemeni regime has moved backwards from previous assessments….Yemen exhibits many symptoms of a failing state….

Yemen: An Attack On All

Much discussion lately has been centered on what limits a responsible media should place on itself. At the other end of the spectrum remains the burning issue of censorship, propaganda and governmental limitations on the flow of information to the public. For some years the reformist posture of the Yemeni regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh had credibility internationally because of the existence of a lively Yemeni press. One reason confidence in Saleh’s commitment to democratization has diminished is a prolonged and systematic assault on Yemeni journalists, as an informative press is the bedrock of a government run by the people….

Around the world, militant Islamists are letting us know that they are offended by the humorous editorial cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. Our leftwing liberals are pandering to them, and our media mindlessly endorse their grounds for grievance. Truth to tell, they have very little ground to stand on. This Photoshop artist asks:

This article comes from the Jewish World Review. Read all of it.

Source.

It is always interesting to see the difference between people who are clearly at peace with their faith and their world, and those who are clearly at War with them. This is revealed in the comment submissions to American Daughter regarding the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.

People of real faith generally exhibit greater strenght of purpose and clarity of thought, whilst those who are troubled show great confusion and hatred. The point most fundamentalists misunderstand is that it is not only the Islamic Terrorists who are prepared to die for their beliefs. However, as with most fascist-based ideological organisations, this particular group attempts to claim all Muslims to their cause. But in fact such claims are both misguided and disingenuous as is shown in many of the responses.

Someone should tell them that it always requires much more courage to live for your beliefs than to die for them. And that even the terrorists own living prophet, Osama Bin Laden, believes rightly or wrongly that he is worth much more alive than dead and currently suffers the life of a hunted animal because of it.

Their lack of understanding of either history or faith means that most modern Islamofascists are unaware that during the Crusades it was the Saracen Knight who was erudite and educated and it was the Christian Knight who was a barbarian.

So sad then that the roles of the men and women at arms are now reversed when the skills of philosophy, theology, poetry, and healing are required more than ever .

It should be clear to any theologian of any faith that a greater god would easily be able to reveal its presence to different individual people and different cultures in different and appropriate ways. Consequently if we seek to apply the rules of misguided mortals to an omnipotent being it is hardly surprising that all we do is reflect our own failings, insecurities and biases.

With a greater god it is easy to allow that both one true faith for yourself and many true faiths for other people are all correct at the same time in the same world. People of real faith are therefore at ease with themselves and each other because their god is greater.

Furthermore, free will is a gift of God in all faiths. As such, the removal of information through either censorship or self-censorship in most adult arenas effectively removes the ability to exercise that free will and consequently insults both the gift and the gift-giver.

As the saying goes, “All it takes for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.”

And it is therefore a Pox on both our houses that the majority of the mainstream Islamic press and our own sit back and do nothing, or pander to the radicals on all sides, rather than stand up and give voice to the vast majority of decent and peaceful humanity.

Vive ut Vivas.

We had this article on our Front Page last fall, when the translation into English first appeared. But it is worth revisiting at this time, because of the controversy about the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. This is a summary of an article printed last fall in a Spanish newspaper, but it applies to most countries of western Europe.

One friend who discussed this with me said he did so with some trepidation, as some of it could be considered racist. I think not. I think that the appeasement attempted with so many people is the root cause of division and racism. This isn’t racism, its bare, naked truth, that will probably put Mr. Rodrigez on a death list.

All European life died in Auschwitz
By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth, Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride. They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts. And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

Source.

The Internet just doesn’t get any better than this:

This contest drew a huge response, and many of the entries are as clever as only the free world pundits can be. Here’s one:

“I added more power, but she still says she wouldn’t be caught dead in that vest.”

This is for VDoc, who said:

This should be a response for any new Islamasist bombings, kidnappings, etc.

Simply make it clear that all will be met with an avalanche of cartoons, parodies, posters, songs, slogans … and that there will be no limits whatsoever on mocking their old and new leaders.

That they will be published all over the world, that untold thousands of papers, blogs, handbills, grafitti, etc. will bloom….