Newspaper begs Islam's forgiveness

In a front-page story headlined *"*Politiken reaches agreement in Prophet Mohammed Cartoon case", the Danish daily has announced that it had settled a dispute with eight organisations representing 94,923 descendents of the Prophet Mohammad. In accordance with the agreement, Politikenpublicly apologised for offending any Muslims by publishing the political cartoons, which set off a wave of violent protests in the Arab and Islamic world. However, the left-centre daily did not apologise for having published the cartoons and did not relinquish its right to reprint them.

The cartoons were originally published in *Jyllands-Posten, another Danish publication, in September 2005. They were reprinted in several Danish newspapers in 2008, following an assassination attempt against the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard. In August 2009, a lawyer representing the several organisations of Prophet Mohammed descendents wrote 11 Danish papers asking them to remove the cartoons from their Internet sites, publish a public apology in their print editions and promise to never reprint the cartoons. Politiken's compromise agreement was met with strong disapproval in the Danish press. "Politiken has abandoned the battle for freedom of speech," said the editor and chief of Jyllands-Posten*. "It has surrendered, surrendered to threats. It's shameful."