Majority of Danes critical of controversial cartoons' republication, new poll shows

Posted by Kelley Vendeland on March 18, 2008 at 9:11 AM

Over half of Danes do not support the decision in February of several Danish newspapers to reprint a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, shows a poll published in Jyllands-Posten.

The poll, conducted by Ramboell Management, indicates that 58% of Danes disapprove of the republication. The newspapers decided to rerun the cartoon after police uncovered a suspected murder plot against the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard, reports the Daily Star.

The new figures represent a distinct change in Danish opinion from 2005, the year of the cartoons' original publication. Despite the intense fall-out from the original cartoons, approximately two in three Danes were in support of publishing them in the name of freedom of expression.

These findings come on the heels of recent EU concerns about increasingly stricter anti-religious defamation laws around the world, some instances of which, particularly in Muslim countries, are a result of the original publication of the cartoons.

Source: Daily Star