More Lars Vilks Cartoon Rage. Manufacturers will continue to be threatened, as will others, and Cartoon Rage will not ultimately end until Europe adopts Sharia blasphemy laws. “Ericsson Threatened by Al-qaeda in Iraq,” from Cellular News:
The Swedish telecoms manufacturer, Ericsson has apparently been threatened in an audio message hosted by an Islamist blog if the Swedish government did not apologize for a recent Swedish cartoon deemed to be insulting to Islam.
Last month, the Swedish newspaper, Nerikes Allehanda published a cartoon which depicted the Prophet, Muhammad as a dog. Over the weekend a message was posted on the Malaysia based, Al-ekhlaas website where the self-declared leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Sheikh Abu Omar al-Baghdadi offered a US$100,000 reward for whoever kills the Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks and a US$50,000 reward for the killing of the news editor, Ulf Johansson.
He further threatened Sweden with “an economic blow against your giant companies such as Ericsson, Scania, Volvo, Ikea, and Electrolux” if it did not repent for “its crime against the Prophet Muhammad.”
The Swedish daily, Dagens Nyheter itself reproduced the cartoon in smaller form as well over the weekend. “We live in a country where freedom of expression is not dictated by fundamentalists, nor by governments,” wrote Dagens Nyheter chief editor in an editorial. “Dagens Nyheter has already published the cartoon. To me, publishing it was the obvious thing to do.”
It should be obvious to all Western newspapers.