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New Bin Laden Message Focuses On European Publication of Muhammad Drawings

By Howard Friedman

Yesterday, a new message from Osama bin Laden was released on a militant website that has carried his statements in the past. It coincided with the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq. This time the message focused on "insulting drawings" of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in a Danish newspaper, and then elsewhere. The AP, CNS News and Al Jazeera all cover the story. The full text of the message (English translation) is available from the NEFA website.

In his message, bin Laden threatens Europe over the drawings, saying that their publication is a more serious matter than the bombing of "modest mud villages which have collapsed onto our women and children." He says that publication of the drawings "came in the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope and the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role." He also charges that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia could have put an end tho the publishing of the cartoons if he had wanted to exert his influence. Bin Laden rejects European reliance on freedom of speech to justify publication of the Muhammad drawings, pointing to laws in various European countries banning Holocaust denial, or, as he phrases it, laws that "suppress the freedom of those who cast doubt on the statistics of an historical event."

Full post as published by Religion Clause on March 20, 2008 (boomark / email).