Protests express frustration with the West, cleric says

Matthew Schofield, Knight… Protests express frustration with the West, cleric says

Matthew Schofield, Knight Ridder Newspapers

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – The Muslim cleric blamed for instigating protests over a dozen cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad said Tuesday that he never intended for rioters to attack Danish embassies and businesses in the Middle East and that he was crying for Denmark.

But Ahmed Abu-Laban, who leads a mosque in Copenhagen’s Muslim neighborhood, also said Danish officials brought the crisis on themselves by not responding to initial protests and that he didn’t feel responsible for the way the dispute had developed.

“People credit me with far more power than I have,” Abu-Laban said. “The people rioting are not rioting in my name. They’ve never heard of me. They are furious because of the insult to Muhammad.”

The cartoons, which were first published in Denmark in September, have led to angry demonstrations in the Middle East and Asia and a commercial boycott of Danish products in several Middle Eastern countries. The demonstrators say the cartoons violate Muslim prohibitions against creating images of Muhammad.

Last weekend, protesters set fire to the Danish embassies in Damascus, Syria and Beirut, Lebanon. Demonstrations continued Tuesday in Afghanistan, where U.N. peacekeepers killed five protesters, and Iran, where demonstrators stormed the Danish embassy in Tehran.

In a wide-ranging, two-hour interview with Knight Ridder, Abu-Laban acknowledged that he began contacting Muslims in the Middle East late last year in an effort to build pressure on the Danish government to condemn the cartoons.

“European politicians want Muslim votes,” he said. “We were running a campaign, trying to create pressure.”

Abu-Laban said he’d helped organize visits to Egypt and Lebanon, where he and other Muslims from Denmark displayed the cartoons. He said the visits were aimed at garnering political support, not inciting riots.

“We did not go to incite people,” he said. “We did not go to the cafes to whip up support. We targeted rectors, scholars, mufti (experts in Islamic law), learned men of Islam who could help us to make heard our point in a place where officials have little time for religion.”

When the protests turned violent, he said, he felt sympathy for Denmark.

“I cry for Denmark. I cry for the Danish people,” he said.

But he was unrepentant, and blamed the West’s view of Islam as the primary cause of the violence.

“This protest is not about the cartoons, offensive as they are,” he said. “The cartoons are merely the final drop that caused the cup to overflow. The Muslim faith has been under attack for years. There has been intense psychological pressure on Muslims. We have heard Western politicians relate our faith to terrorism, over and over again, and it is too much. This was the response.”

Northwestern University rips Holocaust denial

Jodi S. Cohen, Chicago Tribune

Northwestern University president Henry Bienan said Monday that a professor’s recent comments denying the Holocaust happened are “a contemptible insult to all decent and feeling people” and an embarrassment to the university.

Bienan’s response comes days after tenured engineering professor Arthur Butz commented in the Tribune and in the Iranian press, agreeing with Iranian president Mahmound Ahmadinejad’s assertions that the Holocaust is a “myth.”

Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency and the English-language Tehran Times have published Butz’s comments, promoting the Northwestern professor as one of the world scholars who support the Iranian president. Ahmadinejad, who also has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” recently ordered the restart of uranium enrichment, raising fears that Tehran could try to build a nuclear weapon.

Butz’s comments did not address the Iranian president’s statements about present-day Israel or uranium enrichment.

“While I hope everyone understands that Butz’s opinions are his own and in no way represent the views of the University or me personally, his reprehensible opinions on this issue are an embarrassment to Northwestern,” Bienan said in a statement that was to be e-mailed Monday night to all Northwestern students, faculty and staff.

Meanwhile, Hillel, the Jewish student organization at Northwestern, purchased a full-page advertisement published Tuesday in The Daily Northwestern student newspaper. Hillel also called for a community meeting Tuesday night to address the topic: “Why does the Holocaust matter? How do we ensure that ‘never again’ means never again?”

“We’re frustrated because we feel forced to take action, but we don’t want to dignify his lunacy with a response,” according to the ad.

Butz, a tenured Northwestern professor since 1974, is known for denying the Nazi killing of six million Jews during World War II. He promotes his views through his Northwestern-affiliated Web site, including a link to his 1976 book, “The Hoax of the 20th Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry.”

Butz told the Tribune last week that he e-mailed comments to the Mehr News Agency after he was approached by an Iranian journalist.

He wrote that the Holocaust didn’t happen, that it is a “deliberately contrived falsehood” and that its promulgation was motivated by the desire to create a Jewish state in the Middle East. About Ahmadinejad, he wrote: “I congratulate him on becoming the first head of state to speak out clearly on these issues and regret only that it was not a Western head of state.” He posted the same comments on his Web site.

Northwestern sophomore Stuart Loren, a history major from Highland Park, commended Bienan’s response but said it wasn’t enough. He wants the university to revoke Butz’s university-provided Web site.

“This is so historically inaccurate and so biased that I think the university might need to do something more than a passive approach,” Loren said. “The fact that he uses Northwestern as a forum to convey his views, that is where I get upset.”

Bienan said in his statement that Butz is entitled to express his personal views, and the university will not take action against him as long as he represents them as his own and does not discuss them in class. He also noted that the university has a professorship in Holocaust Studies and offers several courses on the Holocaust.

Butz did not return a call for comment Monday afternoon.

Mexican officials fret over violence in resort city of Acapulco

Hugh Dellios, Chicago Tribune

MEXICO CITY – With spring break coming and college students making plans, tourism officials in Acapulco are worried that the resort city’s image may now include bloody shootouts along with the beach, bikinis and beer parties.

In recent days that image includes this: Four drug traffickers lying dead in the street just five minutes from the hotel zone. Town merchants marching in the streets against drug-related violence. The mayor declaring that he is scared.

President Vicente Fox has sent dozens of federal police agents into Mexico’s second-largest tourist resort after a downtown gun battle between police and drug traffickers 10 days ago, as city and state officials have pleaded for help in stopping a turf battle between two violent drug cartels.

Officials warn that the situation could deteriorate to the level of drug violence that has racked Nuevo Laredo and other border towns, even as state officials try to reassure tourists that the violence has not targeted vacationers and their visits will be safe.

“These are lamentable acts that could damage the image of any place,” said Agustin Serrano, director general of tourism planning for the state of Guerrero. “These are isolated incidents, but nevertheless, they are a real concern.”

Serrano said Acapulco, which is becoming as popular as Cancun for spring breakers, expected an influx of more than 35,000 college students beginning at the end of this month. To date, he said, no hotels have reported cancellations, and 60 percent of the hotel rooms are occupied despite the surge in violence.

More than 5 million tourists visit Acapulco each year, including nearly 1 million Americans and other foreigners. After a number of slow years, the resort’s popularity had been picking up again.

But the recent shootout crystallized concerns about drug traffickers in Acapulco and the support they may be getting from corrupt local police. It came as U.S. officials have been more vocal than usual in expressing concerns about drug violence across Mexico.

John Negroponte, the U.S. director of national intelligence, cited Mexico at a congressional hearing Thursday among a list of countries in which drug traffickers threaten to undermine the government. The other countries were Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Haiti and Jamaica.

“A vicious cycle can develop in which a weakened government enables criminals to dangerously undercut the state’s credibility and authority,” Negroponte said.