Cartoon protest part of bigger problem

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- The uproar over cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist is part of a wider problem gripping Europe, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Flemming Rose, the editor of the Danish newspaper that first published cartoons of Mohammed with a bomb for a head covering, says he has received death threats. Additionally, his newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, has been evacuated several times because of bomb threats -- part of the wave of protest that has swept the Muslim world in recent weeks. Racial and economic tensions in Europe also fed the unrest.

"The reaction is totally surrealistic," Rose told the Wall Street Journal. "This whole thing is crazy, totally crazy. I had no idea anything like this would happen."

The Journal said Danish clerics frustrated by failing to prompt an apology from the newspaper for the cartoons, which they consider blasphemous, turned to secular Arab governments, which were eager to show support as a way to burnish their images as supporters of Islam.

Muslim Danes say they're not trying to stir hatred against Denmark but the campaign against the cartoons has included images the Jyllands-Posten never published. Clerics in Saudi Arabia and other countries have called for a boycott of Danish goods.

The newspaper apologized last week, but violent demonstrations have continued.