WASHINGTON, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- As Muslims across the world protest what they see as blasphemous cartoons, the United States called the drawings offensive and Hamas played down violence.
Worldwide attention to editorial cartoons portraying the Prophet Mohammed capped this week as newspapers across Europe republished them, further angering Muslims, The New York Times reported.
The series of caricatures, first published in Danish newspapers this September, featured Mohammed as complicit in suicide bombings and the oppression of women -- one showed him with devil horns protruding from a turban.
The mere printing of an image of Mohammed can be seen as blasphemy to Muslims, let alone such cartoons.
Protestors filled the streets in the West Bank and Gaza, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Indonesia and Malaysia, burned the flag of Denmark and called for the boycott of European goods.
Major U.S. newspapers decided not to include the comics in telling the story.
Most TV networks showed part of the image except for ABC, which felt it was necessary to show viewers exactly what the upheaval is all about.
Sean McCormack, spokesman for the State Department, offered the Bush administration's opinion on the matter.
He said the United States considered the comics offensive and equated anti-Muslim images with those against any other religion.
McCormack also recognized the right of the free press.
In the Palestinian Authority, leaders of the newly elected Hamas government condemned any retaliatory violence.
Leader Mahmoud Zahar spoke at the only Catholic church in Gaza against an earlier threat by gunmen to attack churches.
