Hamadou Tidiane Sy
15 March 2008
Nairobi — The republication of cartoons considered insulting to Islam by a Danish newspaper last month, which outraged Muslims across the world, was among the issues discussed at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference Summit in Dakar.
Referring to the issue as Islamophobia, Muslim leaders from 57 countries attending the summit said it had become a major concern for the Muslim world.
The cartoons, first published in September 2005, depicted the prophet Muhammed as a terrorist. Their publication drew angry, and in some cases violent reactions, across the Muslim world at the end of 2005 and in early 2006.
At the time, other European newspapers also printed the same cartoons as a sign of solidarity with their Danish colleagues and also, they said, to support press freedom. This raised hostility between the Islamic world and the West.
Like then, the reprinting of the cartoons last month has drawn protests from many parts of the Islamic world. For instance, on the eve of the opening of the 11th OIC summit, crowds of angry youth in Pakistan burnt a Danish flag and demanded that their country sever diplomatic ties with Denmark, according to international media reports.
The leaders looked at the significance of such actions and the right way to deal with them.
"Islamophobia cannot be dealt with only through cultural activities," Egmeledin Ihsanoglu, OIC secretary-general told the heads of state and delegates meeting in Dakar.
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