A Rose of Mohammed By Any Other Name Would Be -- A Danish

Tehran, Iran (AP) -- Iranians love Danish pastries, but when they look for the flaky dessert at the bakery they now have to ask for "Roses of the Prophet Mohammed."

Bakeries across the capital were covering up their ads for Danish pastries Thursday after the confectioners' union ordered the name change in retaliation for caricatures of the Muslim prophet published in a Danish newspaper.

"Given the insults by Danish newspapers against the prophet as of now the name of Danish pastries will give way to 'Rose of Mohammed' pastries," the union said in its order. . .

Iran's Danish renaming wasn't the first time a food name has become a symbol of protest.











A Republican congressman from North Carolina helped lead an effort to make sure Capitol Hill cafeterias changed their menus to advertise "freedom fries" instead of french fries after France opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

On a related note, a story here about a fatwa against those Danes who published cartoons depicting Mohammed. (Picture below from a medieval Muslim manuscript).













Cleric Offers $1 Million to Kill Muhammad Cartoonist

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) A Pakistani cleric announced Friday a $1 million bounty for killing a cartoonist who drew Prophet Muhammad, as thousands joined street protests and Denmark temporarily closed its embassy and advised its citizens to leave the country.

Police confined the former leader of an Islamic militant group to his home to prevent him from addressing supporters over the cartoons, amid fears he could incite violence, after riots this week killed five people. . .In the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar, prayer leader Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi announced the bounty for killing a cartoonist to about 1,000 people outside the Mohabat Khan mosque.

Qureshi said the mosque and his religious school would give $25,000 and a car, while a local jewelers' association would give another $1 million. . . "This is a unanimous decision by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," Qureshi said. . .

A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, first printed the prophet pictures by 12 cartoonists in September. . . Denmark has already temporarily closed its embassies in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Indonesia after anti-Danish protests and threats against staff. . .

Unrest over the cartoons has spiraled in Pakistan, even as it has ebbed in the rest of Asia and in the Middle East. Big riots in Lahore and Peshawar this week caused millions of dollars in damage, as hundreds of vehicles were burned and protesters targeted numerous U.S. and other foreign-brand businesses, including KFC, McDonald's, Citibank, Holiday Inn, and Norwegian cell phone company Telenor.

Intelligence officials have said scores of members of radical and militant Islamic groups, such as Jamaat al-Dawat, joined the unruly protests in Lahore on Tuesday and had incited violence in a bid to undermine President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government. . .

Renaming pastries and junk food is a reasonable (if silly) and peaceful response to events not going in one's own way.

Killing others and/or advocating killing others who do not subscribe to one's religious beliefs is heinous, whether it be Ayatollah Khomeini or Ann Coulter who's egging the misguided zealots on.














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Second image from the bottom is from demonstrations in Beiruit; third from last is from an on-line archive here. Final picture is of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, now demonstrating the truth of the impermanence of all things, thanks to the Taliban.

Danish cartoons
freedom of speech
Ann Coulter