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Cartoon Trial: Editor Acquitted
Applause broke out in a French courtroom yesterday as judges ruled that the editor of left-wing newspaper Charlie Hebdo had not insulted Muslims by publishing cartoons of Mohammed.
The court's ruling stated that the controversial images were protected by freedom of information laws: They did not attack Muslims or Islam, but fundamentalists.
The satirical newspaper published the images in February last year as part of a campaign of support for Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten, which had outraged many in the Muslim world by publishing a series of cartoons depicting Mohammed.
Many Muslims had been outraged by the Danish cartoons, some of which they claimed linked Islam's prophet with terrorism. Supporters of the cartoons argued that they were exploring taboos as part of the western tradition of free speech, and that the cartoonists were examinating the relationship between terror and Islam, rather than claiming Mohammed or the majority of his followers were terrorists.
Charlie Hebdo added several cartoons by French artists. One showed Mohammed on a cloud, complaining "it is hard to be loved by fools."
The case was brought by France's moderate Grand Mosque of Paris and the Union of French Islamic Organisations, who argued it incited hatred against Muslims.
Signing up for Sharia
Also in the news today is a German judge, who denied a battered wife a divorce citing the Quran's ruling that husbands should beat disobedient wives as a last resort.
Judge Christa Datz-Winter said that the woman - a German of Moroccan descent - would be denied a divorce as she should have been aware of the tradition of wife beating when she married her husband.
As the Guardian reports, Germans from right and left have protested against this sudden appearance of Sharia in a European courtroom. Tageszeitung (well to the left) said "In the name of the people: beating allowed" while populist tabloid Bild asked "Where are we living?" on its front page.
Muslim groups joined the outcry.
Ms Datz-Winter has since been replaced.
