Jyllands-Posten rejects Charlie Hebdo’s request to reprint controversial Mohammed caricatures

From the Copenhagen Post

Aarhus-based media outlet Jyllands-Posten on Wednesday rejected French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s request to reprint the controversial Mohammed cartoons. Charlie Hebdo re-printed their cartoons at the beginning of the current trial of 14 accused terrorists charged with their role in the murder of 12 journalists and employees of the magazine at their Paris office in 2015.

Author and professor Frederik Stjernfelt, on the occasion, criticised Jyllands-Posten’s decision. “It is a colossal step backwards for the debate,” he said in a comment made to Denmark-based daily Information.

Jacob Nybroe, the editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, explained that the newspaper had primarily turned down the request because printing the caricatures would compromise the paper’s security.

Readers will remember the threats and attacks that followed when Jyllands posten published their own cartoons and drawings of Mohammed (a project originally intended to illustrate a children’s text book, but which took on a life of its own) in 2005.