JURIST - Paper Chase: Danish Muslim groups prepare legal actions in cartoons controversy

[JURIST] A group of 27 Danish Muslim organizations plan to sue Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten [media website] in a Danish court and file a complaint against Denmark with the UN Commission on Human Rights [official website] over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad [JURIST news archive] in Jyllands-Posten and other European newspapers. Group lawyer Michael Christiani Havemann told AP Friday the group will bring a defamation suit against Jyllands-Posten in the Danish court. The declaration comes on the heels of an announcement [decision text] by Danish top prosecutor Henning Fode Wednesday that he will not charge [JURIST report] Jyllands-Posten because the cartoons did not violate Denmark's laws against blasphemous and racist speech.

On the UN action, the Imam in Denmark’s second city Aarhus, Ahmad Akkari, said

Our point is that in failing to censure Jyllands-Posten, Denmark has committed a breach of its duties as a signatory of the UN conventions on human and political rights as well as international agreements on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination.

The Guardian has more. AFP has additional coverage.

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