DPA
Copenhagen, March 28 (DPA) Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard Friday criticized the “misuse” of his controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders’ new anti-Islam film, and received backing from the Danish Union of Journalists. The film, Fitna, was released online Thursday evening.

“My cartoon has been misused again. It has been pulled from its original context and set in a completely different one,” Westergaard told Danish broadcaster DR.

The Danish Union of Journalists said it aimed to take legal action against Wilders citing that Westergaard had “not given any permission whatsoever that his cartoon be used in the film”.

The journalist union “strongly rejected that the cartoon was used as political propaganda”. That only violates copyright law, union president Mogens Blicher Bjerregard said in a statement.

Westergaard’s depiction of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban was one of 12 published in newspapers that sparked violent protests in 2006 by Muslims worldwide and triggered a boycott of Danish goods.

“It is a drawing aimed specifically against Islamic terror that uses interpretations of the Koran and Islam as spiritual ammunition,” Westergaard said.

Several Danish politicians also commented the film.

Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of the populist and anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party that backs Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s minority government, welcomed “the debate” generated by the film but said Westergaard’s rights should be fully protected.

Mogens Jensen, cultural affairs spokesman for the opposition Social Democrats, said it was comparable to some notorious Nazi propaganda films, citing how Muslims were cast as “the enemy,” he told DR.

Leading Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoons in February after Danish security police said they had averted an alleged plot to murder Westergaard.

The publication sparked new protests.

Westergaard earlier this month went to court to stop a Danish anti-Islam group from using his cartoon in connection with a protest in the city of Aalborg.
DPA