The Organisation of Islamic Conference needs to be firm in dealing with those responsible for this shameful assault on the Last Prophet, who insisted on respect for all faiths and Messengers of God who came before him. Several OIC member states have already and rightly taken a serious note of the insensitive act. UAE has strongly condemned the action and asked Denmark to deal firmly with the newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, which carried those hurtful caricatures of the Prophet of Islam.

Saudi Arabia has already recalled its envoy to Copenhagen. Kuwait has lodged a strong formal protest with the Danish government by summoning its ambassador. Libya has decided to shut down the Danish mission in the country. Several other governments across the Muslim world are taking steps to convey the great anger and hurt in their own countries.

In addition to this response at government level, people around the world are responding to the outrage in their own individual ways. Danish companies, which have substantial business interests in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Muslim world, are said to have already suffered huge financial losses as a consequence of the swift and silent boycott imposed on Danish products and services. As Khaleej Times reported yesterday, dozens of popular brands and products have been taken off the shelves in departmental stores and malls across the UAE and the Middle East. As Denmark is a major trade partner of several Arab and Muslim countries including the UAE, this is sure to seriously hurt its economic interests worldwide.

It is intriguing therefore that Copenhagen still refuses to acknowledge and apologise for the hurt caused to the Muslims. Either Denmark has yet to fathom the seriousness of this issue and the extent of Muslim anguish or it is deliberately fanning popular passions in the Islamic world by its studied arrogance. The right-wing prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who came to power by exploiting anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments in the Scandinavian country, had declined to meet the envoys of 11 Muslim countries who wanted to convey their concerns over the caricatures when they first appeared. The prime minister continues to defend the insensitive newspaper in the name of ‘media freedom’. All freedom including that of the media comes with responsibility. Mocking people’s deeply held religious beliefs and sentiments is no media freedom. It’s sheer and unpardonable callousness.