Denmark calls for fight for freedoms after cartoons row

(COPENHAGEN) - Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called Tuesday on the European Union to strengthen its commitment to basic freedoms, and in particular freedom of expression, saying it remained under threat.

Publication in 2005 in a Danish newspaper of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, deemed blasphemous in the Islamic world, created outrage in many countries.

"Denmark is working for the EU to step up its fight for the right to basic freedoms, which are universal and inviolable," Rasmussen told the opening of the 2008-9 parliamentary session in Copenhagen.

Europe should stand together with "the other free democracies of the world in the global defence of these rights," he said, adding that "the freedom of expression is the most important of all freedoms. Freedom to speak, write and draw what one thinks is democracy's vital nerve."

That freedom is "under pressure. We saw that in the affair of the cartoons which still has serious repercussions," Rasmussen said.

The cartoons had been "exploited", he said, as a "grotesque reason to justify the bombing of the Danish embassy in (the Pakistani capital) Islamabad in June."

"We saw it last year when a series of Muslim countries had a resolution adopted at the United Nations seeking to restrain the freedom of expression in respect of religion," he said.

"It is an insult to human rights that the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) should be abused to put freedom of expression in chains."

In March 2007 Pakistan, acting in the name of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, persuaded a majority of countries on the HRC to adopt a statement limiting freedom of expression with regard to religion, arguing that Muslims often felt that their religion was not treated with respect.