'Jyllands-Posten' Editor Rejects Idea of Quitting Over Cartoon Controversy

By: JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press Writer (AP) A top editor at the Danish newspaper whose cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad sparked rage throughout the Islamic world said Wednesday he would consider reprinting Holocaust cartoons being solicited by an Iranian newspaper.

The Danish paper's top editor, meanwhile, rejected suggestions that he step down in the wake of the furor, which has brought sometimes-fatal protest outbursts and the burning of two Danish embassies in the Middle East.

A prominent Iranian newspaper has said it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the Muhammad caricatures.

Flemming Rose, culture editor of Jyllands-Posten, which first published the Muhammad drawings, said of the Iranian cartoons: "We would consider publishing them, but we will not make a decision before we have seen the cartoons."

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, he said such publication would "in no way [be] seen as remorse or a way to establish a false balance between our cartoons and the Iranian cartoons; it is seen as a fact of documentation so our readers can make up their own minds."

Jyllands-Posten spokesman Tage Clausen told the AP that Rose had not yet been able to reach the Iranian paper, Hamshahri.

The Danish paper has come under mounting pressure, at home and abroad, after publishing the drawings in September. Former Foreign Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen said Wednesday on national radio that "when an editor in chief admits he made an erroneous judgment ... he should quit."

In a brief reply on the daily's Web site, editor-in-chief Carsten Juste said, "I do not feel called ... in that direction."

The drawings -- including one depicting the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb -- have touched a nerve in part because Islam is interpreted to forbid any illustrations of the Prophet Muhammad for fear they could lead to idolatry.

Jyllands-Posten said on Jan. 30 it regretted it had offended Muslims and apologized to them, but stood by its decision to print the cartoons, saying it was within Danish law. Two days later, Juste said he would not have printed the cartoons had he foreseen the consequences.

Also Wednesday, Jens Kaiser, the chief editor for the broadsheet's Sunday edition, said it had turned down five small cartoons of Jesus' resurrection three years ago that had been sent in unsolicited.

Kaiser's e-mail to the cartoonist rejecting the drawings has been circulated to news media in recent days, apparently to question Jyllands-Posten's commitment to free speech regardless of topic.

"I turned them down because they were not good, their quality was not good," Kaiser said. "I have been Sunday editor for 18 years, and I can say that 90-95 percent of the unsolicited material we get is turned down."

He refuted suggestions that, since the recent controversy over the Muhammad drawings, "it looks like we have opted for a line to publish Muhammad drawings and not Jesus drawings."

"We're not," Kaiser said, adding that he "should have been more forward, and said the cartoons would not be used because they are too bad."

Instead, Kaiser said in the e-mail to the rejected cartoonist that readers would not enjoy the drawings, which "will provoke an outcry."

"Had I foreseen the Muhammad drawing controversy, I would not have written it that way," he said.