Sweden Seeks to Mollify Muslims
STOCKHOLM, Sept 7--Sweden's prime minister was to meet with ambassadors of Muslim countries Friday to try to cool tensions over the recent publication of a controversial cartoon.
Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt was to hold talks with the 20 or so ambassadors in an attempt to avert a full-blown international crisis.
He met with representatives of Sweden's Muslim community earlier this week to soothe rising anger over the lampoon, depicting Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him). .
Iran, Egypt and Pakistan have lodged formal protests with the Swedish government and religious leaders in Afghanistan have condemned the blasphemous cartoon.
"This is a meeting that the prime minister has initiated himself. The meeting is to continue our dialogue regarding this issue," government spokesman Oscar Haallen told France's AFP news agency.
The publication of the controversial sketch in the local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda on August 18 prompted Muslims in Oerebro, where the newspaper is based, to hold two protests.
At Friday's meeting, Reinfeldt was expected to "underline the fact that in Sweden different people, Christians and Muslims, are living together with respect from both sides," Haallen said.
Algeria's ambassador to Sweden, Merzak Bedjaoui, said the meeting "was an excellent initiative taken in a spirit of appeasement".
"At our level, we are trying to work hand in hand with Swedish authorities to try to create a real bridge between our communities," he said.
"When we speak of a dialogue between civilizations, it can't just be a catchy slogan. I think that the publication of this kind of caricature doesn't help at all," he said. "On the contrary, it deepens the gap."
Reinfeldt has tried to avert a crisis like the one neighboring Denmark experienced more than a year ago when a series of 12 cartoons of Islam's prophet published in Denmark's biggest daily led to deadly riots in several Muslim countries.
But Friday's talks could prove thorny. According to Swedish news agency TT, Egypt's ambassador Samah Mohamed Sotouhi was to present a list of demands to Reinfeldt.
"We want action, not just nice words," he said.
Sotouhi said he would call for changes to Swedish legislation to prohibit "offenses to the prophet" and the creation of a standing committee in parliament to combat Islamophobia, among other things.
Reinfeldt has said he was sorry if Muslims were offended by the cartoon but stated that freedom of expression was an "inalienable" right in Sweden.
The editor-in-chief of Nerikes Allehanda, Ulf Johansson, has repeatedly said he would not apologize for the caricature.
Sweden Seeks to Mollify Muslims
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