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The Organisation of the Islamic Conference has reacted with anger to the Dutch prosecutor’s decision not to charge Geert Wilders for making and publishing Fitna.

According to a statement from the OIC Observatory on Islamophobia:

The Spokesman said that despite admitting that the so-called “film” was “hurtful and insulting” (to Muslims), the Dutch Public Prosecutor failed to see in this stark and outrageous agitational work and incitement to “hostility” or hatred against the Muslim community in the Netherlands or against Muslims by their hundreds of millions. In so doing, the Dutch Public Prosecutor seems to ignore the fine line of “responsibility” separating the freedom of expression from incitement to hatred, hostility and discrimination.

No, the line wasn’t ignored – it was just drawn in a different place.

The Spokesman further added that this attitude of the authorities in the Netherlands is not conducive to facilitating dialogue or reaching understanding on sensitive issues which entails disagreements and risks.

Risks? What risks can he be talking about?

Dutch News reports that the Public Prosecutor in the Netherlands has declared that Geert Wilders’ anti-Koran/immigration film Fitna did not break any laws.

At least not in Holland. In Jordan, however, a campaign group with the catchy name “The Messenger of Allah Unites Us” continues to press for an international arrest warrant against the Dutch MP. They have also produced a “boycott poster” showing Dutch and Danish products. Companies will only be removed from the list if they publicly denounce Wilders and the Danish media, and sign up for an international law forbidding the denigration of “prophets”.

Two Dutch companies, Friesland Foods (dairy produce) and Zwanenberg (sausages), have already taken out ads in the Jordanian press doing just that.

While the Jordanian action makes a refreshing change from death threats and embassy burnings, they do have damned cheek. Perhaps a counter-boycott is called for. Let all supporters of free expression undertake not to buy any…er…um… Damn those crafty Jordanians!

UPDATE:(1 July) A court in Jordan has officially charged Wilders, and summoned him to appear before the court within 15 days. The charges include insulting Islam, defamation, and violation of online publishing laws. If Wilders does not appear, they will try to issue an arrest warrant via interpol.

Two Basque newspapers are on trial for making fun of King Juan Carlos I. The first, a satirical supplement of the newspaper Deia, carried this photo montage on its front page:

It refers to an incident in 2006 when the king shot a circus bear which had been plied with vodka to make it easy prey for him. The headline reads “He was cooked”.

The other Basque paper, Gara, joins Deia on trial for the separate offence of publishing an article entitled “The Tribulations of Yogi Bear”. Judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska overruled an earlier exonerating judgement to insist that the cartoon and articles were “an attack on the monarch’s self-esteem” and damaging to the Crown.

One of the cartoonists, José Antonio Rodrigues, replied:

The King of Spain is perhaps the most overprotected person in Europe. […] If his self-esteem has been damaged, well, perhaps he needs to see a psychologist.

Meanwhile, the two cartoonists who were fined 3,000 euros for another royal-bashing cartoon last year, are appealing the decision. Their cartoon of Crown Prince Felipe shagging his wife became a collectors item after a judge ruled that all copies of the magazine be removed from newsstands.

Finally, The Times also reports that a Catalonian comedian and actor called Pepe Rubianes has been charged with “insulting Spain” for saying,

I wish they would shove Spain up their arse, see if it explodes and leaves their balls hanging from the bell tower.

The public prosecutor wants Rubianes fined 21,500 euros.

A cross-party majority coalition of MPs in the Dutch Lower House is calling for an emergency inquiry into the arrest of cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot.

Only the Christian Democrats (CDA) and the small Christian Unie party seem unperturbed by the unprecedented and heavy-handed police action against the satirist. Indeed, the CDA are largely responsible for it, and it is their Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin who will be held to account.

VVD leader Mark Rutte said:

It is time the CDA came to their senses, and publicly support one of the most important basic rights in our country, because it appears that the CDA is prepared to sacrifice freedom of speech at the altar of standards and values.

(The translation is questionable)

Nekschot’s arrest followed three years after a complaint by the Dutch-born convert to Islam, Abdul Jabbar van de Ven. On the murder of film-maker Theo van Gogh, this babbling rug-butter said on Dutch TV how happy he felt, and how he hoped Allah would also arrange the death of Geert Wilders “for example by cancer”.

HP / de Tijd, the magazine which publishes a Nekschot cartoon every week, will today publish all 8 of those confiscated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. MWW will do the same, when we find out what they are.

The Moscow Times reports that the Consultative Council of the Heads of Protestant Churches have sent a letter to the Prosecutor General calling for the closure of 2X2, and independent cartoon channel.

The channel promotes “cruelty, violence, homosexual propaganda, religious hatred and intolerance” by broadcasting South Park.

While we wait for news from Sudan, another example of religious protectionism rears its ugly head in Turkey. There a prosecutor is seeking to press charges against the Turkish publisher of Dawkins’ The God Delusion for inciting religious hatred and assaulting “sacred values”.

The publisher could face up to a year in prison.

El Kahbar reports on the acquittal of three TV managers and six journalists who aired the Motoons at the height of that crisis.

The prosecutor had sought 5- and 3-year prison sentences against the defendants, but the court decided that the intention was not to ridicule Mohammed and they were freed.

Presumably if they had intended to ridicule Mohammed the decision may have been different.

According to Reuters 10 people connected with The Da Vinci code, including author Dan Brown and Director Ron Howard, are being investigated by state prosecutors in Italy.

Apparently the film contravenes article 528 of Italy’s penal code. A group of unnamed clerics from the town of Civitavecchia filed the a complaint.

UPDATE: (June 27) The case has been dropped.

The state prosecutor overseeing case against Charlie Hebdo ordered that the editor Philippe Val be released without charge, and recommended that the case be dismissed. The official judgement will be made on March 15.

The weekly satirical paper had procession of presidential candidates and celebrities speaking in its defence. One witness, a Muslim refugee from Algiers, displayed a Saudi Arabian flag to illustrate that the “turbombe” cartoon was not the first to associate Islam with weaponry – the flag carries the Koranic declaration of faith underscored with a sabre.

The prosecutor, Anne de Fontette, strongly defended the magazine’s right to free speech. She said that the cartoons did not attack Islam, but rather the fundamentalists who acted in Islam’s name. “Not all Muslims are fundamentalists”, she said.

She even praised Charlie Hebdo:

For a number of our citizens it is a lively reflection of the principle of press freedom in a democratic society which can never be a theocracy.

The plaintiffs, the Grande Mosque de Paris and the Union of French Islamic Organisations, complained that the trial had become “political”. In reality, they must be sorely disappointed that they wasted so much time and money on a prosecution which stands virtually no chance of succeeding.

It seems that the entire French establishment, politicians, press, and judiciary, is standing up for Charlie Hebdo on this one. We are looking forward to a decisive and unambiguous rejection of this silly case on March 15.

UPDATE: The Guardian reveals, without comment, that the lawyer for the Muslim organisations is called Christophe Bigot.

Madonna will not be prosecuted for “blasphemy” in Holland, much to the disappointment of the Protestant SGP party. Complaints were prompted by her crucifixion scene part of her “Confessions ON A Dancefloor” world tour.

Unfortunately, she seems to have been let off for the wrong reasons. A spokesman for the prosecutors office announced:

The pop singer Madonna will not be prosecuted for blasphemy and insulting faith.

The prosecutor’s office believes that through her show, the singer on all the evidence tried to express her frustrations about certain situations in the world, it is not a question of contempt for God.

Furthermore, Madonna did not discredit Christians as a group.

Showing “contempt for God” and “discrediting Christians” is apparently still an offence in the Netherlands.