http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversySeveral months ago a Danish newspaper published some satirical cartoons of Mohammed. This was in response to the fact that a picture book author was unable to get cartoonists to draw Mohammed for her book. In Islam, depictions of Mohammed are banned in order to prevent him becoming a false idol.
This has resulted in a huge international melee, with the Islamic world (11 countries, including most of the middle east and Pakistan) calling for the governments of Denmark and Norway (a Norweigan paper re-printed the cartoons soon after they first appeared in the Danish paper). Several cartoonists have gone into hiding. The newspaper has had to beef up security among death threats. The governments of both countries have said, effectively, 'sorry your offended' but refuse to take concrete action on the grounds of freedom of speech and the fact that they don't control the press. Denmark has a large muslim minority, and has had considerable tensions even before the newspaper cartoons between the main white population and the muslim community, who generally live in their own districts.
The EU has had a foreign minister meeting, and has declared that the governments of Denmark and Norway has the full support of the EU, does not accept that the newspaper should be prosecuted, and that the boycots of Danish and Norweigan produce in Saudi Arabia and other places is unacceptable and will, if the EU thinks the governments of those countries are involved, be brought before the WTO. However other EU officials have started saying that it was bad for the newspaper to publish them. It's kind of mixed atm in terms of how the EU is responding.
Basically, it's all a giant furball D: It's interesting to see Europe and the muslim world go toe to toe. It's high time the muslim countries stopped trying to impose religious ideals on post-enlightenment Europe and learned what seperation of state and church actually means.
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