Muhammad Cartoon Artist Now Homeless

Dane deemed 'too much of a security risk' for police protection
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 20, 2008 11:11 AM CST
Muhammad Cartoon Artist Now Homeless
Muslims protest against the re-publication of a cartoon this week of the Prophet Muhammad in Copenhagen, Denmark Friday Feb. 15, 2008. Imam Mostafa Chendid of the Islamic Faith Community Center urged youth to calm down and stop the recent burning of cars and property in Denmark, saying it was hurting...   (Associated Press)

A Danish cartoonist who enraged the Muslim world in 2005 with his depiction of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban is now homeless, Der Spiegel reports. Kurt Westergaard, 73, has been thrown out of his police-protected hotel room—where he was sent when authorities uncovered a plot to kill him—because he’s “too much of a security risk.”

Unsurprisingly, Westergaard isn’t happy about the predicament he and his wife are in. “Of course I fear for my life,” he said. “But I have turned my fear into anger and indignation.” The controversial cartoons were reprinted last week, but the Danish Islamic group that led 2006 protests was quiet this time, saying it is “unhappy,” but advocating dialogue, not violence. (More Islam stories.)

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