– Cartoon Wars

Despite original reaction, Islamic cartoons republished
Chad Groening - OneNewsNow

A Christian wire service is republishing controversial cartoons of Islamic prophet Muhammad, despite the anger they create in the Muslim world.

In 2006 Christian Newswire was criticized for publishing the controversial cartoons that were originally published by a Danish newspaper -- an act that led to widespread anger and even violence in the Muslim world. Christian Newswire was the only U.S.-based newswire to publish the cartoons. It also published the cartoons of Swedish artist Lars Vilks in 2007, after al-Qaeda offered a $100,000 reward for his murder.

Christian Newswire director Gary McCullough says in light of the recent threats on the life of Kurt Westergaard, one of the original cartoonists, both sets of cartoons are being re-published and offered to subscribers.

"We're not intimidated," says the Christian journalist. "By displaying the cartoons we're trying to say that we're not going to be intimidated against distributing them."

McCullough says when his organization first published the cartoons in 2006, it received a few threats.

"The threats the first time were phone calls and emails and that kind of thing," he recalls. "But if they can get to people in America that easily, we're probably not at the top of their list. Whereas there are places in Europe that are a lot easier to get to -- and some of these cartoonists themselves, as has been recently the case, would be much more at risk."

The news director also wants to encourage those who believe in freedom of the press, and to challenge those who think America's enemies can be placated simply by not publishing something.