Danish Paper Pursues Holocaust Cartoons

The Danish paper responsible for the original caricatures of the prophet Muhammad is set to stoke the row further by running cartoons satirizing the Holocaust.

Flemming Rose, the culture editor of Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, said today he was trying to get in touch with the Iranian paper, Hamshari, which plans to run an international competition seeking cartoons about the Holocaust.

"My newspaper is trying to establish a contact with the Iranian newspaper, and we would run the cartoons the same day as they publish them," Mr Rose told CNN.

The Danish editor was also defiantly unapologetic about the original publication of 12 cartoons - one of which featured the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb - in his paper five months ago.

Mr Rose said he did not regret publishing the pictures.

"I think it is like asking a rape victim if she regrets wearing a short skirt at a discotheque [on] Friday night," he said.

"If you’re wearing a short skirt that does not necessarily mean you invite everybody to have sex with you. If you make a cartoon, make fun of religion, make fun of religious figures, that does not imply that you humiliate or denigrate or marginalize a religion."

The backlash continued in Denmark today, where almost 1,000 Danish websites have been defaced by Islamic hackers protesting about the cartoons.

Images of Muhammad have been replaced with pro-Islam messages and condemnation of the cartoons’ publication.

"We have never seen so many defacements that are politically targeted in such a short time," said Roberto Preatoni, the founder and administrator of hacking monitor service, Zone-H.

"What is extraordinary for this Danish case is the speed in which the community united," he told the BBC.

Websites have been hacked to include messages calling for boycotts of Danish goods and warnings that the Danes should expect a violent response.

More than 900 Danish websites have been hacked, with a further 1,600 western sites attacked and defaced.