AS MOST OF THE WORLD now knows, on September 30, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Subsequent disputes have drawn in the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and Hezbollah, to name a few. Since not only freedom of the press but also freedom of religion are threatened, it is vital to be clear-sighted about the issues at stake.

In the light of Salman Rushdie's case, the butchering of Dutch director Theo Van Gogh for his film on Muslim women, and death threats against Egyptian actor Omar Sharif for playing St. Peter on Italian TV, Jyllands-Posten wanted to test whether "we still have freedom of speech in Denmark." Knowing that Islamic tradition forbids such portrayals, it commissioned illustrations for what editor in chief Carsten Juste called "an article on the self-censorship which rules large parts of the Western world."

The paper expected a strong reaction, and got it. Immediately, two employees received death threats, and the paper hired security guards. Juste responded, "If we apologize, we go against the freedom of speech that generations before us have struggled to win."

On October 20, eleven ambassadors from Muslim-majority countries asked to meet Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to complain about a "smear campaign" against Islam. He responded, admirably: "I won't meet with them because it is so crystal clear what principles Danish democracy is built upon that there is no reason to do

With no apparent sense of irony, Egyptian officials then withdrew from a dialogue on human rights with their Danish counterparts. Subsequently, Arab interior ministers called for Danish authorities to "punish those responsible," the Jordanian Parliament demanded action against those "striking at the sentiments of the Arabo-Muslim nation," Iran and Iraq protested to Danish envoys, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait recalled their ambassadors, Libya closed its embassy, and Saudi Arabia and Sudan announced a boycott of Danish products.

In Gaza, thousand of protesters burned Danish flags while chanting "Death to Denmark," and gunmen stormed the European Union office. In Iraq, Danish troops were put on alert after a local fatwa was issued. In Kashmir, shops closed in protest. Pakistan's Jamaat-e-Islami party placed a bounty of 50,000 Danish kroner on the cartoonists. Jihadi websites are threatening suicide bombings in Denmark. Hezbollah's head, Hassan Nasrallah, declared if Muslims had carried "out the fatwa of Imam Khomeini against the renegade Salman Rushdie, the scum who are insulting our Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, Norway, and France would not dare do so."

Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, head of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, proposed to raise the matter with the "U.N.'s concerned committees" and human rights groups. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League want the U.N. General Assembly to pass "a binding resolution banning contempt for religious beliefs and providing for sanctions to be imposed on contravening countries or institutions."