Merkel defends lauding anti-Islam artist

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended awarding Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who has published insulting cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

Merkel presented the 75-year-old cartoonist with the M100 Media Prize 2010 during a ceremony on Wednesday, saying that Westergaard was recognized for what she described as “freedom of speech.”

The blasphemous cartoons were first printed on September 30, 2005 in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and were reprinted many times in different newspapers in over 50, mostly Western, countries.

The move sparked strong objections by many Muslim officials and personalities and angery protests worldwide demanding due punishment for the cartoonist.

“We are talking here about the freedom of opinion and the freedom of the press,” Merkel proclalimed at the ceremony held about freedom of press in the German city of Potsdam.

The recognition of the sacrilegious cartoonist come as many Muslim clerics and individuals have been arrested, jailed and even expelled from European countries for exercising their ‘freedom of speech’ that has been labled ‘inciting terror.’ Moreover, people in Germany and eleswhere in Europe can receive long jail sentences for merely denying or questioning the Holocaust.

The M100 media prize committee also praised Westergaard for what it said was his “courage” to defend democratic values despite threats of violence and death, the BBC reported.

Westergaard announced in June that he would retire from the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in a bid to ease tensions over his insulting cartoons.