Gulf Muslims Step Up Danish Boycott Over Cartoons

JEDDAH, 7 February 2006 — People in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries intensified their boycott of Danish goods as the uproar over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) raged unabated yesterday.

Scholars and regional trade groups also urged Muslims to use this economic weapon to punish other European nations whose dailies printed the inflammatory caricatures.

Yemen shut down a weekly newspaper yesterday for republishing the cartoons.

The official Saba news agency said Prime Minister Abdul Qader Ba-Jammal ordered the closure of the Al-Hurriya (Freedom) weekly after it reprinted four of the 12 drawings that originally appeared in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten daily last September.

The paper reproduced the cartoons on Feb. 2 as part of coverage on the protests and boycotts sparked by the drawings.

Qatar’s Chamber of Commerce said it had halted dealings with Danish or Norwegian delegations, urging Muslim states to do the same. In Bahrain, Parliament formed a committee to contact Arab and Islamic governments to enforce the boycott.

“I think a boycott is the decent way of responding to the attack. Anything that has to do with money is very effective,” said Ayman Abdulrahman, an Egyptian executive in Dubai. “I might expand my boycott to include other countries who insist on escalating the situation.”

Supermarket shelves remained void of Danish dairy products and Muslim scholars, social organizations and text messages rallied people to maintain their stand. Many scholars urged Muslims to stick to peaceful protest.

The ban showed signs of harming more Danish firms as Novo Nordisk, the world’s biggest maker of insulin, said pharmacies and hospitals in Saudi Arabia had been avoiding its products. “Some customers ask about what’s Danish and avoid it,” said one pharmacy owner in Riyadh.

“Not a single sachet of a Danish product is left on our shelves,” said the director of a Kuwaiti supermarket.

“They have to respect our religion,” added Khaled Abdulrahman, a civil servant who was shopping at the store.

Danish-Swedish dairy company Arla Foods said it is losing $1.8 million of sales a day in the Middle East. Its products were removed from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.

Branches of French hypermarket Carrefour in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have also stopped selling Danish goods. “Danish products have been removed from all (UAE) branches of Carrefour,” one official said.

“I’ve joined the boycott from the first day ... economics affects politics,” said Bahraini trader Ghassan Al-Shehabi.

Some Muslims, however, said the boycott was not the best way to resolve the crisis.

“I think we should seek dialogue, not boycotting products or burning flags in the street which only escalates the problem,” said Suha Krimeed, a Lebanese marketing manager living in Dubai.

Tuesday, 7, February, 2006