Kayla Morgan
2/3/11
4:40 P.M.
Blog # 3 Terrorist Attack on Cartoonist
On Thursday January 6th, a Somali man was sentenced guilty in a Danish court to the act of terrorism. On New Years Day, he entered the home of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in the northwestern town of Aarhus. Mr. Westward was known for his 12 published drawings of the Prophet Mohammed back in 2005. These drawings raised many issues and caused a lot of protest in January and February of 2006. It also caused the torching of Danish diplomatic officers in Damascus and Beirut and the death of many people in Nigeria. The defendant may not be named but we know he was 29 years old. As soon as he entered Mr. Westergaards house with an axe in his hand, Westergaards locked himself inside a his bathroom which was also a panic room and alerted the police. The defendant stated in the court room that he had no intentions of killing him, just wanted to scare him. Luckily Mr. Westergaard was unharmed, unlike a police officer that responded to the call. On top of being charged with an act of terrorism, the defendant will be charged with attempted murder of throwing an axe at an officer. The defendant stated that he chose to break into his home after reading on the internet that Westergaard “was proud of the drawing and wanted to do more.”
Now I can see how people might not view this issue as a severe terrorist attack, but in my opinion, no attack should go unmentioned. Like Prosecutor Kirsten Dyrman stated, the defendant did in fact try and kill Mr. Westergaard, so the crime should be viewed as terrorism because it aimed to “seiously frighten the population”. Now with this case luckily nobody was hurt, but that does not make the issue better. You can not just go around trying to “scare” people just because you do not agree with an issue they may bring up. In this world people are never going to agree on the same issues, but that does not mean we should go around trying to kill one another.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/3/somali-ax-man-guilty-terrorism-attack-cartoonist/?page=1
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