We support the right of all people to freely express themselves without fear of violent retaliation.

The embassies of Denmark and several other nations have been attacked in response to the publication of cartoons depicting Muhammed in a Danish newspaper. The twelve cartoonists and their families now live under police protection. Meanwhile, Danish imams travel the Muslim world reproducing the cartoons, along with more offensive fabrications that were never printed in Europe, in an attempt to further the outrage against Denmark. We respect that many followers of Islam are deeply offended by the caricatures, but they cannot be allowed to force others to abide by their beliefs.

As Canadians....

The incredible thing about the ongoing Kristallnacht against Denmark (and in some places, against the embassies and citizens of any Scandinavian or even European Union nation) is that it has resulted in, not opprobrium for the religion that perpetrates and excuses it, but increased respectability! A small democratic country with an open society, a system of confessional pluralism, and a free press has been subjected to a fantastic, incredible, organized campaign of lies and hatred and violence, extending to one of the gravest imaginable breaches of international law and civility: the violation of diplomatic immunity. And nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary—that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let's be sure we haven't hurt the vandals' feelings.