A South African editor has received threats after her paper
reprinted one of the cartoons that have angered Muslim groups
internationally.
Ferial Haffajee feels she has been targeted because she is Muslim
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Ferial Haffajee, editor of the Mail and Guardian said she had received abusive letters and text messages.
On Friday, South African Muslim activists won an interdict barring another paper, the Sunday Times, from printing the cartoons.
Cartoons of the prophet Muhammad have sparked protests across the world.
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CARTOON ROW
30 Sept 2005: Danish paper publishes cartoons
20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors complain to Danish PM
10 Jan 2006: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons
26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador
30 Jan: Gunmen raid EU's Gaza office demanding apology
31 Jan: Danish paper apologises
1 Feb: Papers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain reprint cartoons
4 Feb: Syrians attack Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus
5 Feb: Protesters sack Danish embassy in Beirut
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South Africa's constitution guarantees the right to freedom of expression.
The Mail and Guardian published one of the cartoons on
its international news page on Friday, to illustrate a story about last
week's protests.
"People have been phoning my mother and exercising pressure through her," Ms Haffajee told the BBC News website.
She said some groups had threatened to march on the newspaper's offices in Johannesburg.
"It displays a lack of tolerance that is nerve-wracking," she said.
Ms Haffajee said she felt she was being targeted personally because she is herself a Muslim.
"There are people out there who feel it is their duty to remind me that there is a hereafter and I will be punished."
Interdict
After the Mail and Guardian reprinted the cartoon, the
Muslim organisation Jamiat-ul Ulama won a court interdict stopping the
Sunday Times from doing the same.
"We are aware of the sensitivities regarding the
cartoons, and the editorial team was discussing whether these
sensitivities should be given more weight than the right of non-Muslim
readers to see the depictions that had caused huge offence in other
parts of the world," a statement published by the Sunday Times said.
"We declined to give an undertaking not to publish the
cartoons, not because we were intent on publishing them, but because we
strongly oppose the attempt by any group to edit or censor the
newspaper," the statement said.
"We regard this as a serious blow to the freedom of the
press and have every intention of challenging the ruling when the
matter returns to court," the statement concluded.
Protests against the cartoons in Muslim countries have
targeted embassies of Denmark and Norway, which were the first
countries to print the cartoons, which some Muslims see as blaspheming
the prophet Muhammad. | 
