The cartoon crisis
When a Danish newspaper on 30 September 2005 published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, the Danish Union of Journalists became the centre of much attention. The 12 cartoonists were members of the Danish Union of Journalists and agreed to be jointly represented in the media by the president of the union. Requests for media interviews were frequent during the first few months of 2006 when Denmark was catapulted into its biggest ever foreign policy crisis that included events like the burning of embassies, violent demonstrations and a boycott of Danish goods in the Middle East.
As spokesman for the 12 cartoonists, the president, Mogens Blicher Bjerregård, of the Danish Union of Journalists faced a difficult task when he was interviewed by Danish and foreign media. Making balanced statements in this environment was quite an art. It required the ability to defend Danish principles of freedom of the press and freedom of expression and at the same time protect the cartoonists, many of whom had gone underground after receiving death threats. The aim was to keep the 12 cartoonists out of the limelight.
There was also another aspect to the cartoon crisis: the protection of the individual copyright of the 12 cartoonists and their right to control the now world famous cartoons, which have been published by hundreds of media organisations all over the world. Initially, the Danish Union of Journalists – at the request of the cartoonists – was responsible for collecting fees for editorial use of the cartoons. At the same time, the union’s lawyers were ready to pounce on unlawful political or commercial use of the drawings. This led to compensation being paid to one of the cartoonists when the Dutch politician Geert Wilders in 2008 used one of the cartoons in a political propaganda film.
The cartoon crisis caused a resurgence of the debate about freedom of the press and freedom of expression in Danish and international media. This is something the Danish Union of Journalists has considerable interest in keeping at the top of both the Danish and the international agenda.
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