Denmark to archive Muhammad cartoons

Denmark's National Library said Wednesday it plans to archive the original Prophet Muhammad caricatures that sparked violent protests across the Islamic world two years ago.

Despite objections from some Muslim leaders, the library in the Danish capital will preserve the 12 cartoons for research purposes but will not make them available to the public for at least 10 years, spokeswoman Jytte Pedersen said.

"It is not our intention to provoke or anything like that. We are preserving them for future generations," she said.

The 12 cartoons first were published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on Sept. 30, 2005, and then reprinted by a number of Western newspapers early the following year. Mass protests erupted in Muslim countries where the cartoons widely were seen as insulting. One showed Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a lit fuse.

The Copenhagen-based Islamic Faith Community, a network of Muslim groups that spearheaded protests against the cartoons in Denmark, said archiving the original drawings was a bad idea.

"It might again send the wrong signal to Muslims in Denmark and the rest of the world," spokesman Kasem Ahmad said. However, he said his organization was not planning any formal protest.

Danish imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen disagreed, saying it was important to preserve the cartoons as part of the historical record of "a very important event that turned the world upside down."

Syria's deputy ambassador to Denmark, Raib Altbaab, questioned the purpose of the collection.

"Do they have an intention of making more provocation or just to calm the situation?" he said. He cautioned that if the move was seen as provocative, it could lead to a renewed boycott on Danish goods imposed in some Muslim countries during the cartoon crisis.

Eleven of the drawings remain in the hands of the cartoonists, while one was sold to a private buyer, said Claus Seidel of Denmark's cartoonists' association.

The library spokeswoman said she believed the artists would agree to donate the cartoons to the archives.

"The artists realize that this is the natural home of the illustrations and they want to have this important part of history kept in a safe place," Pedersen said. However, she was not sure the library would be able to acquire the cartoon sold to a private buyer.

"We would certainly like to have the entire collection but we will not be going out of our way to seek out the missing cartoon," she said.