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Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, whose 2005 cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban sparked violent protests by Muslims, led to a massacre in the office of a French satirical magazine that left 12 people dead, making him the target of assassins. the rest of his life, he died in Copenhagen on Wednesday. He was 86 years old.
His family announced his death to Danish media on Sunday. No specific reason was given.
Mr. Westergaard was one of 12 artists commissioned by Danish centre-right newspaper Jyllands-Posten to draw Muhammad “as you see it”. As it is known, the newspaper reports that “Mohammad cartoons” as it is known – although some depict other figures – are not offensive, but rather increase questions about self-censorship and the limits of Islamic criticism.
Mr. Westergaard said that when drawing his caricature, he tried to underline the view that some people called the prophet to justify immoral violence. He later explained that the bearded man he depicted could be any Islamic fundamentalist—not necessarily the founder of Islam.
Still, many Muslims were infuriated because they believed any image of the prophet was considered blasphemous, let alone provocatively linked to terrorism.
In 2006, Danish embassies in the Arab world were attacked in riots that claimed dozens of lives. in 2008, three people charged By threatening to kill Mr Westergaard by the Danish authorities. Two years later, a Somali Muslim intruder with an ax and a knife broke into the cartoonist’s house Although equipped with steel doors, bulletproof windows and security cameras in Aarhus.
At the time, Mr. Westergaard and his 5-year-old grandson were crouched in a powered bathroom. The intruder was shot by the police and later convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison and deportation.
In 2015, three Islamist militants raided the magazine’s Paris office. Charlie Hebdowho reprinted the cartoons and killed 12 people, most of them staff.
In an interview with the Danish National Post in 2009, Mr. Westergaard expressed his disappointment at the reaction of many newcomers to his cartoon.
“Most of the immigrants who came to Denmark had nothing,” he said. “We gave them everything – money, apartments, their own school, free university, health care. We wanted only one thing in return – respect for democratic values, including freedom of expression. Do they agree? This is my simple test.”
Born Kurt Vestergaard on July 13, 1935, A peninsula in Jutland, Denmark, surrounded by the North and Baltic Seas.
Raised in a conservative Christian family, he experienced what he described as religious salvation as a high school student. He then enrolled at the University of Copenhagen to study psychology, and then taught German and worked at a school for students with disabilities in Djursland. He joined Jyllands-Posten in 1983 and retired in 2010 at the age of 75.
Among the survivors is his wife Gitte; their five children; 10 grandchildren; and a grandchild.
In 2008 Mr. Westergaard won the Sappho Award from the Danish Free Press Association. He received the M100 Media Award from German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010 for his contributions to freedom of thought.
“I want to be remembered as a blow to freedom of expression,” he once said. But there is no doubt that others will remember me as a Satan who insulted the religion of billions of people.”
Mr Westergaard and his wife lived in tight security Although it’s hard to hide a man who is often elegantly dressed in red pants, a wide-brimmed black hat, and a giraffe-headed cane after authorities thwarted the first assassination attempt against him in 2006.
He has openly chosen to live in Aarhus in recent years.
“I don’t consider myself a particularly brave man,” he said. Guard In 2010, he added: “But in this situation, I was pissed off. It’s not right to be threatened in your own country just because you’re doing your job. This is nonsense that I really take advantage of, because it gives me a certain challenge and stubbornness. I will not stand it. And that really reduces the fear a great deal.”
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