The Legal Research Society

We have previously blogged about how depicting the Prophet Muhammad can get you into trouble, but today’s Independent has a story on how Russian cartoonists producing satirical drawings of president Putin are not at all liked by the Russian authorities. According to the Independent, papers and publishers attempting to print satirical portrayals of Putin risk facing inspections by the “fire inspectors” or the “tax police” laying bureaucratic hindrances in their way or a call from their paper supplier kindly informing them that the price of paper has risen tenfold overnight. In the meantime, drawings depicting Putin in a favourable light are much welcomed. The one to the right is produced by KAL for the Economist .

Although one hoped that calm would have by now been restored following the publishing of the infamous Muhammad cartoons by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, it now appears that the predicament is far from over. This morning it emerged that Danish police and intelligence services had thwarted a plot to assassin a cartoonists behind one of the cartons depicting the Prophet Muhammad (I won’t post the cartoons here but a simple Google search should provide those who are interested with a chance to see the cartoons for themselves). Danish police arrested, in the early hours of Tuesday, three persons suspected of planning an attack on the Jyllands-Posten cartoonist; one being a Danish citizen of Moroccan descent and two Tunisian citizens. The Danish citizen has since been released but face charges in relation to the Danish penal code’s provisions on terrorism while the two Tunisian citizens are to be instantly deported. Although the news is still emerging, it is laudabl...