Sunday, February 17, 2008

"predominantly with immigrant backgrounds"

Racist!

Fascist!

Islamophobe!

I so enjoy my career in media studies.

COPENHAGEN, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Bands of youths set fire to cars,
buses and schools in Denmark on Saturday, the seventh night of rioting and
vandalism in the capital Copenhagen and other Danish cities, police said on
Sunday.

Four youths were arrested in the capital for suspected arson and at least 24
fires were reported across the country. Several youths were detained in
Denmark's second city Aarhus in Jutland, and in Odense on Funen island.

"It is some of the same groups that have roamed the city for the last couple
of nights," police operations leader Preben Jorgensen told Reuters while
inspecting fire damage at Tingbjerg School in the outskirts of Copenhagen.

Hundreds of cars and a number of schools have been vandalised or burned in
the past week. Police could give no reason, but said unusually mild weather
and the closure of schools for a winter break might have contributed.

Authorities have arrested dozens of youths, predominantly with immigrant
backgrounds.

Police said that Saturday night was calmer than earlier in the week.

Social workers said an alleged plot to kill a Danish cartoonist for his
drawing two years ago of the Prophet Mohammad might have fuelled the riots.
Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoon on Wednesday in protest against
the plot.

Ten Danish lawmakers cancelled a four-day trip to Iran on Saturday, two
days before their departure, after Iranian protests about the republication
of the cartoon.

The Danish Foreign Ministry said parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee
dropped the trip after the Iranian parliament demanded an apology because
Danish newspapers had reprinted the cartoon, one of several whose
publication two years ago caused outrage in Islamic countries.

Most Muslims consider depictions of the Prophet Mohammad offensive.

Authorities arrested two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent on
Tuesday for planning to kill the cartoonist, and 15 Danish newspapers
reprinted his drawing on Wednesday in protest against the alleged murder
plot. (Reporting by Martin Burlund, editing by Tim Pearce)

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