Denmark urged its citizens on Saturday to immediately leave Indonesia, saying they were facing an "imminent" danger from an extremist group over the drawings of the Prophet Mohammed.
The warning came hours after Denmark announced it had withdrawn embassy staff from Indonesia, Iran and Syria -- countries where Danish embassy buildings have been attacked by rioting mobs protesting the cartoons.
"There is concrete information that indicates that an extremist group actively will seek out Danes in protest of the publication of the Mohammed drawings," the ministry said in a statement. It did not name the group.
All Danes should leave the country as soon as possible because they were facing "a significant and imminent danger," the ministry said, adding the threat was focused on the eastern part of Java, but could spread to other parts of the country, including Bali.
Earlier on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said it withdrew all Danish staff from Indonesia and Iran after they had received threats. Diplomats were also pulled from Syria because they were not getting enough protection from authorities, the ministry said.
The Danish ambassador to Lebanon left earlier this week after the embassy building in Beirut was burned by protesters.
The small Scandinavian country is shell-shocked by the wave of anti-Danish protests, some of them violent, that have spread across the Muslim world.
Danish paper Jyllands-Posten, which published the cartoons in September, apologized for offending Muslims but stood by its decision to print the drawings, citing the freedom of speech.
The newspaper's culture editor, Flemming Rose, who was in charge of the drawings, went on indefinite leave on Thursday but many Muslims said that would do little to quell the uproar.
The paper has denied that Rose was ordered to go leave because he suggested reprinting Holocaust drawings solicited by an Iranian newspaper, setting off a dispute earlier this week with Jyllands-Posten's editor-in-chief.
Clausen said Rose had been under "tremendous pressure" as the conflict escalated with attacks on Danish embassies and anti-Danish protests throughout the Muslim world.
Abdul Wahid Pedersen, a Danish imam, said Rose's departure would have little effect, and might even escalate the situation by giving the impression the newspaper was more worried about offending Jews than offending Muslims.
Denmark has also sought Malaysia's help to ease worldwide anger over the caricatures, Malaysian media reported yesterday.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said he received a call from his Danish counterpart on Friday over the matter, the Star newspaper reported.
In Algeria, the government closed two newspapers and arrested their editors for printing obscured images of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, colleagues said yesterday.
And Yemen has detained three journalists and is seeking a fourth after closing their newspapers for republishing the satirical cartoons, officials said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS