Leading Swedish newspapers Wednesday published a blasphemous sketch of Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) by a caricaturist who was the target of an assassination plot by Muslims arrested in Ireland. The Dagens Nyheter newspaper said it was publishing the cartoon in a sign of solidarity with the artist Lars Vilks. “Lars Vilks is not alone in this conflict. A threat against him is, in the end, a threat against all Swedish people,” Dagens Nyheter said in an editorial which reproduced the controversial sketch. Irish police have arrested seven Muslims suspected of conspiracy to murder Vilks because of his cartoon. The four men and three women were arrested Tuesday in the towns of Cork and Waterford in an operation coordinated with US and European security agencies. The seven - three Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerians - were arrested Tuesday in Ireland hours before US authorities unveiled a terror indictment against a 46-year-old Philadelphia woman, Colleen LaRose. LaRose is accused of plotting with others to kill Vilks because of his 2007 blasphemous sketch. Police said there was a plot to assassinate Vilks, who has a 100,000-dollar (74,000-euro) bounty on his head from an Al-Qaeda-linked group. Dagens Nyheter called on the Swedish state to give Vilks “all the protection he needs.” It said authorities must take action “against an attack aiming at one of our most fundamental rights, freedom of expression.” The Expressen tabloid also published the cartoon with a picture of Vilks. “Expressen decided to publish the drawing for two reasons: to allow readers to see the controversial work and to defend freedom of expression which is more and more threatened,” it said. “An open society must show that will not give in to threats, that it is ready to fight for freedom of expression,” added the daily in an editorial. The regional daily Nerikes Allehanda first published Vilks' satirical cartoon on Aug. 18, 2007 to illustrate an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression. It caused controversy in Sweden and abroad and a group linked to Al-Qaeda offered 100,000 for the killing of Vilks. Vilks said Tuesday he was not worried by the arrests in Ireland or the threats on his life. “I'm not shaking with fear, exactly,” he told Swedish news agency TT.
