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Jyllands Posten: The sword is mightier than the pen

DANISH NEWS - In a BBC interview Jyllands-Posten’s foreign affairs editor, Flemming Rose, admits that his paper has ‘backed down’ in the battle for freedom of expression

In an interview with the BBC’s prestigious debate programme, Hard Talk, Mr Rose acknowledges that sometimes we have to accept that ‘the sword is mightier than the pen’ when grilled as to why Jyllands-Posten has failed to support Charlie Hebdo by republishing the Mohammed cartoons. This is according to our Danish news partner Seven59.dk.

The recent attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris is the latest in a chain of events following the Jyllands-Posten’s publication of the Muhammad cartoons in Denmark in 2006. See the chain of events subsequent to the Mohammed cartoon crisis here.

At the same time Flemming Rose blames the international media, with the exception of Charlie Hebdo, for failing to show more support when his paper printed the original cartoons that ignited riots throughout the Middle East nine years ago.

Caved in to intimidation

He says that Jyllands-Posten has been living with death threats for nine years and is in a special situation compared to all other newspapers in the world and admits that ‘our side is fighting a losing battle’.

Although claiming that he isn’t personally afraid he admits that the paper has ‘caved in’ to the intimidation.

See a clip of the Hard Talk interview here.

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