Translated material
Explosive arts
Berlin cartoonist threatened with death
The “cartoon confrontation” between the West and the Islamic world has also engulfed Germany. German journalists demonstrate their free-thinking, the faithful demonstrate the inviolability of Islamic shrines. Among the latter were the players of the Iranian national team, which is due to arrive in Berlin for the World Cup in the summer. The other day, the Berlin liberal newspaper Tagesspiegel added fuel to the fire of Muslim protest. She published a cartoon by famous cartoonist Klaus Stuttmann on the main sporting event of the year in Germany.Stuttmann appears to be in favor of using the army to defend the football championship from ill-wishers (see text on this page) . And in his genre, he tried to explain his position. On the right side of the football field, the artist depicted four German soldiers in marching gear, and on the left - four players. The latter have “Iran” on their T-shirts. The chest is surrounded by an impressive-looking belt with explosives. At the top, the author added: “This is why the Bundeswehr must guard the World Cup.”
Hours after the publication of the newspaper, the Islamic world exploded with a wave of indignation. The cartoon, launched on the Internet by the Iranian Football Fans Forum, began to receive indignant comments and threats from enraged Muslims around the world. In Tehran, the German Embassy, as one might expect, was pelted with stones and Molotov cocktails. The protesters shouted: "Death to Germany!" The Iranian ambassador in Berlin demanded an apology from the Tagesspiegel and “compensation for damages from this immoral act.” Iranian commentators, by the way, today criticize not only the newspaper, but also Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, in the atomic dispute with Iran, called Tehran’s nuclear ambitions “a threat to democratic states.”
Now the Tagesspiegel newspaper has no time for jokes, although journalists call everything that happens around the caricature “absurdistan.” Yesterday at the newspaper editorial office, where a Vremya Novostey correspondent asked to arrange a conversation with Mr. Stuttmann, we were coldly told that he “was not available for an interview.” After the cartoonist himself and both editors-in-chief of the newspaper Stefan-Andreas Kasdorff and Lorenz Maroldt received death threats by email, they chose not to speak out on the topic of the cartoons. Stuttmann, who was taken under the protection of the special services, seriously fears for his life. He left his apartment in Berlin and lives somewhere incognito. But it continues to work.