The Danish boycott campaign is slowly building momentum, as reported in Arab News:
E-mails and text messages calling for the boycott of Danish products have been circulating this week in the Kingdom following the decision this month by 17 Danish newspapers to republish defamatory cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
The cartoons — first published in a Danish newspaper in 2006 — caused outrage across the Muslim world, sparking a boycott of Danish products, which, according to various media sources, led to economic losses of over $1 billion.
Danish newspapers republished the cartoons in support of one of the men who drew the cartoons and who escaped an assassination attempt earlier this year. Calls for a new boycott are also being made on the Internet’s popular networking website, Facebook. Over 20 local and international groups have formed calling for a boycott.
In a move that is thought to escalate tensions, Wolfgang Schauble, German interior minister, yesterday expressed respect for the Danish newspapers’ decision to reprint the controversial cartoons and suggested that all European newspapers should follow suit.
A survey made by the Arab News revealed that people have slowly begun to react against the publication of the cartoons. Unlike the first boycott, grocery shops and supermarkets have so far not hung signs saying they do not sell Danish products.
Ahmad Awad, manager of the Al-Manar supermarket, said that since last week some people have begun to ask about Danish goods.
“Following the last boycott, we have started to slowly bring back Danish products,” he said.
Awad, who did not know of the reprinting of the cartoons, said, “If it is true, then we would certainly stop selling products from any country that have published the cartoons.”
Which suggests that Wolfgang Schauble’s suggestion is a good one: let Awad stop selling products from every Western country. Surely a little solidarity with the Danes is called for here.
And, as predicted, Sudan is at the forefront of the protests:
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir declared yesterday that he would bar Danes from Sudan and told tens of thousands of people at a government-backed rally that the Muslim world should boycott Denmark because of a reprinted cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
“We urge all Muslims around the world to boycott Danish commodities, goods, companies, institutions, organisations and personalities,” Mr Bashir told the crowd outside the Republic Palace in Khartoum.
Mr Bashir vowed that “not a single Danish foot will from now on desecrate the land of Sudan”.
Desecrate the land of Sudan??
Mick Hartley 
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