DENMARK: The Jyllands-Posten editor who commissioned cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad which have angered Muslims worldwide, has been sent on holiday after suggesting he would print Iranian cartoons of the Holocaust.
"The editors have told Flemming Rose to take a vacation because no one can understand the kind of pressure he has been under," Jyllands-Posten editor Carsten Juste told Berlingske Tidende newspaper.
But the chairman of the foundation which owns the newspaper, Asger Noergaard Larsen, refused calls to sack Juste and Rose, saying he fully backed the management and that there was no crisis at the newspaper.
Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten's culture editor, told CNN on Wednesday he would consider publishing proposed Iranian cartoons of the Holocaust.
The newspaper later made a public apology and played down his comments.
In a challenge to Western values of free speech, an Iranian newspaper has said it will run a competition for cartoons of the Holocaust. Meanwhile, a far-right Swedish party's website showing cartoons of the Prophet was shut down by its internet hosts yesterday after pressure from police and the foreign ministry.
The anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats had invited readers to send in cartoons for publication on its website alongside the Danish cartoons.
After foreign minister Laila Freivalds warned of "grave consequences for Swedish people and Swedish interests" and said Muslim countries were already reacting, web hosting company Levonline pulled the plug, a company director said.
Protests have continued worldwide. Iranians stoned the Danish embassy in Tehran; protesters chanting anti-Danish slogans tried to march on the Afghan capital Kabul but were stopped by police; and police in Bangladesh beat back about 10,000 marching on the Danish embassy.
Kenyan police fired live rounds and tear gas at hundreds of Muslim protesters, wounding at least one, to stop them reaching the Danish embassy.
Palestinian group Islamic Jihad threatened to "burn the ground" beneath nations publishing the cartoons. But a leading Iranian cleric called for attacks on diplomatic compounds to stop.
Malaysia banned circulating or even possessing cartoons of the Prophet after closing a newspaper which published the 12 controversial Danish caricatures.
Protesters also took to the streets in Sri Lanka, Turkey, Jordan and India. In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, police were questioning an editor after his tabloid, Peta, published a caricature of the Prophet.