A Swedish cartoonist whose controversial image of the Prophet Muhammad led to a series of death threats said today that he had secured his property with a homemade panic room and booby-trapped artwork.
The latest threat to Lars Vilks emerged yesterday when seven people were arrested in Ireland accused of plotting to kill the 63-year-old artist.
Mr Vilks responded by saying that he was ready for them. “If something happens, I know exactly what to do,” he said.
His home in southern Sweden now contains a barbed-wire sculpture that could electrocute potential intruders, a secure space to hide in and an axe which will allow him “to chop down” anyone breaking in through his windows.
He said he had learned from American media reports that the woman held in the US Colleen R. LaRose, who had called herself Jihad Jane in a YouTube video, had visited the area where he lives, but he did not know whether that was true. “I’m glad she didn’t kill me,” Mr Vilks said.
The artist, who has dishevelled hair and thick-lenses glasses, said his life was like the plot of a film. “It’s a good story,” he said. “It’s about the bad guys and a good guy, and they try to kill him,” he said.
“They have this woman also which I think is a good part of the plot with this fantastic name, ‘Jihad Jane’ who is actually doing some scouting there in the surroundings,” Mr Vilks added. “As I can see it, you have something of a film there. But as I said, I believe they’re a bit low-tech.”
Three leading Swedish newspapers and the national broadcaster today carried the notorious cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a dog’s body.
The country’s biggest daily newspaper, Dagens Nyheter said the threat to Mr Vilks was a threat against all Swedes
An editorial claimed that the recent axe attack on a Danish cartoonist for drawing the Prophet meant that Scandinavian values of openness were being assaulted.
The drawing by Mr Vilks was published in the Stockholm-based Dagens Nyheter and Expressen newspapers and the Malmo daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet in defence of one of the cornerstones of Sweden’s constitution. This states that Swedes have the right to freedom of speech and cannot be restrained from the lawful expression of their views.
But the newspapers stopped short of running the controversial cartoon on their websites because of their wider accessibility around the world. Islam forbids representations being made of the Prophet.
“In September 2007, al-Qaeda leaders set a price on Swedish artist Lars Vilks’ head,” said Dagens Nyheter in an editorial comment. His “alleged crime” was to draw a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad as a “roundabout dog”, a type of street installation popular in Sweden where sculptures are often placed in the middle of roundabaouts.
Gunilla Herlitz, the Dagens Nyheter editor-in-chief, defended the re-printing of the cartoon as a legitimate part of the story of the day. “I believe that, in this case, the cartoon is a part of the news and therefore we would like to show the readers what this is all about. But the cartoon is published in a context and is not the leading picture on the page.
“In order not to increase the risk of separating the cartoon from the context it was not published on the newspaper’s website. (To do) That could upset people without a reason. Also, a picture published online would be much more widely disseminated.”