Anti-Islamic Caricatures Countered By Pro-Islamic Ones

Egyptian cartoonist Khalid Abdul-Ati from the Egyptian Al Watan daily newspaper works on a cartoon depicting an Islamic figure inside his office at the newspaper’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. Amid outrage sparked by perceived insults to Islam, one Egyptian newspaper has decided to fight cartoons with cartoons. Al Watan daily says it is responding to the crude caricatures published last week by a satirical Parisian weekly in kind: a series of sketches critiquing relations between the Arab world and the West. The paper says they are a “civilized” alternative to the violent protests across the Muslim world sparked by a low-budget anti-Islam film produced in the United States.

Egyptian cartoonist Abdul-Rahman Najmuddin walks past cartoon sketches, one depicting Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi with a caption in Arabic “someone calls home and tell them that I am delivering a speech,” at his office in the Egyptian Al Watan daily newspaper headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012.

Egyptian cartoonist Khalid Abdul-Ati holds a copy of the Egyptian Al Watan daily newspaper with a two-page spread of cartoons with a headline in Arabic that reads “nothing cracks cartoons but cartoons,” inside his office at the newspaper’s headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. <AP Photo/Nasser Nasser>

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