WThe Aftonbladet–Israel controversy refers to the controversy that followed the publication of a 17 August 2009 article in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, one of the largest daily newspapers in the Nordic countries. The article alleged that Israeli troops harvested organs from Palestinians who had died in their custody. Sparking a fierce debate in Sweden and abroad, the article created a rift between the Swedish and the Israeli governments. Israeli officials denounced the report at the time and labelled it anti-Semitic. Written by Swedish freelance photojournalist Donald Boström, the article's title was Våra söner plundras på sina organ. It presented allegations that in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, many young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by Israeli forces and their bodies returned to their families with organs missing.
WBook burning is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or other written materials, usually carried out in a public context. The burning of books represents an element of censorship and usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or political opposition to the materials in question.
WThe Calcutta Quran Petition is a book by Sita Ram Goel and Chandmal Chopra published by Goel under his Voice of India imprint. The first edition was published in 1986, the second in 1987 and the third in 1999.
WCharlie Hebdo issue No. 1011 is an issue of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo published on 2 November 2011. Several attacks against Charlie Hebdo, including an arson attack at its headquarters, were motivated by the issue's cover caricature of Muhammad, whose depiction is prohibited in some of interpretations of Islam. The issue's subtitle Charia Hebdo references Islamic sharia law.
WOn 7 January 2015 at about 11:30 a.m. CET local time, two French Muslim brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, forced their way into the offices of the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Armed with rifles and other weapons, they killed 12 people and injured 11 others. The gunmen identified themselves as belonging to the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which took responsibility for the attack. Several related attacks followed in the Île-de-France region on 7–9 January 2015, including the Hypercacher kosher supermarket siege where a terrorist held 19 hostages, of whom he murdered four Jewish people.
WOn 14–15 February 2015, three separate shootings occurred in Copenhagen, Denmark. In total, two victims and the perpetrator were killed, while five police officers were wounded.
WElder Pastitsios is a satirical figure of a fictitious monk who first appeared in a Facebook page. The satire is mostly based on the famous Greek Orthodox monk Elder Paisios, with his name and face substituted by pastitsio—a local pasta and béchamel sauce dish, thus combining Greek Orthodox and Pastafarian imagery. The page ran for about a year until it was closed down after the arrest of its creator for blasphemy on September 21, 2012. The case, which started as a Facebook flame, reached the Greek Parliament twice and created a strong local as well as international political impact.
WEverybody Draw Mohammed Day was a 2010 event in support of artists threatened with violence for drawing representations of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It stemmed from a protest against censorship of the American television show South Park episode "201", led by the show's distributor Comedy Central, in response to death threats that had been made against some of those responsible for two segments broadcast in April 2010. A drawing representing Mohammed was posted on the Internet on April 20, 2010, with a message suggesting that "everybody" create a drawing depicting Mohammad on May 20 in support of free speech.
WThe Galileo affair began around 1610 and culminated with the trial and condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633. Galileo was prosecuted for his support of heliocentrism, the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the centre of the Solar System.
WThe International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists is a UN-recognized international day observed annually on 2 November.
WThe Interview is a 2014 American political action comedy film co-produced and directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg in their second directorial work, following This Is the End (2013). The screenplay was written by Dan Sterling, based on a story he co-wrote with Rogen and Goldberg. The film stars Rogen and James Franco as journalists who set up an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and are then recruited by the CIA to assassinate him. The film is heavily inspired by a 2012 Vice documentary.
WThe burning of the Jaffna Public Library took place on the night of June 1, 1981, when an organized mob of Sinhalese individuals went on a rampage, burning the library. It was one of the most violent examples of ethnic biblioclasm of the 20th century. At the time of its destruction, the library was one of the biggest in Asia, containing over 97,000 books and manuscripts.
WThe Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy began after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 editorial cartoons on 30 September 2005, most of which depicted Muhammad, a principal figure of the religion of Islam. The newspaper announced that this was an attempt to contribute to the debate about criticism of Islam and self-censorship. Muslim groups in Denmark complained, and the issue eventually led to protests around the world, including violent demonstrations and riots in some Muslim countries.
WThe Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy began in July 2007 with a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks that depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog. Several art galleries in Sweden declined to show the drawings, citing security concerns and fear of violence. The controversy gained international attention after the Örebro-based regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of the drawings on 18 August as part of an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion.
WThis article lists times that items were renamed due to political motivations. Such renamings have generally occurred during conflicts; for example, World War I gave rise to anti-German sentiment among Allied nations, leading to disassociation with German names.
WThe Nederlandse Omroep Stichting is one of the broadcasting organisations making up the Netherlands Public Broadcasting system. It has a special statutory obligation to make news and sports programmes for the three Dutch public television channels and the Dutch public radio services.
WThe Regensburg lecture or Regensburg address was delivered on 12 September 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg in Germany, where he had once served as a professor of theology. It was entitled "Faith, Reason and the University – Memories and Reflections". The lecture is considered to be among the most important papal statements on world affairs since John Paul II's 1995 address to the United Nations, and sparked international reactions and controversy.
WThe Republican marches were a series of rallies that took place in cities across France on 10–11 January 2015 to honour the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting, the Montrouge shooting, and the Porte de Vincennes siege, and also to voice support for freedom of speech.
WThe Strelnikoff Mary of Help of Brezje controversy or the Strelnikoff Affair began after a depiction of Mary of Help of Brezje holding a rat instead of Jesus was published by the Slovenian music group Strelnikoff on the cover of their 1998 studio album Bitchcraft. The album was made in protest of the official views of the Roman Catholic Church in Slovenia and the statements of some of its highest representatives on the subject of abortion.
WThe United Nations General Assembly declared May 3 to be World Press Freedom Day or just World Press Day, observed to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined under Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and marking the anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, a statement of free press principles put together by African newspaper journalists in Windhoek in 1991.