Ireland release Muslims accused of plot against cartoonist

Irish police have freed three of the seven Muslim suspects who were arrested in the Irish Republic over an alleged plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist.

Two women and one man, who were among those arrested in Waterford and Cork, were released on Friday night. The group included nationals from Algeria, Libya, Palestine, Croatia and the US.

The suspects were freed without charge after three-and-a-half days of questioning. They were held on suspicion of plotting to kill the Swedish sacrilegious caricaturist Lars Vilks over an insulting cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).

The arrests last Tuesday were part of an international investigation into alleged death threats against Vilks.

Some observers describe such measures by European governments as arbitrary and inhumane, intended to harass Muslims and openly display an attitude of mistrust and double standard. They insist that such ill-treatment of Muslims is contrary to what the West claims to protect as 'democratic values.'

In 2007, a group linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq offered a $100,000 (£66,000) reward for killing Vilks, and a '50% bonus' if he was "slaughtered like a lamb" by having his throat cut.

The Vilks cartoon was published about a year-and-a-half after a series of depictions of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper caused protests by Muslims around the world.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=120720§ionid=351020605.