body comprising fifty-seven Islamic states and Muslim countries. The OIC passed a resolution condemning the insult to the Prophet and the use of freedom of expression as “a pretext to defame religions.”

At least 200 people—most of them Muslims —died in anti-Danish and more generally anti-Western and anti-Christian protests in various Muslim countries where the cartoons were republished (in a minority of cases), or as a result of television and press reports. Some were killed by police trying to control the demonstrations, others—as in the case of Nigeria—in clashes between Muslim and Christian mobs that broke out after demonstrations against the cartoons. In the Middle East a commercial boycott led to the removal of Danish goods from supermarket shelves: Arla Foods, one of the larger companies, estimated its lossesin 2006 at $223 million. Danish embassies and consulates were attacked and burned in Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Indonesia.

After Yousuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood preacher and host of a popular show on al-Jazeera television, called in February 2006 for a public “day of rage” against the cartoons, the riots escalated into generalized attacks on Western targets. To add fat to the fire, there were reports that Danish Neo-Nazis, in implicit collaboration with Muslim activists, were planning a public burning of the Quran (although in the event they were intercepted by Danish police). In Damascus, protestors torched the Norwegian as well as the Danish missions. And in Libya, where demonstrators stormed an Italian consulate, at least nine people died.

Despite public statements by the US government scolding