Saturday saw the embassies of Denmark and Norway get ransacked and burned in Damascus, Syria. The French embassy came close to the same fate.

In Jordan, two newspaper editors were arrested.

Check this out, from the BBC story:

Jihad Momani and Hisham Khalidi are accused of insulting religion under Jordan's press and publications law.

Mr Momani was fired from the weekly Shihan after reproducing the cartoons - originally printed in Denmark - which have caused a global storm of protest.

One of the cartoons depicts Muhammad as a terrorist. Any images of the Prophet are banned under Islamic tradition.

'Abuse of freedom'

Mr Momani's arrest came earlier on Saturday, a day after Jordanian King Abdullah condemned the cartoons as an unnecessary abuse of freedom of speech.

Mr Momani's paper, Shihan, had printed three of the cartoons, alongside an editorial questioning whether the angry reaction to them in the Muslim world was justified.

"Muslims of the world be reasonable," wrote Mr Momani.

"What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

Mr Khalidi, whose al-Mehwar newspaper had also reprinted the cartoons, was detained late on Saturday. Al-Mehwar had reproduced the cartoons over a week ago to accompany an article on the condemnation they had sparked.

Remember, Jordan is one of the moderate Middle Eastern countries.

Jihad Momani was interviewed by CBC Radio's As It Happens on Thursday, Feb. 2. Try this link to listen to the RealAudio file. TalkBack had reaction in the Feb. 3 show.

If you read this and you're a Muslim, please tell me what Mr. Momani said above that was unreasonable.

So what would the Roman Catholics have to say about this, given that they're the oldest Christian church? From a Reuters story on ABC News:

"The freedom of thought and expression, confirmed in the Declaration of Human Rights, can not include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful. That principle obviously applies to any religion," the Vatican said.

"Any form of excessive criticism or derision of others denotes a lack of human sensitivity and can in some cases constitute an unacceptable provocation." ...

"Real or verbal intolerance, from wherever it comes, whether as an action or a reaction, is always a serious threat to peace."

So it would appear that a leading church in the Christian faith agrees that nothing can ever be said to offend people who have religious beliefs, and if you do, it could constitute an "unacceptable provocation."

A few questions for Pope Benedict XVI or his designate:

• Why can't freedom of thought or expression include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful?
• Do we really have freedom of thought or expression if we don't have a right to offend?
• How would you distinguish between something like promoting hatred, which is a criminal offence in Canada, and gentle lampooning or harder-edged ridicule?
• What if you say something that I, as an agnostic, find offensive or attacks a deeply-held belief of mine. Should you be criminally charged?
• If I consider your statement an "unacceptable provocation," what would you consider an inappropriate response by me? The Reuters story on ABC News says you deplore the violence, but again, when you use language like "unacceptable provocation," aren't you removing the responsibility of the offended to behave in a rational and civilized manner?
• Do you agree with the arrests of the two Jordanian editors? Should the editors of the Jyllens-Posten newspaper in Denmark face criminal charges? What is the appropriate way for the state to punish an invididual for offending the feelings of a religious believer? According to the Reuters story,  you say governments "could and should intervene according to (their) national legislation."

It would appear that in any clash between religion and freedom of expression, you can pretty much count out Pope Benedict XVI and his crew coming down on the side of freedom of expression. (Some days, I suspect the Catholic Church never quite got over the Enlightenment).

Now, I see over at WarrenKinsella.com, Warren has written in a Feb. 5 posting:

Last week, at band practice, we were talking about another Toronto punk group, called - and I'm not making this up - Tit Fuck Me Jesus.

I'm a church-going Catholic, and that band's name doesn't offend me in the slightest. Nor the stuff found on the covers of Black Flag records, nor the songs by my beloved Bad Religion.

But that's just me. And I can certainly see how someone else could be offended - really and truly hurt - by something like a band called Tit Fuck Me Jesus. And, just because I'm okay with that, doesn't mean that someone else has to be.

That's pretty much where I end up on the cartoons that depict Islam's prophet as a murderer. You might not find such things hateful or even hurtful, but many others do. Deeply, truly, honestly.

And, when all is said and done, what Muslims seek from the rest of us is not anything we do not already seek from them. Which is, mainly, a modicum of respect for the things they hold closest to their hearts.

I say they deserve that respect. And, if that makes me a censor, I'll wear that insult with pride.

Ironically, some Muslims are so offended at (one of 12) cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad as a murderer (I presume Warren is referring to the one with the bomb in Muhammad's turban; he doesn't specify which cartoon) they are calling for the decapitation of whoever drew it, or at the very least the lopping off of one of their hands.

Here's a quote from someone with whom I suspect Warren is familiar, Mahmoud Zahar:

A leader of the Islamic militant Hamas group, which recently swept Palestinian parliamentary elections, told an Italian newspaper on Saturday that the cartoons were an "unforgivable insult" that should be punished by death.

"We should have killed all those who offend the Prophet and instead here we are, protesting peacefully," Mahmoud Zahar, a top leader of the militant Islamic group that won the January 25 Palestinian elections, told Italian daily Il Giornale.

"We should have killed them, we should have required just punishment for those who respect neither religion nor its holiest symbols," Zahar was quoted as saying.

Some of the offended Muslims stormed the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday, trashing and burning them. I suspect the lives of anyone in those buildings during the attacks would have been at risk. Warren, oddly enough, didn't comment on those incidents at all, much less condemn them.

I don't think that's something on which which those who value civilized discourse should remain silent.

I'd love to know his thoughts on whether the Jordanian editors should have been arrested for asking questions about whether the calls for death and destruction were a proportionate response to the cartoons.

As a lawyer and someone affiliated with the party that brought us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, does he think Canada needs a law like Jordan's that would make it illegal to insult religion?

Does he think a cartoon that has Muhammad telling apparent suicide bombers that Paradise has run out of virgins is morally equivalent to someone painting "death to the Jews" and a Swastika on a synagogue?

As I've said earlier, I'm not a big fan of the cartoons, but the violent response to them is both bizarre and unacceptable. However, if Muslims or others wish to express their outrage over the cartoons through demonstrations, letters to the editor, blog postings or organized boycotts of Danish products, that's within the boundaries of civilized discourse.

In Friday's Globe and Mail, Tarek Fatah quoted the following verse from the Koran:

Keep to forgiveness (O Mohammed), and enjoin kindness, and turn away from the ignorant.

Seems like solid advice to me.