Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6087506.stm

A Danish court has rejected a libel case brought by several Muslim groups against a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The court in Aarhus said there was not enough reason to believe the cartoons were meant to be insulting or harmful.

The cartoons sparked violent protests around the world after Jyllands-Posten published them in 2005.

An appeal against the verdict has been lodged, and the verdict was met with disappointment in Muslim countries.

"It is not up to the court to decide if Muslims will have hard feelings or not," Ameer ul-Azeem, spokesman for Jamaat-e-Islami, told the Associated Press news agency.

His group belongs to an Islamic alliance that organised mass protests across Pakistan earlier this year.

In Syria, where a mob attacked and set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies in February, legislator Mohammed Habash said the ruling would "widen the gap between the Western and Islamic world".