The Muhammad cartoons printed in the Danish broadsheet newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, caused controversy and debate on a scale that has arguably never before been seen in the journalism industry. Protests, armed raids on international European offices and foreign diplomats being ordered to leave the country were just some of the repercussions of the now infamous Danish cartoons.

Editors and journalists of the world faced a difficult decision: should they republish the cartoons at the risk offending millions of Muslim readers? Or should they hold back the cartoons, preventing the public from viewing them and making up their own minds? The general consensus within the journalism world was that the cartoons should not be run. Many editors said they did not want to offend the Muslim population, whereas others cited the potential danger to their staff as the reason for not running the cartoons.

However, controversy struck a lot closer to home in 2006, when gair rhydd became the first newspaper in the UK to republish the cartoons. In doing so ,a spotlight on a national scale was shone upon our student newspaper. Tom Wellingham – the newspaper’s editor at the time – was suspended along with three other members of the editorial team. The 8,000 copies of gair rhydd were recalled shortly after they were printed on Saturday February 6, 2006 and destroyed by the Students’ Union.

Editor Tom Wellingham provided an apology in the next issue, apologising for the printing of the cartoons which he admitted was a mistake.

gair rhydd was not the only student paper to reprint the offensive cartoons. Across the pond, The Daily Illini, the University of Illinois’s student paper also ran the cartoons. The results were largely similar to those here in Cardiff: several members of the editorial staff were suspended, one of whom was eventually fired.

The Harvard Salient – Harvard University’s right-wing broadsheet – also ran the cartoons. They ran with the editorial commentary of “A Pox (err, Jihad) on free expression”, stating that “it is shameful that these cartoons have led to the arson of embassies, death threats, and demands that ‘whoever insults the prophet, kill him.’” In the same issue, the conservative paper also printed several examples of “truly vile” anti-Semitic cartoons that appeared in the Arab press, claiming that the Islamic community had been hypocritical to react in the way that it had. The repercussions of which differed to those at gair rhydd and The Illini; no editors were suspended and the issue was never pulled. A town forum was called so that the issue of the controversial cartoons could be discussed and the editorial team of the newspaper could answer any question from the public.

Another student newspaper in Illinois also printed the cartoon. The Northern Star, Northern Illinois University’s newspaper ran the 12 satirical images of the Islamic prophet. This time, however, the newspaper included a front-page editorial explaining the choice to run the cartoons, an article about them, students’ reactions and a column from a Muslim student leader. As a result, the decision was received in a far more positive manner and the editor at the time, Derek Wright, had the backing of the University staff and faculty advisor.

It appears that The Northern Star approached the issue in a far more responsible manner than the gair rhydd – and, as a result of which, free speech was able to be upheld without offending the entire Muslim population of the University. However, as a topic that still splits opinion down the middle, the question of whether the cartoons should ever have been run, as well as whether they should have been pulled and pulped, still remains an unanswered one.