More appeasement in Europe

Now, you can yell "bomb bomb Denmark/England/[choose your western country]" in Europe without being bothered an instant, but you cannot make toilet paper with the word Koran on it.

(Emphasis mine)

A German citizen was convicted of insulting the Islamic holy book by printing the word "Koran" repeatedly along toilet paper. The man ended up with a suspended sentence of one year in prison and was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.

During court proceedings, the judge told the 61-year-old retired businessman that the sentence was one year because of the international political rioting and unrest in the past month over cartoons that Muslims regard as offensive because they depict the Prophet Mohammed.

The man had admitted that he had printed and distributed the paper and asserted that his motivation had been to raise funds for an "artistic" campaign against Islamist terrorism.

The judge assisted by lay assessors found him guilty under a part of the German penal code that makes it punishable to "insult confessions, religious communities or groups promoting a special world view." The maximum penalty available was three years in jail.

He was also found guilty of disturbing public peace.

(...)

The court was told how the man, who lives in the small northern provincial town of Senden, sent the toilet paper to 22 mosques and to German television stations to win attention, provoking outrage in Islamic countries.

He had used a stamp to imprint the words, "Koran, the Holy Koran," on the rolls of toilet paper.

The judge said that the man, who already has several convictions for other crimes, was "seriously deluded" in what he did.

Iranian diplomats sent a statement to the German government in Berlin protesting the insult to their holy book after the man's activities were reported in the media.

A senior prosecutor praised the sentence as a "clear deterrent to others."

The accused told the court he had spent about 15 years of his life in Islamic nations such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and had developed a fierce antipathy towards Islam.

He claimed he devised the plan in response to the terrorist attacks by Islamists on London public transport last year and the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004 by an Islamic fanatic.

He told the court he had wanted to raise a monument to the victims of Islamist terrorism and believed he could raise donations with the paper.

Angry Muslims in Germany have sent him threatening messages for several weeks and the man said he feared for his life and was being protected by police bodyguards.