FT.com / World / Europe - Muslim anger over cartoons hits Danish companies:

Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, said he believed "freedom of the press should always be exercised in a way that fully respects the religious beliefs and tenets of all religions".

How did we arrive at this?

The dispute began on September 30, when Jyllands-Posten, Denmark?s biggest newspaper, published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, a move considered blasphemous in Islam. One of the cartoons showed the Prophet with a bomb under his turban. The Danish newspaper later apologised but the row escalated this week after several European newspapers reprinted the cartoons to assert the right to free speech.

Most daily UK newspapers decided not to reproduce the cartoons. One cartoon appeared on The Spectator's website but was quickly taken down.

Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary, said on Friday that "freedom of speech" did not carry "any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory".

"I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong," he said, adding that he thought the British media had shown "considerable responsibility and sensitivity" in its approach to the issue.