Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - A prominent Malaysian newspaper avoided punishment for publishing a cartoon about the Prophet Muhammad drawings controversy, offering an apology accepted by the government Friday.
The New Straits Times angered many Muslims groups in Malaysia by running the Non Sequitur strip on Monday, even though the cartoon did not show the prophet. Muslim groups said it mocked Islam, and the government asked the newspaper to give reasons why it should not be punished, for example by being shut down.
The Times gave a private explanation to the government Thursday and published an apology on its front page Friday.
"In all humility, we accept the criticism ... We stand corrected," the Times said. "We should have been more sensitive — human error or not. So again, we apologize."
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he considered the matter closed after the newspaper expressed regret, national news agency Bernama reported.
"After they have apologized openly ... and admitted that what they have done had caused various reactions from the public, I am not taking any action," Abdullah was quoted as saying.
The Prophet Muhammad cartoons have ignited violent protests across the Muslim world that have killed at least 45 people. Muslims have denounced the drawings — one of which shows a prophet with a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse — as offensive to their religion.
The caricatures were first published in a Danish newspaper in September, then reprinted by other Western media, mostly in Europe, in the name of free speech and news value. Muslims consider any physical representation of Islam's prophet blasphemous.
The Non Sequitur strip, by syndicated U.S. cartoonist Wiley Miller, showed an artist sitting on a chair on a street with a sign saying: "Caricatures of Muhammad While You Wait!" A caption alongside reads: "Kevin finally achieves his goal to be the most feared man in the world ..."
The trouble with the Times raised questions about the press freedoms in Malaysia and the limits and responsibility of the country's media, especially when it comes to religion in this Muslim-majority country.
All Malaysian newspapers operate under an annually renewable government permit. The government had earlier suspended the licenses of two local newspapers for printing a photograph showing the original Danish cartoons.