If one has the freedom of silence, one can exercise that freedom if one wants to. If you value the freedom of speech, you can’t then say “except for those guys there”. Have you looked at the cartoons? Do you understand why they were originally published?
They were published to highlight the fact that someone who wanted to write a kids book about Muhammad couldn’t get anyone to do even respectful drawings, because they were afraid of being killed. The paper ran with the story, and as an aside included some rather benign cartoons as a sociological commentary and a “here are some cartoons you can use” for the author.
Some Imams tried to kick up a fuss in Denmark, were unable to, so they got some pictures of men dressed up as pigs , added them to the pictures of the newspaper (to spice it up)and went to stir things up in the Middle East.

The effects of Islam on the reduction of human rights around the world is a big issue - the death penalty for ex-Muslims has been recently introduced at State level in Iran, In 2007, Laws have been passed in Egypt and Malaysia so that ex-Muslims have their children taken off them, their marriages annulled, their property taken off them and are jailed for apostasy. Clamp downs on the freedom of religion are also occurring in Algeria and Pakistan - and that’s excluding places like post-Taliban Afghanistan where apostates are killed (and excluding the 13 other countries where ex-Muslims are killed for not believing in Islam).
At international level, the Organisation of Islamic Countries has implemented special measures for the prevention of criticism of Islam in the UN, requiring member countries to have a special raporteur to ensure compliance - you might want to google it.

Recently the director of a Dutch company who were the only publisher to agree to publish an (overly respectful) book about Muhammad’s 6 year old wife Aisha [in the book they said she was 12], had his house firebombed for daring to publish the book.

This rolling back and pressure being put on Human Rights in Europe, at international level and around the world is a serious and disturbing issue for anyone who cares about Human Rights.

I value freedom of speech, however, with that one also has freedom of silence. I see no reason why the Danish newspapers printed the (bad) cartoons in the first place and I see absolutely no reason to print them the second time, just because a few people were accused of plotting murder, they actually didn’t murder anybody. I wonder whatever happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?

I am appalled at this whole saga! The Danish extremist right wing government have tackled the whole thing spectacularly badly! I am ashamed to be indirectly associated with them by citizenship alone. Fortunately, I know ‘the other half’ of the population are equally appalled to me! And they may just be our saving grace in the long term.

Talk about hypocrites! Granted, I’d not like a cartoonist belittling my beliefs–but I wouldn’t want to set him on fire if he did.