On the actions of governments

From Bloomberg: Danish Police Say Muhammad-Cartoons Death Plot Foiled:

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Danish police arrested three suspects in an alleged plot to murder one of 12 cartoonists whose caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005 sparked riots in Muslim communities around the world.

Denmark's Security and Intelligence Service, PET, detained two Tunisians and a 40-year-old Dane with a Moroccan background at 4:30 a.m. local time today in Aarhus, where Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that commissioned the cartoons, is based.

``The purpose of the clampdown was to prevent a terror- related homicide,'' PET chief Jakob Scharf said in an e-mailed statement.

``The clampdown occurred after a long period of surveillance.''

The detainees are suspected of planning to kill Kurt Westergaard, 73, who provided the newspaper with a cartoon of Muhammad wearing a bomb in his turban. The cartoons, and the efforts of a Danish Muslim delegation in the Middle East to draw attention to their publication, led to consumer boycotts of Danish goods and the torching of Danish embassies.

``I fear for my life, when the police tell me there are certain people who are working with concrete plans to kill me,'' Jyllands-Posten cited Westergaard as saying today.

`I think the aftermath of this insane reaction will last as long as I live. It's sad, but those are the terms under which I now live.''

Police Protection

``This case unfortunately shows that in Denmark also there are groups of extremists who don't recognize or respect the basic principles the Danish society is built on,'' Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an e-mailed statement.

``The government takes very seriously all attacks on freedom of speech,'' Rasmussen added.

``In Denmark, one not only has the freedom to think and speak, but also to draw what one chooses.''

Denmark's Royal Library on Jan. 30 said it was in talks to acquire the 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The library said it would treat the cartoons as it does the books in its collection, and would allow patrons to sign to view them.

``It would be natural for us to have them at the Royal Library,'' Jytte Kjaergaard, a spokeswoman for the Copenhagen- based institution, said then.

``We don't perceive them as works of art. We don't have any view on their substance or content. Our view is that they hold a place in our cultural heritage. The cartoons have become a part of Danish history.''

This article is so awesome on so many levels. First of all, the reporters didn't even have to leave their offices. Everyone's e-mailing them statements. Secondly, that freedom of speech is so important in Denmark. I've never experienced that in my life.

On the other hand, they arrested them before they could actually act on their assassination plot. How are the police so confident that it was in the works?

And also, one for the rest of the world. From BBC: Australia apology to Aborigines:

The Australian government has made a formal apology for the past wrongs caused by successive governments on the indigenous Aboriginal population.

In a motion passed unanimously by Australian MPs on Wednesday morning, Mr Rudd acknowledged the "past mistreatment" of all of his country's Aboriginal population.

"We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians," the motion said.

Mr Rudd said he apologised "especially" to the Stolen Generations of young Aboriginal children who were taken from their parents in a policy of assimilation which lasted from the 19th Century to the late 1960s.

"For the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."

For the full text of the apology, click here.

Just to reiterate, he's not apologising for the way the Aboriginese are today or their state of being today. He's apologising for the actions of his preceding government in persecuting them as a people, and by persecuting, I mean killing them indiscriminately and implementing policies that resulted in the Stolen Generation.