Swedish Mohammed artist to finish lecture after attack
AFP
STOCKHOLM- A Swedish artist who depicted the Prophet Mohammed as a dog will speak again at the same university where he was attacked during a lecture in May, Uppsala University said Monday.
"Artist Lars Vilks has been invited to finish his lecture at Uppsala University. The date has now been set for October 7," the university, one of Sweden's oldest, said in a statement.
Lars Vilks
Police had evacuated the lecture hall but some demonstrators resisted, and officers used tear gas. Two people were arrested.
"That a university lecture is interrupted by violence is a serious thing, regardless of the opinion that provoked the reaction," Folke Tersman, the head of the university's philosophy department, said in Monday's statement.
"It is incompatible with the basic values democracy is based on. It is to uphold these values that we are inviting him again," he added.
Four days after he was attacked at Uppsala University, Vilks' home in the south of Sweden was fire-bombed by two Swedish brothers of Kosovar origin.
They have been convicted and were given jail sentences of two and three years.
Vilks has faced numerous death threats and a suspected assassination plot since his drawing of the Muslim prophet with the body of a dog was first published by Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda in 2007.
It illustrated an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression.
The drawing by Vilks prompted protests by Muslims in the town of Oerebro, west of Stockholm, where the newspaper is based.
Egypt, Iran and Pakistan also made formal complaints about the drawing.
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