Talk:Kurt Westergaard

Bad sentence
A sentence from this page was featured on a bad writing contest (http://adamcadre.ac/11lyttle.html). I'm inclined to agree with their stance. The below sentence sounds really bad...

The intruder attempted to break down the reinforced door with his axe, shouting phrases like “We will get our revenge!”, “Revenge!” and “Blood!”

The repetition of the word "Revenge" is what ruins it for me. Also, too many exclamation points. Maybe someone can rewrite this bit. 216.31.211.11 (talk) 18:58, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello! Same user here. Seeing that lousy sentence in here still, 3 years in, brings an odd joy to my belly. There's been dozens of edits since then, and I'm sure this page saw some uptick in traffic due to that site (well, at least one user anyway :p), so I really expected that someone would go and change it. But, since no one has, I propose we keep it, as a sort of shrine.68.4.127.216 (talk) 06:10, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

True name
W or V Kurt Vestergaard or Kurt Westergaard? During the axeman trial, the cartoonist explaing that his true name is spelled with V. His 'nome de guerre' however is KW.

Den 75-årige tegner fortalte torsdag i retten, at hans 'nome de guerre' er KW, men at hans borgerlige navn er Kurt Vestergaard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.226.178.140 (talk) 12:19, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Recent vandalism
Peter L: Terribly sorry about that, somehow I missed that bit about 28 when I reverted that last one.

All: There seems to be a high amount of vandalism on this article this morning. I am new to this. What would be the appropriate steps to take to request some sort of protection on this article? 98.108.135.143 (talk) 11:52, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Hi and welcome, no problem. :) If vandalism gets out of hand, page protection can be requested here. Semi-protection (i.e. preventing new and anonymous editors from editing) is common in cases like this. You may want to create a user account so you won't be affected by such protection in the future. Also, feel free to drop a note on my talk page if you want help. — Peter L &lt;talk|contribs&gt; 22:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Complete rewrite by User:Peter L
I have reverted the recent changes by User:Peter L. He appears to be making subjective edits, and has been adding bits and pieces of trivia which have absolutely no relevance to Westergaard's work as a cartoonist.

In regards to his editing, he removed a number of extremely important articles from Jyllands-Posten in this edit and this edit on the grounds that this sort of referencing isn't used in other articles and is "absurd" and unnecessary detail. It is perfectly acceptable to use List-defined references, and I would argue it looks better when dealing with foreign-language sources. Furthermore, if you rely solely upon the BBC, Politiken, Guardian, and Daily Telegraph articles about the attack you are left with a number of contradictions. You absolutely must read through the Jyllands-Posten coverage to understand how the attack went down.

In this edit, he adds that Westegaard considers himself a "cultural Christian atheist", without explaining what on Earth that means. He also adds that Westegaard has "provoked religious readers" with "cartoons critical of Christianity or the state of Israel" at some undefined point in his twenty year career (beginning when he was working for the Demokraten newspaper, or more recently?), without explaining anything about the public reaction. Ottre 03:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * First off, my initial referencing changes did not remove links to JP articles. What I was calling "absurd overuse of the bibliography section" -- sorry if that came out a bit harsh -- was how too many references in the text point to a footnote, only to then point on to the bibliography section. The "bibliography" was full of different news articles; bibliography sections are frequently convenient when quoting different pages in the same book, e.g. using the template, and then a  in the bibliography. The previous reference structure, which is instead in practice a two-layer footnote system, severely hampers reader overview, and all the notes saying "Jyllands-Posten Sunday, January 03, 2010" are ambiguous to anyone reading a printed version of the article, and indeed anyone not clicking through the first "layer" of notes. In these first edits, I therefore moved all citations up to this "first layer" (i.e. ordinary footnote/reference section), and I would say that the references in this version are much easier to find. For foreign-language sources, the cite templates have trans_title parameters.


 * Second, I must disagree that it is absolutely necessary to read the "extremely important" JP articles to get an overview of the attack. All the major Danish papers (I've personally read JP, Politiken and Berlingske Tidende on 3 Jan) have had several pages of coverage, with background articles about Westergaard, chronological walkthroughs, commentary etc. A great many Danish media have discussed how and why he left his grandchild in the living room, the suspect's appearance in court, PET's handling of the whole thing etc. And in any case, relying on a single source only is generally not advisable. With all due respect, I cannot see any reason to make a list of the contents of JP on 3 Jan when so many other media have covered the event.


 * Regarding him being "cultural Christian atheist", he claims in the JP article cited that he calls himself a "kulturkristen ateist" in Danish. I linked the cultural Christian part precisely for readers who might be unfamiliar with the term, and in any case, it should be interpreted to mean that he enjoys various Christian traditions and culture but has disbelief in supernatural claims. The cartoons referred to were published in JP, his time at Demokraten was a brief stint; my sources describe bursts of letters to the editor after e.g. Christian readers "choking on their morning coffee", and a cartoon criticizing Israel's treatment of Palestinians. I'll admit, though, that the sources for the early life section are a bit vague w.r.t. time and reader reaction. With respect to the alleged subjective edits, could you please elaborate on any NPOV problems (they may well exist)? — Peter L &lt;talk|contribs&gt; 09:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

So he should have let his 5-year-old granddaughter see him get hacked to death by a rabid axe murderer?
I've just removed an edit referencing an Ekstra Bladet journalist calling Kurt Westergaard a coward "because he fled to the safe room without his five-years-old granddaughter".

My justification for removing it is that my understanding is that Kurt Westergaard happened to already be in the bathroom / safe room when the attacker broke into the house. He stuck his head out of the door, saw the maniac with the axe, and retreated back into the safe room and locked the door and alarmed the police. In other words, the edit I removed contained a factual error when it said Kurt Westergaard "fled to the safe room".

I suppose it can be argued that some reference to criticism towards Kurt Westergaard can be added to the article, if factual errors are avoided and if the criticism is "notable". Personally I'd prefer to not see that kind of nonsense in the article.

The bottom line is, what Kurt Westergaard did resulted in the best possible result, given the situation. Neither he nor his granddaughter were harmed.

What could have happened if he had instead fled to the living room in an attempt to save the granddaughter is that the attacker could have caught up with him and hacked him to death in front of the child. Maybe. Who knows?

Never having been in a situation like that (thank heaven), I don't know how one reacts. But I'm guessing that rational thought processes are not part of what goes on. One probably reacts instinctively, and the basic animal core parts of the brain take over. Later on one can rationalize it, and armchair pundits can criticize it, and I don't see much purpose in that.

It may also be that women react differently than men when we get down to the very basic survival / fight / flee parts of the brain. (The Ekstra Bladet journalist in question is a woman.)

One can also argue that the child's parents should be criticized for leaving the child together with a person with death threats hanging over him.

Anyway, it would strike me as regrettable if the article ends up containing criticism of Kurt Westergaard, and no criticism at least 10 times stronger aimed at the assailant. --RenniePet (talk) 00:56, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with your removal. We should not insert every columnist's rant into a BLP. If someone with relevant qualifications publishes a study with an analysis of exactly what happened, and how various people have reacted in similar circumstances, we might quote it. The translation I saw of the article was poor, but it appears that the columnist has previously criticized Westergaard which makes the column even more dubious. Johnuniq (talk) 09:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Death rumours
Unreliable?--NordicGirlsExtinctIn200Years (talk) 18:08, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Very. --Saddhiyama (talk) 18:50, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Death threat via this article?
In this edit. The edit appears to originate in Canada (Rogers Cable Communications). __meco (talk) 13:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

WTA
How many does "some" stand for? Note that the main article says "This led to protests across the Muslim world" and not "some of the Muslim world".  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  20:56, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi. What are you looking at?  The sentence in question is unsourced.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Its a matter of proper encyclopaedic language. The word 'some' is ridiculous in the context of global rioting. Do you have a proper argument for keeping it in such as "some did x while others did y"?  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  12:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Here is what I suggest. Add a ref -- that should not be difficult.  Without a ref, as apparently the language is controversial, it should be deleted.  I won't delete it, as I'm sure you can find a ref of some sort, and I'm looking for us to work together to get this right, not to edit war.  The way it stands now, sans ref and controversial, is not appropriate.  Second, pick a ref from an RS that you like, per your personal viewpoint.  Third, have the language fairly reflect the RS language.  That should do it.  My concern here is the implication of all vs. some.--Epeefleche (talk) 21:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Heyo Epeefleche,
 * Not sure why you're contesting this when its such a clear issue but fine. Pleasure working with you.
 * Warm regards,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  02:55, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * No worries. We're friends still, right?  BTW, I'm not quite sure that those refs are RSs, but if I get a chance I will look for one myself.  Not looking to hassle you, just to get it "right".  Update:  I spent five minutes, could not find a good source for what we both expect I would find, so am leaving it.  I think we both agreed that there was upset among Moslems throughout the world, but not all Moslems throughout the world were offended.  The base articles have actually some rather good treatments of that -- distinguishing between those who are offended generally by images, and those groups that are not (Shi'a Islam having been generally tolerant of pictorial representations of Muhammad).  But I could not find a good one-liner treatment on point, and didn't take the time to find one, and don't want to make that sentence too heavy so am leaving as-is.  Best.--Epeefleche (talk) 03:50, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

50 people died
The fact, that at least 50 people died in Pakistan, Lybia and other muslim countries during the Anti-cartoon protests should certainly be mentioned. Even though most victims of course were demonstrators shot by the police (like in Lybia), this still shows the importance of these drawings in parts of the muslim communitiy and has to be mentioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.121.28.173 (talk) 00:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Death?
Um, did he die of fire or is this news report a fake?



A Saudi newspaper reported that he actually died, back in 2010. I don't believe so, no other news portals have reported this. Recently, it has been resurfaced in blogs and facebook wall posts especially in Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan. Else, I believe this is a troll attempt by some pranksters.

Emc2trooper (talk) 08:23, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It is indeed a fake story. He is alive and well. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)


 * "Danish Blasphemer burns to death". Clearly an objective and trustworthy source there.  Litho  derm  05:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comments
There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox on this and other similar pages.

The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person.

Please help us determine consensus on this issue. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:38, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

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