Danish newspapers this week reprinted the notorious cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb for a turban, a day after three people were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill the artist who drew it, Kurt Westergaard, a 73-year-old illustrator with the daily Jyllands-Posten. Several other newspapers, including Politiken, Berlingske Tidende and the Ekstra Bladet tabloid, also decided to run the picture, in an act of defiance to intimidation. At least three newspapers in Sweden, Holland and Spain also reprinted the cartoon. "We are doing this to document what is at stake in this case, and to unambiguously back and support the freedom of speech that we as a newspaper will always defend," Copenhagen's Berlingske Tidende said. "Regardless of whether Jyllands-Posten at the time used freedom of speech unwisely and with damaging consequences, the paper deserves unconditional solidarity when it is threatened with terror."

Spanish police Feb. 11 arrested 14 prominent members of the outlawed Basque nationalist party Batasuna. Most of the arrests, ordered by leading anti-terrorist prosecutor Judge Baltasar Garzon, took place in towns around the northern Basque region and neighboring Navarra. One, Nuria Alzugarai, was arrested in the southern city of Cordoba, where she was visiting a prisoner. Police searched the houses of Karmelo Landa and Mikel Etxaburu, arrested in Bilbao, and seized several computers. police also searched several houses in other Basque towns, including Elorrio. The detainees, who have been transferred to Madrid, are accused of "collaboration with a terrorist group." (EiTB, Feb. 11)

A 37-year-old US businesswoman and married mother of three is seeking justice after she was thrown in jail by Saudi Arabia's religious police for sitting with a male colleague at a Starbucks coffee shop in Riyadh. Yara, who does not want her last name published, was bruised and crying when she was released from a day in prison after she was strip-searched, threatened and forced to sign confessions by the kingdom's "Mutaween," or Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

Spain's Justice Minister Mariano Fernandez Bermejo said Jan. 23 he will ask the Spanish cabinet to outlaw Basque Nationalist Action (ANV) and the Communist Party of the Basque Lands (EHAK) on grounds that they are part of Batasuna, the nationalist party banned in 2003 for its supposed links to the Basque armed group ETA. The move to ban the parties would have to be upheld by the courts. (EiTB24, Jan. 24)

Some 1,000 anti-fascist activists gathered on Jan. 19 in Pilsen, Czech Republic, to commemorate the victims of Nazi terror. The date marked the 66th anniversary of the deportation of Pilsen's Jews. The night before, local "anti-fa" in Pribram, Jan Kucera, 18, was knifed to death by neo-Nazi Jiri Fous, 20. The incident occurred after skinheads marched in Pribram, giving the Nazi salute and provoking a group of young punks and anti-fascist skinheads, to which Kucera belonged. (Antifa.cz, Jan. 20)

A three-year prison sentence was imposed Jan. 18 by a court in Minsk on Alyaksandr Zdvizhkou, former deputy editor of the weekly Zhoda, for reprinting the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first appeared in a Danish newspaper. He was found guilty of "inciting racial hatred" under article 130 of Belarus' criminal code at the end of a trial behind closed doors. (Reporters Without Borders, Jan. 18)

"Laplandian" posts to Infoshop News, Jan. 26:

The government of Leningrad Oblast (Saint-Petersburg Region) is planning to expand the Ust-Luga Seaport, which is to become the largest seaport in Russia. According to the plan, all villages nearby the construction site are going to be demolished, and their population will be offered apartments in other areas. The villages Krakol'e and Luzhitsy, both located in the seaport area, are the only surviving compact settlement of the [Finnic] Votia nation. According to archaeological data, the Votians are the most ancient indigenous nation of Ingria [region], who became practically extinct after Stalinist dispersion to Soviet provinces far away.

Serbian and Russian officials have signed an energy deal they say will turn Serbia into a major hub for gas supplies to Europe and boost Russia's economic influence in the region. The deal was signed in Moscow, where Serbia's President Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic and other officials met President Vladimir Putin and their Russian counterparts. The agreement provides for the construction of a stretch of the South Stream gas pipeline in Serbia, including a major regional gas storage unit at Banatski Dvor. Under the deal Gazpromneft, the oil subsidiary of Russian gas monopoly, Gazprom, acquires a 51% stake in Serbia’s top oil and gas company, Naftna Industrija Srbije (NIS). The deal comes a week after Bulgaria joined the South Stream project, which is to have an annual capacity of 30 billion cubic meters of gas. The pipeline is to carry Russian gas via Bulgaria and Serbia to Hungary, Austria and Italy.