brad brace contemporary culture scrapbook

Hackers in Turkey have attacked more than 5,000 Swedish Web sites in the past week,
and at least some of the sabotage appears linked to Muslim anger over a Swedish
newspaper drawing that depicted the Prophet Muhammad’s head on a dog’s body. Around
1,600 Web sites hosted by server-provider Proinet and 3,800 sites hosted by another
company have been targeted, Proinet spokesman Kjetil Jensen said Sunday. Jensen said
hackers, operating on a Turkish network, at times replaced files on the sites with
messages. According to Swedish news agency TT, the Web site of a children’s cartoon
called Bamse was replaced by a message saying Islam’s prophet had been insulted. The
incidents have been reported to the police. The Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda
published the drawing by artist Lars Vilks in an Aug. 19 editorial. It triggered
protests from Swedish Muslim groups and formal complaints from Muslim countries,
including Pakistan and Iran. An insurgent leader in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, put a
USD 100,000 bounty on Vilks’ head.