Last night the BBC and ITV were among those who used fleeting images of the cartoons in news bulletins as a worldwide furore threatened to provoke violence and a trade boycott of European goods. The broadcasters' move came just hours after Europe's trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, appealed to editors not to publish the cartoons, saying they were "bound to offend". The BBC emphasised that the images were broadcast "responsibly", "in full context" and "to give audiences an understanding of the strong feelings evoked by the story".
The British Council of Muslims said it thought the BBC was acting responsibly in its "sensitive" use of the images. A spokesman said: "I think the BBC have a good journalistic reason to show the images. I would hope most British Muslims would recognise that whereas some of the newspapers are publishing the cartoons with a view to attacking Islam, the BBC is reporting how the story is developing, which is an entirely different matter." A spokeswoman for ITV News said it was showing the image "in the context of it being a news story".