WESTERN media apply double standards when reporting on Muslims and are often ignorant about sensitive issues for the religion, Indonesia's president was quoted by the Antara state news agency as saying today.
"If non-Muslims are killed in fighting, then the Western media exaggerates the news. But this is not the case when Muslims are killed in Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon," President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told a conference on the resort island of Bali.
"Muslims all over the world do not need special treatment, but they only want to be respected in the same way as adherents of other faiths," Dr Yudhoyono told the gathering of journalists from around the world.
He singled out the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish and other Western media.
"The publication of the Prophet Mohammad's caricature has come as a surprise to all of us. Even more surprisingly, a number of Western journalists said they did not know that it was forbidden," Dr Yudhoyono said.
Many Muslims regard any depiction of the Prophet as an offence against their religion.
Denmark's government declined to apologise for the cartoons, saying the country's media was free and independent.
The row over the cartoons sparked violent protests in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East in which at least 50 people died.
More than 85 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam. Most Indonesian Muslims are moderate, but public concern on Islamic issues and militancy have grown in recent years. |