Kurt Westergaard, the creator of the most provocative of the famous Danish Muhammad cartoons, has died of natural causes at age eighty-six.
Born on July 13, 1935, in the village of Døstrup, Denmark, Westergaard grew up in a conservative Christian home but turned from these roots in high school when he was introduced to cultural radicalism. He became a schoolteacher, trained to work with disabled children.
After briefly working for the newspaper Demokraten, Westergaard was a cartoonist for the broadsheet Jyllands-Posten starting in the early 1980s. In 2005, he drew a cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb in his turban, which was the most controversial of the Muhammad cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten. After the twelve cartoons were published, the artists and newspaper received many death threats, including from Muslims and Islamist groups worldwide. In 2008, three Muslims were charged with planning Westergaard’s murder. He was then placed under police surveillance for his protection. Two years later, a Somali Muslim intruder armed with an ax and a knife entered Westergaard’s home in Aarhus, despite the house being protected with steel doors, bulletproof glass, and surveillance cameras. During the ordeal, Westergaard and his five-year-old granddaughter had to take shelter in a fortified bathroom. The intruder was shot by police and later convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison and deportation from Denmark.
Free Inquiry republished several of the Muhammad cartoons in its April/May 2006 issue; it was the first national U.S. magazine to do so. As a result, the bookseller chain Borders pulled the issue from its shelves, for which it endured a great deal of criticism. Also in response to the outcry and violence caused by the critique of Islam, the Center for Inquiry established the International Blasphemy Rights Day in 2009 to be celebrated on September 30 each year.
In 2015, the French magazine Charlie Hebdo reprinted the twelve cartoons, which prompted a deadly attack on the magazine’s office.
“I want to be remembered as the one who struck a blow for free speech,” Westergaard said in a quote published by Berlingske. “But there is no doubt that there is someone who will instead remember me as the Satan who insulted the religion of a billion people.”
Westergaard retired in 2010 from the Jyllands-Posten. He died in his sleep in Copenhagen on July 14, 2021, after suffering from a long illness.
The Council for Secular Humanism and Free Inquiry appreciate Westergaard’s commitment to free speech and open discussion among differing cultures.