The mayor of Malmö has slammed an upcoming exhibition of work by controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, saying he hoped no one would visit the gallery to see artwork he said was "associated with xenophobes".

"Of course he has the right to display what he calls art anywhere he wants," Mayor Ilmar Reepalu told the TT news agency. "But as far as I can gather, this is pretty bad art and I think they want to use the gallery for political ends," he added. "Vilks is increasingly associated in people's minds with xenophobic groups at the far right of the political spectrum. I hope not a single person visits the gallery."

Vilks has faced numerous death threats since his drawing of the Muslim prophet with the body of a dog was first published by Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda in 2007. It was published to illustrate an editorial on free speech.

The new paintings of Mohammed would show the prophet – still with a dog's body – transplanted into famous works by artists including Claude Monet, Peter Paul Rubens and Anders Zorn, Vilks told the AFP news agency.

Vilks told TT that he was pleased that his art has been given the green light by curator Henrik Rönnquist. "It's a breakthrough that he dares to put these paintings on show now. I am not trying to kick up a stink, I'd sooner get rid of all the drama. People should be able to criticize Islam," Vilks said.

The show's curator said that he is prepared to tackle the safety concerns, in order to stand up for free speech, democracy, and religious freedom.

The Local, 20 February 2013

Vilks was last in the news in September when he was a star speaker at Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer's anti-Islam conference in New York. As a result a Swedish art gallery cancelled a planned exhibition of his work.

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Muslims in Britain have urged the government to take seriously the threats they face as anti-Muslim hatred is reaching worrying heights in Britain and across Europe.

ENGAGE launched a unique exhibition and a month long campaign "Islamophobia Awareness Month", highlighting the spread of Islamophobia in the British parliament where speakers included MPs Simon Hughes, Jack Straw, Peter Bottomley and Sadiq Khan.

Azad Ali of the Muslim Safety Forum said the exhibition in the parliament was aimed at showing to the parliamentarians that Muslims were ordinary people like any other community who were in sports, business, public and social life. He said racists and fascists groups like the English Defence League are pushing the thesis of hatred and creating a climate of fear and suspicion against Muslims.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie said Islamophobic prejudice is prevalent in the mainstream on display in political life, in the media and in the attitudes of the police and the courts.

Lancaster University academic Professor Tony McEnery briefed how he had researched British media for 11 years, analysed over 200,000 media articles written on Islam and Muslim and found that media was biased towards mainstream Muslims and promoted negative connotations. He told The News:

"Our research amounted to 143 million words of journalism. Right-wing tabloid press was hostile towards Muslims and linked Muslims generally with violence and extremism. Left wing or liberal tabloids were less hostile. The Sun, The Daily Star, Daily Mail, The Telegraph and Daily Express were found to be anti-Muslim. The Guardian was the least anti-Muslim newspaper.

"The right wing papers mentioned Muslims and extremism together. For every one moderate Muslim mentioned, 21 examples of extremist Muslims are mentioned in the British press. It is also interesting to note that so-called 'moderate Muslims' often got praised in a way, which implies they are good because they aren't fully Muslim."

He said Muslims who just get on with their lives aren't seen as newsworthy, so it's the likes of Abu Hamza who are more likely to attract press attention.

The News International, 14 November 2012

Despite the headline to this report, nobody at the ENGAGE meeting called for an extension of the blasphemy law. The point that was made was that there is an urgent need to strengthen the largely useless religious hatred law so that Muslims have the same protection as Jews and Sikhs do under the racial hatred law.

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