[identity profile] cema.livejournal.com 2006-02-15 10:24 pm (UTC)(link)
The cartoon is pretty innocent: "That's not what we taught them". However, the story is that the officials in the city of Volgograd (that's the city that was known as Stalingrad for a while) are now suing the newspaper which published the cartoon. For incitement of interethnic, racial and religious tension!
calypso72: Default profile icon (Demons of stupidity)

[personal profile] calypso72 2006-02-15 10:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh dear, it really is the cartoon wars....

[identity profile] cema.livejournal.com 2006-02-15 11:02 pm (UTC)(link)
Just another front of a greater war, unfortunately.

[identity profile] mtyukanov.livejournal.com 2006-02-15 11:22 pm (UTC)(link)
It's cartoon wars, Russian style. Local Muslims (as well as Christians, Jews and Buddhists) say this cartoon is OK. However, local bureaucrats find it offensive.

[identity profile] smilga.livejournal.com 2006-02-16 02:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Actually, the newspaper is city-owned and has some kind of official status (for instance, it is responsible for publishing municipal laws and suchlike). The unnamed officials you have referenced might as well sue themselves.

We are getting contradictory rumours down here. Some say the city had the edition closed, some say they had not. There's a conflict-of-interests background to the whole story, with the municipal legislative and executive struggling for control over the newspaper. I somewhat suspect that the very issue of the cartoon had been used by one of the contending sides as a pretext for the current legal and PR activity, in a move against their adversaries. Aye, we wonders.