I begin each new year hoping against hope that it will finally be the year that theistic nonsense is supplanted by reason and religion-inspired violence ceases to exist.

Alas, 2010 was just hours old when that hope was once again dashed to pieces….

Somali Charged With Attack On Danish Cartoonist (The BBC; Jan 2)

A Somali man has been charged with trying to kill a Danish artist whose drawing of the Prophet Muhammad sparked riots around the world.

The suspect, who was shot by police outside cartoonist Kurt Westergaard’s home in the city of Aarhus on Friday, was carried into court on a stretcher.

Police say he broke into the house armed with an axe and a knife.

The suspect, who denies the charge, was remanded in custody. Police say he has links with Somali Islamist militants.

The radical al-Shabab group in Somalia hailed the attack.

Al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Ali Muhamud Rage told AFP news agency: “We appreciate the incident in which a Muslim Somali boy attacked the devil who abused our prophet Mohammed and we call upon all Muslims around the world to target the people like” him.

The suspect, who cannot be named for Danish legal reasons, was charged with attempted manslaughter.

The BBC’s Julian Isherwood in Copenhagen says he was wearing bandages on his arm and leg and a cloth over his head to conceal his identity as he was carried into court for a remand hearing in Aarhus.

Police say the 28-year-old suspect broke into Mr Westergaard’s home and shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill him. He is also alleged to have attacked police with an axe when they arrived at the scene.

The 74-year-old cartoonist, who was in the house with his five-year-old granddaughter, raised the alarm from a specially designed panic room.

The accused denied the charges, but reportedly did admit to being at the scene.

The judge remanded him in custody for four weeks, two of which are to be spent in isolation.

Earlier, police said the suspect, who had a permit to stay in Denmark, had been shot in the knee and the shoulder.

And Jakob Scharf, who heads the Danish intelligence service PET, said the alleged attack was “terror related”.

The assailant had close contacts with al-Shabab, Mr Scharf said, and had been under surveillance for activities unrelated to Mr Westergaard….

The shaken cartoonist told Danish news agency Ritzau: “I locked myself in our safe room and alerted the police. He tried to smash the entrance door with an axe, but he didn’t manage.”

Mr Westergaard also told the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which originally published the cartoon in 2005 as part of a set of 12, that he had been taken to a safe location.

The cartoon depicted the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.

In 2006 the newspaper apologised for the offence caused by the drawings, but other European media reprinted them.

Danish embassies were then attacked by Muslims around the world and dozens killed in riots.

Mr Westergaard went into hiding amid threats to his life, but emerged last year saying he wanted to live as normal a life as possible.

His house has been heavily fortified and is under close police protection.

Islamic militants have placed a $1m (£620,000) price on Mr Westergaard’s head.

Although he is one of 12 cartoonists whose drawings of the Prophet Muhammad were published in Jyllands-Posten, he has had the highest profile.

In 2006 I posted a series of nine entries that documented the origins and evolution of the Danish Cartoon Crisis. Those entries start here.

I also shared some of the facts associated with the sadly similar case of Theo Van Gogh in Theist File #572.

And then of course there’s the infamous case of Salman Rushdie (as detailed in Theist File #1600).

Theists often proudly proclaim that religion has inspired great art.

Whenever they do so, we atheists need to point them to stories like these and remind them that religion has also inspired people to persecute and kill and destroy the art of countless artists and cultures that they proclaimed to be in conflict with their dogmas and gOd(s)….