ABSTRACT
It is common to talk of "the Danish cartoons controversy". However, it is important to note that the chain of events usually referred to under this label, which was set in motion by the publication of 12 drawings under the title "the face of Muhammad" by the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, and the disagreements and issues debated in this context, in fact comprised several controversies. The label "cartoons controversy" is misleading, since much of the debate usually subsumed under this label did not mainly concern the Muhammad cartoons or their publication. The author point is that even though the controversy over legal limits on free speech was real and important, it was not the only and was perhaps not the most important or interesting aspect of the cartoons controversy. The author focuses on the non-legal terms of the cartoons controversy and consider in more detail how one might understand what was at stake in the controversy thus framed.
