'People do not have the right not to be offended'

29 Apr, 2009 05:39 / Updated 14 years ago

People have to accept being offended from time to time in modern democratic times and, in fact, people do not have a right not to be offended.

Mr. Fleming Rose, the cultural editor of the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, which provoked a huge international controversy, has spoken exclusively with RT about the matter of tolerance in the modern world and explained why he approved the publication of the images.

He explains that we now live in a globalized world, different from before, where information travels very quickly and our societies are getting more complex in terms of religion and ethnicity. So as a newspaper, he explains, it is right to express this, otherwise we will end up in a situation when a newspaper will not be able to publish not only cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, but also any number of things that could be deemed ‘offensive’ to people’s sensibilities.