The twelve cartoons that inspired international protests were published on September 30, 2005 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. They show the Muslim Prophet Muhammad in a variety of humorous or satirical situations. For example, one shows the Prophet wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb. In another he says paradise is running short of virgins for suicide bombers. Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet or Allah.

In their article "Anti-Cartoon Protests Go Online", the BBC reported that these attacks typically replaced home pages with pro-Islam messages and condemn the publication of the cartoons. The article quotes Roberto Preatoni, founder and administrator of international hack attack monitoring group Zone-H: "We have never seen so many defacements that are politically targeted in such a short time...What is extraordinary for this Danish case is the speed in which the community united."

Harvard Law School professor Dr. James F. Moore wrote a groundbreaking essay entitled "The Second Superpower Rears Its Beautiful Head," in which he argued that the internet could inspire a "second superpower" of international grassroots activism. Dr. Moore wrote optimistically of the second superpower, but the online anti-cartoon protests could illustrate otherwise. A comparable incident occurred this week in the case of the Syrian protesters who burned and looted the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus. Recent news stories have revealed that the protestors were encouraged to organize by the Syrian authorities and received text messages from Islamic study centres spurring them on.

Thanks to The World's Clark Boyd for referring this story to PoliticsOnline.

For more information on the cartoons, see BBC News' "Q&A."