EU: Trust shaken by cartoons crisis

The European Union today said the mutual trusts between religious communities had been badly damaged by the recent crisis over the Prophet Mohammed drawings, and called the furore a “most regrettable development”.

The EU reiterated, however, that freedom of expression was a nonnegotiable value, and expressed solidarity with the people of the member states where violence has erupted following the publication of the cartoons, first in a Danish newspaper and then in media worldwide.