Copenhagen, Denmark: Muslim organizations of Denmark are planning to take the daily Jyllands-Posten to the European Court of Human Rights over derogatory cartoons of the chief of Prophet, Prophet Mohammed (p).

The decision was made known Monday (9 January) by Kasem Ahmad, leader of Danish Islamic religious body Islamsk Trossamfund, uniting various Muslim organizations, following an announcement that a Danish local attorney general had rejected their case.

In September, Danish daily Jyllands-Posten invited cartoonists to submit drawings of the prophet Mohammed (p), after an author complained that nobody dared illustrate his book on Prophet Mohammed (p).

In one of the twelve cartoons, the prophet Mohammed (p) appears with a turban shaped like a bomb with a burning fuse strapped to his head.

The cartoons have caused outrage in Muslim communities in and outside Denmark, with Islamic countries and Turkey calling upon the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to offer an official apology.

But Rasmussen has persistently said that freedom of expression is the very foundation of Danish democracy and that his government has no means of influencing the press.

In his New Year speech, Rasmussen said that "we should not resort to the freedom of speech as a way of increasing social hatred and fragmentation."

However, the editor in chief for Jyllands-Posten, Carsten Juste, repeated late last week that the daily will not apologize for publishing the cartoons.