The Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) has decided to prohibit showing the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad in its entertainment programmes. The ban applies, for example, to popular quizzes such as SF-studio, to the animated political satire Itse valtiaat, and to Uutisvuoto (the Finnish version of "Have I Got News for You").
"There is reason to leave these cartoons and this discussion out of our entertainment programming", says YLE TV1 director of programmes Riitta Pihlajamäki.
The guidelines do not directly forbid discussing the subject, only the showing of the images first published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, reported the Finnish newspaper Keskisuomalainen on Thursday.
YLE has shown the controversial caricatures in its newscasts, and the subject has been aired extensively in current affairs programming, most recently in a panel discussion on Wednesday that featured Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja and the Helsingin Sanomat editor-in-chief Janne Virkkunen among others.
