"Now is the time to separate the sheep from the goats".

These words by the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Berlingske Tidende last Sunday are met with a barrage of criticism at home, even from his coalition partners in the government. Spokeswoman from the Conservative Party Pia Christmas Moeller: "It is not the time now to start a new domestic crisis, when we're facing the biggest foreign policy crisis since World War II".

Naser Khader from the opposition Radical Party: "Apart from a few islamists - noone in Denmark at all questions freedom of speech. But Fogh Rasmussen divides people. There are those who're with him, and who are for freedom of speech. And there are those who are against him, and also against freedom of speech. It goes without saying that this is blatantly wrong." Naser Khader is chairman of the recently started Democratic Muslims, and up to now a defender of Fogh Rasmussen's dealing with the cartoons crisis.