Dom Post plans to publish cartoons 

The Dominion Post in Wellington plans to wade into the international controversy surrounding the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

A number of European newspapers have published the images, triggering outrage and protests from some Muslims.

Dominion Post editor and chair of the Commonwealth Press Union, Tim Pankhurst, says while a final decision is still to be made, the paper will probably print at least one of the cartoons on Saturday.

He says it is an issue of solidarity and supporting press freedom.

Pankhurst says he is not setting out to deliberately antagonise the Muslim communities of New Zealand.

However a major Islamic group is condemning the plans.

Federation of Islamic Associations' president Javad Khan, says Muslims in New Zealand will be outraged if such images are published here, as they make a mockery of the teachings of Islam.

He says the paper is jumping on a bandwagon, and is more interested in circulation figures than freedom of the press.

Protests have spread across the Muslim world over the publication in Europe of the cartoons.

Hundreds demonstrated in Pakistan on Thursday, chanting "death to Denmark" and burning Danish and French flags.

Palestinian gunmen briefly surrounded European Union offices in Gaza to demand an apology over the cartoons.

Syria and Saudi Arabia have also recalled their envoys from Denmark.

Two editors have also been sacked over the decision to publish the cartoons.

The editor of a Jordanian tabloid, al-Shihan, who reprinted three of the cartoons saying people should know what they were protesting about, was sacked on Friday. 

On Thursday the editor of France Soir, Jacques Lefranc, was also dismissed after publishing, alongside the 12 original cartoons, a new drawing on its front page showing Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy figures sitting on a cloud, with the caption "Don't worry Muhammad, we've all been caricatured here".

The caricatures, first published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper in September, include drawings of Muhammad wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise was running short of virgins for suicide bombers.

Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, says the issue has gone beyond a feud between Copenhagen and the Muslim world, and now centres on Western free speech versus taboos in Islam.