Death threats
At first, though, the outrage was local. Several thousand Danish Muslims protested. Three of the cartoonists received death threats; security guards were posted outside the newspaper's offices in Copenhagen and Arhus.
Interesting to note that death threats already happened before it became an "international incident". I would classify that as an escalation too.
What should have remained a parochial row was to blow up into an international incident, largely because of the perceived obdurate response of Denmark's centre-right prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. On October 19 ambassadors from Islamic countries, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran, demanded a meeting. They wanted the paper prosecuted. The PM gave them the brush-off, arguing that his government could not interfere with the right to free speech.
We can say that the PM acted stupidly in not meeting them. No argument. But "prosecuting the paper" was a stupid demand too.
