Maybe I should have said "reasonable objections". I the context of these cartoon, they were originally commissioned after news that a childrens's book in Danmark illustrated the life of the Prophet with drawings of Mohammed (I believe the first one above is from the book). They decided to see how far they could take representations by asking the cartoonists to produce these works. For the most part they explored the Islamic prohibition without actually depicting the prophet. One for example showed that you could depict a schoolboy called Mohammed. Similarly some of the cartoons in the French press have been very erudite. The empty frame with the legend "This is not a picture of Mohammed" both explores the issure, respects Islamic tradition and refers to an icon of modern European art.

Others have been quite rude about Islam such as the Imman (if it was supposed to be Mohammed there are inconsistencies in the dress) on a cloud outside Heaven  saying "stop we have run out of virgins". Apart from the cultural misreference as most Muslims would envisage Heaven as a garden, it does link Islam to terrorism. I could see however that it would be far less hurting to Muslims than the particular "bombhead" depiction in the Danish cartoon. That one directly links the basis of Islam as terroristic rather than ther French one which criticises one particular interpretation of the reqard for those who engage in Jihad and indeed a limited interpretztion of "religious struggle" as solely being violent.

Let's look at the example you gave and another where Christians have objected to theatrical works. In "The Life of Brian", the satyr is of mistaken followers and indeed at one point Terry Jones as Brian's mother shouts at the crowd "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy". The Christian objection was that the film depicted Christ. More recently the religious ferverts at "MediawatchUK", the obastard offspring of Mary Whitehouse's National Viewers and Listeners Association and the "Festival of Light", objected to the BBC showing a film of the theatre production of  "Jerry Spinger- the Opera". Those were based on the false assertion that "Jesus is shown in a nappy". The truth was the same actor who played a "baby" fetishist in a nappy in the first half depicting a Springer show also appeared as Christ in the second part set in Hell wehere Springer mediates between God and the Devil. In both of these the objectors deliberately chose to misrepresent the works in order to fire up their followers to protest.

Now the newspaper may have been tasteless and blasphemous in the commisioning and original publication of the frankly not very good cartoons but I agree they had the right to do so. In fact they have apologised for the offense they caused as has the Prime Minister of the country. The the inital publication to reprint them was owned by a Christian fundamntalist is evidence that disseminating them further was prompted by something more than "freedom of speech". Look at this in the context of the blood libel on the Jews and the fake book (I cannot remember the full name but it is something like The Chronicles of the Elders of Zion) Would the newspapers in France, Italy, Germany and Spain reprint these or extracts from a book denying the Holocaust? At a time when fundamentalist muslims are deliberately misinterpreting the Koran or only quoting selectively like fundamentalist Christians do to the Bible to condemn homosexuals, pandering to the prejudices of the majorities in these countries is dangerous. Having known the considerable upset the original publication caused, they could have published the commentary cartoons. Reprinting the originals was bound to throw petrol on the fire.

Now this also raises the question of whether we should have greater sensitivities to the minorities in our country who already feel discriminated against than the majorities or larger minorties who are already used to robust criticism. I would suggest we have something of an obligation to do so in the same way as we set out to give special protection to children (and this does not characterise muslims as in any way incompetent to protect themselves)