Kurt Westergaard

Westergaard was born on 13 July 1935 in the village of Døstrup, in the Mariagerfjord area of Jutland. He grew up in a conservative Christian family (Inner Mission) environment, going to Sunday school. Westergaard was introduced to cultural radicalism during high school in the 1950s, which he experienced as an "epiphany" and "a liberation from the religious subjugation of his childhood." Westergaard was a trained schoolteacher, educated at . After working as a teacher for some time, he enrolled at the University of Copenhagen to study psychology. He subsequently worked as a teacher for handicapped children and was a principal of a school in the Djursland area for the handicapped. ==Cartooning==

After briefly working for the newspaper Demokraten, he was a cartoonist for Jyllands-Posten from the early 1980s on. After the plot was foiled, the Danish secret service was made responsible for protecting Westergaard. He was placed under police surveillance when traveling to and from work In a 2009 interview, Westergaard said he was trying to "show that terrorists get their spiritual ammunition from parts of Islam and with this spiritual ammunition, and with dynamite and other explosives, they kill people." Westergaard also criticised the reaction of immigrant communities in Denmark to his cartoon, stating that "many of the immigrants who came to Denmark, they had nothing. We gave them everything – money, apartments, their own schools, free university, health care. In return, we asked one thing – respect for democratic values, including free speech. Do they agree? This is my simple test." ==Attacks==

On 1 January 2010, a 28-year-old Somali Muslim intruder armed with an axe and knife entered Westergaard's house and was subsequently shot and wounded by police. Westergaard was unharmed due to security precautions in his house. He escaped to a panic room when he saw the intruder standing in the hallway wielding an axe. The intruder attempted to break down the reinforced door with his axe, shouting phrases like "We will get our revenge!", "Revenge!" and "Blood!" In March 2013, a psychiatric patient was taken into custody by the Danish police. According to Danish newspapers the man had been a passenger on a bus, when he started yelling and threatening to bomb the bus and Kurt Westergaard, who was not on the bus. ==Al-Qaeda hit list==

In 2010 Anwar al-Awlaki published an Al-Qaeda hit list in Inspire magazine, including three Jyllands-Posten staff members: Kurt Westergaard, Carsten Juste, and Flemming Rose, along with other figures claimed to have "insulted Islam," including Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and cartoonist Lars Vilks. The list was later expanded to include Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier, who was murdered in a terror attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, along with 11 other people. After the attack, Al-Qaeda called for more killings. ==Death==

Westergaard died in his sleep in Copenhagen on 14 July 2021, a day after his 86th birthday, after suffering from a long illness. ==Awards==

Westergaard was awarded the Sappho Award in May 2008, an award given by the Danish Free Press Society to a 'journalist who combines excellence in his work with courage and a refusal to compromise'. On 8 September 2010, he was awarded the M100 Media Award (M100-Medienpreis) by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for his contributions to freedom of opinion. ==Memoirs==

In 2011, Westergaard, helped by John Lykkegaard, published his memoir Manden bag stregen. ==See also==