Sara Mats Azmeh Rasmussen is a Syrian-Norwegian author, freelance writer, lecturer and human rights activist.
At a lecture she gave at the annual conference for the organization With Israel for Peace (MIFF), she talked about two forms of anti-Semitism in West Asia: political (secular) and religious.
Since Azmeh Rasmussen did not find a medium in Norway that was willing to publish the cartoon, she started a blog where she laid out the artwork and two explaining articles, one in Norwegian and one in Arabic.
[12] Azmeh Rasmussen posted a hundred copies of the cartoon on both sides of the entrance to the Stockholm Central Mosque.
[13][14] At the same time, she sent a video letter to major Islamic centers and universities in the world "God is screaming in the Middle East", in which she called for new interpretations that liberate women from pre-modern patriarchal norms.
She considered protecting the mosques, not only as physical buildings, but also, as symbolic anchors for a social group, as essential in a democracy.
[17] On 29 January 2011, she started a one-woman protest outside the building of the Islamic Council Norway, an umbrella organization for Muslim communities, and demanded a clear condemnation on the death penalty for homosexuality.
[18] She sat on the footpath from morning to evening in minus degrees with a poster with the text: 'Freedom and dignity for gay and transgender people" written in both Norwegian and Arabic.
[20] Shortly before Friday prayers, members of the congregation put up roadblocks and signs and forced her to move some distance away so she was no longer in direct contact with the wall of the mosque, citing falling snow as a safety hazard.
[21] On the fifth day of the protest, the Secretary-General of the Islamic Council, Mehtab Afsar, agreed to have a conversation with her, but not in an office in the same building as the mosque.
She delivered the letter to the Secretary-General of the Council but was denied access to the Islamic Cultural Center where the conference was held.
After Friday prayers, Azmeh Rasmussen was bullied, her placard was torn to pieces, a car tried to run her down, and she had to call an emergency number.
At the awards ceremony, the Chair of the Fritt Ord Foundation, Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, highlighted her important and constructive role in the public debate in Norway.
[26] The Norwegian professional journalist's magazine Journalisten suggested that Azmeh Rasmussen be awarded a state grant.
In the painting, dollar bills were glued on a blue background, the logo for the commercial media group Schibsted was depicted as a competition horse, NRK was standing outside the scene, and an anonymous hand was holding a placard with the declaration "Be a weathercock".
[29] A few months earlier, Azmeh Rasmussen conducted a protest outside the headquarters of Schibsted with the text: "Freedom of Press in Norway is not for sale on the American Stock Exchange!
In her last article in the Norwegian language, she described her feelings of disappointment in discovering that she had been a part of a circus show, not a genuine democratic public debate.