THE HAGUE, 23/03/10 - Algemeen Dagblad has confirmed that it removed a drawing of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed from its website. But the newspaper denies that it acted under pressure from radical Muslims.

The Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks depicted Mohammed as a dog in the cartoon. Algemeen Dagblad placed the drawing by a report about a complaint against two men in Ireland, who were arrested because they allegedly wanted to murder Vilks because of his cartoon.

The ultra-orthodox As Soennah mosque in The Hague made a call for "every Muslim and sympathiser of Mohammed to send Algemeen Dagblad an e-mail and to ask for this disgusting cartoon to be removed from its site." A day later, the cartoon was indeed removed.

Deputy chief editor Bart Verkade told De Pers newspaper that he received many injured reactions. Although according to Verkade that showed that the question is sensitive, this had not been the reason for removing the cartoon. "That was done after intensive internal discussion. It was too quickly decided that it was an appropriate illustration. We found the depiction was not relevant."