"I can't even go shopping or sit in a cafe"

Westergaard, 77, said he still lives in constant fear of another attempt on his life. His home has become a “fortress” with a police station in the back yard and bodyguards who ferry him and his wife around in the back seat of an armored car…

Westergaard said cartoons poking fun at Muslims could signal that Western cultures saw them as part of society. “But we don’t understand one another,” he added.

That was because “we have long found ourselves in a culture war” raging not just between the West and the Middle East but directly in Western societies where he said many Muslims seem not to understand or respect democracy and freedom of speech.