In February 2008, in response to a plot to kill Kurt Westergaard, 17 Danish newspapers reprinted his cartoon of Muhammed with the bomb in his turban. "My colleagues at "Jyllands-Posten" and I understand that the cartoon may be offensive to some people," wrote Rose in the "Wall Street Journal", "but sometimes the truth can be very offensive." He quoted George Orwell: "If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." He also stated that "the plot to kill Mr. Westergaard is…part of a broader trend that risks undermining free speech in Europe and around the world." There is "a global battle for the right to free speech," he maintained, and although legal systems differ, "the justifications for censorship and self-censorship are similar in different parts of the world: Religious feelings and taboos need to be treated with a kind of sensibility and respect that other feelings and ideas cannot command." Rose rejected this special treatment, noting that during the Cold War "people like Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Andrei Sakharov" had insisted that "It is not cultures, religions or political systems that enjoy rights. Human beings enjoy rights, and certain principles like the ones embedded in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights are universal." Rose also rejected the "misplaced sensitivity" that "is being used by tyrants and fanatics to justify murder and silence criticism," and deplored the West's "lack of clarity on these issues," which led some people to argue "that Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima Nasreen and Kurt Westergaard bear a certain amount of responsibility for their fate. They don't understand that by doing so they tacitly endorse attacks on dissenting voices in parts of the world where no one can protect them."