Opera cancelled over Muslim backlash fears at Mohammed decaptitation scene

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The decision by the Deutsche Oper, one of the world's most celebrated opera houses, shows how deep-rooted the fears now are in Europe's artistic community about offending Muslim sensibilities.

"It was an incalcuable security risk for the production to be staged at this time," warned city security experts and police and so the show has been pulled from forthcoming productions.

It comes in the wake of the global storm caused by comments made by Pope Benedict over a medieval text he quoted about Islam being a religion spread by violence.

Germany is home to three million Turkish moslems and around 500,000 of other nationalities.

It was the hub for the 9/11 planners who attended a university in Hamburg by day and plotted the atrocities in a small flat in the port city by night.

Mohammed is not the only figure to be decapitated in the opera – the heads of Jesus, the Greek God Poseidon and Buddha are also rolled on to the stage.

But it is the symbol which city officials fear could trigger rioting and bloodshed.

Police said they could not gurantee the safety of the Deutsche Oper building if it went ahead.

Enthusiasts of the arts said they felt fear of Islam was now restricting the freedoms taken fo granted in the west.