Muhammad Cartoonist Lars Vilks Attacked During College Lecture

(May 11) -- A Swedish artist who depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog was attacked today while delivering a university lecture on artistic freedom.

Lars Vilks was speaking at Uppsala University in Sweden when a man jumped onstage and head-butted him. According to The Associated Press, more than a dozen people had been attempting to disrupt Vilks' lecture at various points by shouting repeatedly.

Audience members had to pass through extensive security checks, which delayed the start of the talk. But almost as soon as it began, several individuals began yelling at Vilks.

As Stockholm News reported, in the first few tense minutes of his appearance, Vilks focused on controversial artistic images of Jesus, Jews and Muslims.

But it wasn't until he dimmed the lights and began showing a film by the Iranian artist Sooreh Hera, which portrayed the prophet Muhammad entering a gay bar, that a man leaped onstage and assaulted him.

"A man ran up and threw himself over me. I was head-butted, and my glasses were broken," Vilks told the AP.

As the assailant was led away by police, several people stormed the front of the room, chanting "God is great" in Arabic. When school officials announced that the remainder of the lecture would be canceled, many erupted in cheers.

Since depicting Muhammad as a dog in a sketch printed in a Swedish newspaper, Vilks has been the target of regular death threats. In 2007, a group affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq placed a $100,000 bounty on his life, the BBC reported, with a 50 percent bonus for cutting his throat.

Two people were arrested in today's melee, which was captured on video.