Britain’s reputation for libel tourism is back in the spotlight (after a short respite). This time it’s down to 95,000 descendants of the prophet Muhammad planning to use London courts to sue the Danish publishers of “blasphemous” cartoons. The cartoons caused widespread controversey back in 2005, so it has taken a surprising amount of time for such a legal action to come around.

The Times: The defamation case is being prepared by Faisal Yamani, a Saudi lawyer acting for the descendants, who live in the Middle East, north Africa and as far afield as Australia.

Mark Stephens, a British lawyer who has seen a “pre-action” letter sent by Yamani to 10 Danish newspapers, said it “specifically says” he will launch proceedings in London.

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Merits of the case aside, the fallout from this could cause enough political embarrassment to see our much ridiculed libel laws amended. But we won’t hold our breath.

Meanwhile, Southpark recently aired a “Muhammad” episode. And the resulting threat was rather worse than a stint in the British courts.

Google: Comedy Central’s “South Park” included a representation of the Prophet Muhammad as a character this week despite a radical Muslim group’s warning that its producers could be killed.

Muhammad appeared on Wednesday night’s episode of the cartoon with his body obscured by a black box, since Muslims consider a physical representation of their prophet to be blasphemous.

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Prior to the episode being aired, the producers received an ominous warning on the website of New York-based group Revolution Muslim which included a gruesome picture of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker murdered by a Muslim extremist in 2004.

If that didn’t stop them, we can’t see potential defamation proceedings in the UK being enough to put them off by airing it here. But we shall see.