RIYADH, June 23 (Reuters) - The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a league of 57 Muslim nations, said on Monday a Danish court's rejection of a suit against a paper for printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad could provoke "Islamophobia."

The High Court for western Denmark on Thursday rejected a suit against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published cartoons of Islam's prophet, leading to deadly protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The court said the editors had not meant to depict Muslims as criminals or terrorists, the cartoons had not broken the law, and there was a relationship between acts of violence and Islam -- comments that provoked outcry among Muslim groups in Denmark.

"It is a known fact that acts of terror have been carried out in the name of Islam and it is not illegal to make satire out of this relationship," the court said.

The Saudi-based OIC, the largest grouping of Muslim countries, said the ruling could encourage "Islamophobia", a fear or dislike of Islam, which the group has identified as existing in the West.

"The Danish ruling came as a surprise to the OIC at a time when almost all Western governments including the USA had made categorical statements rejecting any linkage between Islam and terrorism," an OIC statement said.

"The linkage drawn by the Danish court ... could create a precedent for exacerbation of Islamophobia."

Many Muslims regard depictions of the Prophet as blasphemous. The Islamic Faith Society, one of the groups that brought the lawsuit against the Danish newspaper, said it might take its case to the European Court of Human Rights. (Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Tim Pearce)

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