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Pakistani forces seek to quell protests
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-20 08:52
Pakistani security forces arrested hundreds of Islamic hard-liners, virtually
sealed off the capital and used gunfire and tear gas Sunday to quell protests
against caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Pakistan had banned
protests after riots killed five people in two cities last week.
Demonstrators drag
effigies of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and US President
George W. Bush during a demonstration in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, Feb.
19, 2006.Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Istanbul Sunday
chanting slogans against Denmark, Israel and the United States to protest
cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.(AP Photo/Osman
Orsal) | Elsewhere in the Muslim world on Sunday,
demonstrators with wooden staves and stones tried unsuccessfully to storm the US
Embassy in Indonesia, while tens of thousands rallied in the Turkish city of
Istanbul and complained about negative Western perceptions of Islam.
Troops patrolled the deserted streets of the northern Nigerian town of
Maiduguri, where thousands of Muslims attacked Christians and burned churches
Saturday, killing at least 15 people during a protest over the cartoons. Most of
the victims were beaten to death by rioters.
In Saudi Arabia, newspapers ran full-page apologies by Jyllands-Posten, the
Danish newspaper that first ran the caricatures in September. The newspaper's
Web site said businesses placed the ad on their own initiative, using an apology
issued by the newspaper late last month. It did not identify the companies or
say if they were Danish.
Boycotts of Danish products throughout the Muslim world have taken a heavy
toll on Denmark's exporters, especially those selling Denmark's famed dairy
products.
The cartoons, which have been reprinted by other Western publications, have
outraged Muslims. But protests over the past three weeks have grown into a
broader anger against the West in general, and Israel and the United States in
particular.
Demonstrations have turned increasingly violent and claimed at least 45 lives
worldwide, including 11 in Afghanistan during a three-day span two weeks ago and
10 on Friday in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi. The Libyan riot outside the
Italian consulate apparently was sparked by a right-wing Italian Cabinet
minister who wore a T-shirt with a caricature of Muhammad.
On Sunday, thousands of police and paramilitary troops manned armored
personnel carriers and sandbag bunkers in and around Islamabad to block a
planned rally organized by a coalition of hardline Islamic parties that
sympathizes with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is fiercely
anti-American.
As roadblocks went up around the capital, authorities declared they would
arrest anyone joining a gathering of more than five people.
Maulana Fazlur Rahman, an opposition leader who denounced the government ban
as unconstitutional, was allowed to stage a small rally with eight other
opposition lawmakers and a few supporters. They chanted "God is great!" and "Any
friend of America is a traitor."
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