Cartoon protests rage, Danish ambassador quits Syria
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-02-11 09:07

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Tens of thousands of Muslims around the world vented their anger in a seething wave of protests over satirical images of the Prophet Mohammed, torching flags and clashing with police.

A Pakistani activist from the six party religious Islamic alliance Muttahida Majlis-e Amal, shouts slogans during a demonstration in Quetta. Tens of thousands of Muslims around the world vented their anger in a seething wave of protests over satirical images of the Prophet Mohammed, torching flags and clashing with police. [AFP]

From Tehran, Cairo, Istanbul and Nairobi to Kuala Lumpur and Islamabad, protesters took to the streets after traditional Friday prayers as politicians scrambled for answers to a crisis that has exposed cultural and religious divisions.

Police in Egypt fired rubber bullets and tear gas, while Kenyan police also used tear gas as a few rallies turned violent, but there was no repeat of the mayhem that has so far left 13 people dead worldwide.

The furious reaction follows publication last September of 12 cartoons by Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper, one of which depicted him with a bomb in his turban, all since reprinted in other countries and on the Internet.

Muslims regard portrayal of the prophet as blasphemy, and the reaction has raised searching questions on where to draw the line between religious rights and free speech.

Denmark's ambassador to Syria quit Damascus with his staff, the foreign ministry said late Friday, citing an "unacceptably low level" of official Syrian protection at the mission, which had been ransacked the previous weekend.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan wrote to world leaders calling for reconciliation "for the sake of global peace," saying the row had "created tensions ... between the Islamic and Christian worlds as never seen before in recent times."

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he regretted the offence caused, but insisted nothing justified the violent backlash.

"I understand the offence the cartoons have caused, we all regret that," he told a party meeting, "but nothing, I repeat nothing, can justify the violent retribution visited on innocent people or on embassies around the world or the glorifying of acts of terrorism."

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana will seek to repair ties strained over the furor during a five-stop Middle East trip next week, aides said.

They said he would meet leaders in Saudi Arabia and then Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and Israel.

But the demonstrations continued unabated Friday.

In Tehran, a leading cleric praised Muslim "holy rage" in a Friday prayer carried live on state radio.

Branding Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as an "idiot", Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami turned the focus on Washington, saying: "Denmark is a non-entity. It is America that rears such cronies as Denmark."

Defying his calls for a halt on attacks on foreign embassies, demonstrators later hurled Molotov cocktails at the French embassy and threw rocks at the Danish mission.

In Nairobi, baton-wielding riot police fired tear gas canisters to disperse 300 protesters who tried to storm a cordon outside the Danish embassy, hurling rocks and other missiles.

Egyptian police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at 12,000 people when an after-prayers protest in Mahalla el-Kubra, 75 miles (120 kilometres) north of Cairo, turned violent, an interior ministry source said.

He said around 30 people were injured and 20 were arrested.

Thousands of people also demonstrated across Turkey, burning European flags and effigies of the Danish premier.

"The army of Mohammed is the fear of infidels! We will kill the bastards of the crusaders," a crowd outside Istanbul's historic Beyazit mosque chanted.

In the Middle East, the radical group Islamic Jihad threatened to "burn the ground beneath the feet" of anyone who caricatured the prophet.

"Apologies from European governments will do, but if they persist in their attack on the prophet we will burn the ground beneath their feet," said Jihad leader Khader Habib during a Gaza City rally attended by thousands.

In Kuala Lumpur, where some 3,000 protesters marched on the Danish embassy, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi blamed Western nations for a "huge chasm" between the West and Islam.

"They think Osama bin Laden speaks for the religion and its followers. Islam and Muslims are linked to all that is negative and backward," he said.

Elsewhere in Asia:

- thousands demonstrated across India. In New Delhi, some chanted "Denmark Die, Die!" and spat and urinated on Danish flags outside its largest mosque.

- nearly 20,000 protested in Dhaka, where Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia demanded an apology for the "extremely arrogant" drawings.

- Danish and US flags as well as an effigy of US President George W. Bush were torched by some 4,000 demonstrators in Islamabad.

In Africa, up to 25,000 people rallied in the Moroccan capital Rabat, while other protests were staged in the Nigerian capital Abuja, Kinshasa, the Comoros archipelago, Senegal and Pretoria, South Africa.

In Europe, demonstrations tooks place in Vienna and the southeast Austrian city of Graz, as well as in Brussels, Dublin and the Dutch city of Maastricht.

France's officially recognised French Council for the Muslim Religion (CFCM) said it was taking legal action against papers that reprinted the cartoons.