Islamism - 4

[Bharatvarsh]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Rage against caricatures of Islam's revered prophet poured out across the Muslim world Saturday, with aggrieved believers calling for executions, storming European buildings and setting European flags afire.

Hundreds of Syrian demonstrators have stormed the Danish Embassy in Damascus, and they've set fire to the building.

The building that's been set on fire in the Syrian capital also houses the embassies of Chile and Sweden.

Protesters have been staging sit-ins outside the embassy almost daily since the uproar over the drawings broke out last week.

Witnesses say today's protest started peacefully, but that as anger escalated, protesters broke through police barriers and torched the building.

In Gaza City, demonstrators hurled stones at a European Commission building and stormed a German cultural center, smashing windows and doors. Protesters also burned German and Danish flags and called for a boycott of Danish products.

In the West Bank town of Hebron, about 50 Palestinians marched to the headquarters of the international observer mission there, burned a Danish flag and demanded a boycott of Danish goods.

"We will redeem our prophet, Muhammad, with our blood!" they chanted.

The cartoons, first printed in a Danish newspaper in September and then republished in European publications this week, have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. Aggravating the affront was a caricature of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, among other provocative images.

Muslims in Europe have reacted less passionately than their counterparts in the Mideast and Southeast Asia, but anger swelled there, too, on Saturday, with demonstrators clashing with police in Copenhagen and gathering outside the Danish Embassy in London.

The Vatican deplored the violence but said certain forms of criticism represented an "unacceptable provocation."

"The right to freedom of thought and expression ... cannot entail the right to offend the religious sentiment of believers," the Vatican said in its first statement on the controversy.

In Munich, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she understood Muslims' hurt, but she denounced violent reactions.

"I can understand that religious feelings of Muslims have been injured and violated," Merkel said at an international security conference. "But I also have to make clear that I feel it is unacceptable to see this as legitimizing the use of violence."

Hundreds of Palestinians protested in the occupied territories, and the leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, which recently swept parliamentary elections there, told Italian daily Il Giornale on Saturday that the cartoons should be punished by death.

"We should have killed all those who offend the Prophet and instead here we are, protesting peacefully," said a top group leader, Mahmoud Zahar.

Masked gunmen affiliated with the Fatah Party called on the Palestinian Authority and Muslim nations to recall their diplomatic missions from Denmark until that nation's government apologizes.

The Danish government has tried to contain the damage. Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller has called Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and said the Danish government "cannot accept an assault against Islam," according to Abbas' office.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said his government could not apologize on behalf of a newspaper, but he personally would never depict religious figures "in a way that could offend other people."

Many Muslims consider the Danish government's reaction inadequate.

At least 500 Israeli Arabs gathered peacefully in Nazareth for the first protest against the caricatures on Israeli soil.

In Malaysia, prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the publication of the cartoons showed a "blatant disregard for Islamic sensitivities" but urged citizens to stay calm.

"Let the perpetrators of the insult see the gravity of their own mistakes which only they themselves can and should correct," he said.

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono denounced the cartoons as insensitive.

About 500 people rallied Saturday south of Baghdad, Iraq, some carrying banners urging "honest people all over the world to condemn this act" and demanding an EU apology. The protest was organized by followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been among the most outspoken Iraqi clerics on the issue.

Angry demonstrators rallied in Denmark and Britain on Saturday, signaling a ratcheting up of tensions among European Muslims.

Although many of Denmark's 200,000 Muslims were deeply offended by the cartoons, mass demonstrations have not broken out.

But in Copenhagen, young Muslims clashed briefly with police after they were stopped from boarding a train to go to a demonstration north of the Danish capital. Some of the roughly 300 demonstrators threw rocks and bottles at police but no one was injured, officials said.

In London, several hundred demonstrators gathered under heavy police security outside Denmark's embassy, shouting slogans to protest the publication of the drawings.

Source: Fox News <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lebanese protesters torch Danish mission
Muslims upset over Muhammad caricatures; Danes urged to leave Lebanon
Updated: 10:11 a.m. ET Feb. 5, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Thousands of Muslims rampaged Sunday in Beirut, setting fire to the Danish Embassy, burning Danish flags and lobbing stones at a Maronite Catholic church as violent protests spread over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Troops fired bullets into the air and used tear gas and water cannons to push the crowds back after a small group of Islamic extremists tried to break through the security barrier outside the embassy.

Demonstrators attacked policemen with stones and set fire to several fire engines, witnesses said. Black smoke was seen billowing from the area. Security officials said at least 18 people were injured, including policemen, fire fighters and protesters. Witnesses saw at least 10 people taken away by ambulance.

A security official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said staff at the Danish Embassy had been evacuated two days ago.

‘It is a critical situation’
The Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes to leave Lebanon as soon as possible as Danes and Norwegians heeded a similar call in neighboring Syria, where violent protests broke out on Saturday.

“It is a critical situation and it is very serious,” Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said Sunday on Danish public radio.

Protesters also took to the streets in Afghanistan, the West Bank, Iraq and New Zealand, a day after demonstrators in Syria charged security barriers outside the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and sent the buildings up in flames.

Those attacks earned widespread condemnation from European nations and the U.S., which accused the Syrian government of backing the protests.

The Danish foreign minister said: “enough is enough.”

“Now it has become more than a case about the drawings: Now there are forces that wants a confrontation between our cultures,” Moeller said. “It is in no one’s interest, neither them or us.”

Syria blamed Denmark for the protests, criticizing the Scandinavian nation for refusing to apologize for the caricatures of Islam’s holiest figure.

“(Denmark’s) government was able to avoid reaching this point ... simply through an apology” as requested by Arab and Muslim diplomats, state-run daily Al-Thawra said in an editorial Sunday.

“It is unjustifiable under any kind of personal freedoms to allow a person or a group to insult the beliefs of millions of Muslims,” the paper said.

Rising anger
Anger has broken out across the Muslim world over 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European media and New Zealand in the past week.

One depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues.

The drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad for fear they could lead to idolatry.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he personally disapproves of the caricatures and any attacks on religion — but insisted he cannot apologize on behalf of his country’s independent press.

Violence criticized
Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani denounced the violence and appealed for calm, accusing infiltrators of sowing the dissent to “harm the stability of Lebanon.”

Prime Minister Fuad Saniora also urged peaceful protests.

“Those who are committing these acts have nothing to do with Islam or with Lebanon,” he said. “This is absolutely not the way we express our opinions.”

In Beirut, protesters came by the busloads to rally outside the Danish Embassy, where they chanted, “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God!” Some 2,000 troops and riot police were deployed.

The trouble threatened to rile sectarian tensions in Beirut when protesters began stoning St. Maroun Church, one of the city’s main Maronite Catholic churches, and property in Ashrafieh, a Christian area. Sectarian tension is a sensitive issue in Lebanon, where Muslims and Christian fought a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

Lebanon’s Justice Minister Charles Rizk, a Christian, urged leaders to help end the violence. <span style='color:red'>“What is the guilt of the citizens of Ashrafieh of caricatures that were published in Denmark?</span> This sabotage should stop,” Rizk said on LBC television.

In the Afghan city of Mihtarlam, some 3,000 demonstrators burned a Danish flag and demanded that the editors at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten be prosecuted for blasphemy, Gov. Sher Mohammed Safi said.

Some 1,000 people tried to march to the offices of the United Nations and other aid groups in Fayzabad. Police fired shots into the air to disperse them, officials said. Nobody was hurt.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed anger over the cartoons but said Danish troops and other citizens should feel safe in his country.

“It’s not the responsibility of Danish troops, it’s not the responsibility of Danish government, it’s the free media. ... We must not hold the troops who are serving in Afghanistan responsible for this,” he said Sunday on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, students in uniform — age 13 and even younger — carried protest posters and shouted: “No to offending our prophet.”

In Iraq, about 1,000 Sunni Muslims demonstrated outside a mosque in the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi. A giant banner read: “Iraq must end political, diplomatic, cultural and economic relations with the European countries that supported the Danish insult against Prophet Muhammad and all Muslims.”

Another 1,000 supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rallied in Amarah, denouncing Denmark, Israel and the United States and demanding that Danish and Norwegian diplomats be expelled.

More than 700 Muslims marched through Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, to protest the cartoons’ publication in two New Zealand newspapers.

Austria, which holds the rotating EU presidency, condemned the attacks on European embassies: “Such acts can by no means be legitimized and are utterly unacceptable.”

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier pushed for intercultural dialogue.

“We all agree that words and deeds that insult or ridicule other religions or cultures do not contribute to mutual understanding,” he said at a security conference in Germany. “Both freedom of the press ... and freedom of religion are great liberties — those who use them must use them with care.”

© 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See religion of peace in action, also it looks like some unfortunate Hindus will get halaled in India in the coming weeks by Muslims, before they murdered 10 Hindus because Jerry Falwell said Muhammad was a terrorist in US and they burned buses in Bangalore over Saddam's capture, now it looks like its just a matter of time they will do some nutter thing over these cartoons. In a few days some Hindu leader might be asking:

What is the guilt of the citizens of India of caricatures that were published in Denmark?