News
Thursday, September 20, 2012
New blasphemous caricatures fuel Muslim anger* Blasphemous drawings in French magazine Charlie Hebdo risk exacerbating a crisis that has seen angry protesters storming US embassies, killing US envoy to Libya
PARIS: Fresh protests erupted in the Muslim world on Wednesday over the anti-Islam film as a French magazine added fuel to the fire with the publication of blasphemous cartoons depicting Prophet (PBUH).
France braced for a backlash over the cartoons, stepping up security at its embassies and banning demonstrations on its own soil as senior officials and Muslim leaders appealed for calm. More than 30 people have been killed in attacks or violent protests linked to the blasphemous US-made film “Innocence of Muslims”, including 12 people who died in an attack by a female suicide bomber in Afghanistan on Tuesday.
In Pakistan on Wednesday, around 1,000 students from the Jamaat-e-Islami took to the streets in Lahore, shouting anti-US slogans and burning the American flag.
A similar number demonstrated in Karachi, burning an effigy of US President Barack Obama, while in Islamabad, around 500 lawyers burst into the capital’s diplomatic enclave, chanting anti-US slogans and castigating the government for not taking strong action against the film. In neighbouring Afghanistan, about 1,000 protesters took to the streets in the east of the country, blocking a key road to Kabul and shouting “Death to America” and “Death to the enemies of Islam”.
Indonesia saw hundreds of protesters tear up the American flag and throw eggs at the US embassy in the capital Jakarta.
In Lebanon, gunmen opened fire on a KFC fast-food restaurant, just days after another outlet of the US chain was torched and a demonstrator killed in a protest over the film. No one was hurt in Wednesday’s attack.
Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrullah, has called for a string of protests all week in Lebanon to denounce what he described as the “worst attack ever on Islam”.
Muslim men and women in Sri Lanka also staged their first demonstration on Wednesday, with several hundred gathering in Colombo near the US embassy.
In reaction to the uproar, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published blasphemous cartoons.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said anyone offended by the cartoons could take the matter to the courts but made it clear there would be no action against the weekly.
“We are in a country where freedom of expression is guaranteed, including the freedom to caricature,” he said.
Al-Azhar, Islam’s highest authority, condemned the publication of cartoons, while the Vatican’s official daily Osservatore Romano said that the satirical images could throw “fuel on the fire”.
The new controversy triggered by the blasphemous caricatures in the French magazine scomes as tempers are already running highs over an anti-Islam film made in California and posted on the Internet.
The publication in 2005-2006 of blasphemous cartoons by Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, picked up in France by Charlie Hebdo, led to numerous demonstrations around the world. In Denmark, which at the time contributed troops to the US-led coalition occupying Iraq, Muslim leaders called for an apology.
And in late 2005 Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo issued a statement expressing their “surprise and indignation at the reaction of the Danish government, which was disappointing despite its political, economic and cultural ties with the Muslim world”.
In early 2006, Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Copenhagen, while the Arab world boycotted the Danish-Swedish dairy firm Arla Foods.
The Danish prime minister, who remained intransigent on the question of freedom of expression, explained that neither the government nor Denmark could be held responsible for what independent media report. agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk