Rampage to defend religion -- Newsday.com

Rampage to defend religion

Muslims, outraged at published cartoons they say denigrate them, torch Danish Embassy in Beirut

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI
MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Thousands of Muslim protesters rampaged in Beirut yesterday, setting fire to the Danish Embassy, ransacking a Christian neighborhood and clashing with security forces as outrage in the Muslim world over satirical cartoons of the prophet Muhammad showed no sign of abating.

One day after demonstrators in neighboring Syria set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies, protesters converged on the Danish mission in Beirut. Undaunted by hundreds of riot police firing tear gas and water cannons, the crowd broke through the security cordon around the embassy in the upscale Ashrafieh district, a mainly Christian area.

After setting fire to the 10-story building that houses the embassy and other offices, hundreds of protesters -- armed with knives, stones and sticks -- overturned police cars, seized fire engines, smashed dozens of car windows and lobbed rocks at a Maronite Christian church. When the rioting ended about four hours later, at least one person had been killed, 30 injured and more than 200 arrested.

"Anyone who insults our prophet deserves to die. There is no mercy for blasphemers," said Ahmed Hashem, 24, a protester who held a piece of black cloth over his mouth to avoid breathing tear gas. "Any Muslim should be willing to die to defend the prophet's honor."

It was the bloodiest of a series of protests that began last week across the Muslim world, after European newspapers reprinted the 12 caricatures lampooning Muhammad. The cartoons -- one of which depicts the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse -- were first published in September in a Danish newspaper. The drawings were condemned by clerics and Muslim governments as an insult to Islam, reinforcing a widespread notion among Muslim masses that the West is quick to denigrate their religion.

But the protests took a violent turn Saturday, when thousands of Muslims torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in the Syrian capital. Those attacks earned widespread condemnation from Europe and the United States, which accused the Syrian government of allowing protesters to rampage. Syrian officials have refused to apologize, but added security around Western embassies in Damascus.

"Enough is enough," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told Danish public radio yesterday. "Now it has become more than a case about the drawings. Now there are forces that want a confrontation between our cultures."

To prevent idolatry, Islamic law forbids any visual depictions -- even positive ones -- of Muhammad and other major religious figures.

Thousands of mostly peaceful protesters took to the streets elsewhere in the Muslim world yesterday, including Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. Iraq's transportation minister said his country would cancel its contracts with Danish firms and reject reconstruction money from Copenhagen.

The drawings have prompted boycotts of Danish goods, bomb threats and the recalling of several Muslim ambassadors from Copenhagen. While much of the anger initially focused on Denmark, it has spread to other European countries as the cartoons have been reprinted. Most papers said they published the drawings as a show of solidarity for freedom of the press.

In Beirut, yesterday's protest threatened to revive deep sectarian tensions after demonstrators attacked one of the city's main Maronite churches. Religion is a sensitive issue in Lebanon, where Muslims and Christians fought a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

Some Lebanese officials accused "foreign elements" -- a reference to Syrians -- of instigating the violence. "Things got out of hand when foreign elements that had infiltrated into the crowd broke through the security cordons," said Interior Minister Hassan Sabei, who resigned after his forces failed to contain the rioting. "The last remaining option was to open fire on the crowd, but I was not prepared to order my troops to shoot Lebanese citizens."