w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m

Last update - 08:24 15/02/2006

Muslims riot over Mohammed cartoon in Pakistan and the Philippines

By The Associated Press

Police clobbered stone-throwing protesters with batons and fired tear gas in the Pakistanian city of Peshawar on Wednesday - Pakistan's third consecutive day of violent protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, witnesses said.

As police battled protesters in Peshawar, another violent demonstration
erupted about 230 kilometers (140 miles) away in the town of Tank, where 2,000 people rallied, said Attiq Wazir, a police official in the town.
Protesters set fire to 30 shops selling CDs, DVDs and videos in Tank, Wazir said.

One policeman was injured when someone among the protesters opened fire to resist arrests, another police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

In Peshawar, the violence kicked off after about 6,000 protesters gathered at a busy traffic intersection. Many were chanting "Death to Denmark!" and "Hang those who drew the insulting cartoons!" Others burned Danish flags and effigies of the Danish prime minister.

Police fired tear gas and swang batons to disperse protesters blocked the
street. Most shops, public transport and other businesses were closed in the city.

In a related story, in the Philippine city of Manila, hundreds of Muslim protesters ripped apart and burned Danish flags in a noisy rally Wednesday at the Danish honorary consulate over the Mohammed cartoons.

The protesters demanded that Denmark apologize over the cartoons that first appeared in a Danish newspaper, which they said portrayed Muhammad in a blasphemous way. They also demanded that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo condemn the caricatures.

"This rally shows the anger of the Muslim world over that insult," said Rep. Mujiv Hataman, a minority Muslim member of the House of Representatives who led the protest in the Makati financial district.

Like two previous rallies in recent days in the Philippines, the demonstration was noisy but generally peaceful. About a dozen policemen watched from a distance.

Jyllands Posten, a Danish newspaper, was the first to publish the cartoons in September. They were later reprinted by various newspapers in Europe and other parts of the world, setting off angry protests from Muslim communities.

/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=683177
close window