JALALABAD, Feb 6: Global protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him) escalated on Monday, with five demonstrators killed in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Somalia and warning shots fired outside a US consulate in Indonesia.
After a weekend that saw Denmark’s embassies torched in Lebanon and Syria, fury over the images continued to spread with protests held across Afghanistan as well as in Egypt, Indian-held Kashmir, Indonesia, Iran, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Thailand.
Governments from Brussels to London to Washington called for calm and compromise in the crisis, groping for a balance between mollifying Muslims outraged by irreverent caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), first published in Denmark last year, and upholding the principles of free speech.
“We understand fully why people, why Muslims, find the cartoons offensive,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, while upholding “the right of people to express their views, and freedom of speech in society”.
Fresh protests against the cartoons erupted across Afghanistan with three demonstrators killed and up to nearly 20 wounded in gunfire, officials said.
The worst violence was outside the main US military base in Afghanistan, 60 kilometres north of Kabul, where two demonstrators were killed and 13 wounded in gunfire from within the crowd of about 5,000.
In Lebanon, one person died and almost 50 people were wounded during rioting in the capital Beirut which saw the Danish consulate set ablaze.
Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh announced his resignation after coming under fire over the violence.
And police said at least one person was killed and seven others wounded in the Puntland region of Somalia as security forces clashed with hundreds of Muslims protesting against the cartoons.
In Indonesia’s second city of Surabaya, police fired warning shots outside the US consulate to disperse 200 protesters from the Front of the Defenders of Islam who earlier smashed windows at the Danish consulate.
In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, hundreds of people demonstrated outside the Danish Embassy, which was closed, calling for an apology from the Danish government over the images.—AFP
