Prophet cartoons protests spread
Muslim rage over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed spilled out of Syria today into neighbouring Lebanon where thousands of protesters – undaunted by police tear gas and water cannons – torched the Danish mission and ransacked a Christian neighbourhood.
Muslim clerics denounced the violence, with some wading into the mobs trying to stop them. Copenhagen ordered Danes to leave the country or stay indoors, on the second day of Mideast violence against its diplomatic outposts.
The Danish and Norwegian missions in Syria were set ablaze by thousands of protesters yesterday in what until then had been the most violent in a string of angry demonstrations across the Muslim world.
The Syrian state-run daily newspaper Al-Thawra said Denmark was to blame because its government had not apologised for the September publication of the caricatures of the prophet in the Jyllands-Posten. The drawings subsequently have been republished in several European newspapers as a statement on behalf of a free press.
“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 Al-Thawra said.
In Copenhagen, Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller called for cooler heads to prevail.
“It is a critical situation and it is very serious,” Moeller said on Danish public radio.
“The government has no intention to insult Muslims,” Moeller told a news conference. “We are trying to explain to everyone that enough is enough. This situation must not be talked up. Those who have talked it up must now talk it down.”
The growing Muslim outrage and increasingly violent protests found their way onto the agenda of a German meeting of the world’s top defence officials, who appealed for calm and urged respect for both religious and press freedoms.
“We must prevent a situation arising where people think we must choose between these two liberties,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told participants.
But Iran’s Foreign Ministry announced Tehran had recalled its ambassador to Denmark, joining Syria, Saudi Arabia and Libya in pulling their diplomatic representatives.
In Beirut, the protest spiralled out of control for several hours and spread to the Christian neighbourhood where the Danish Embassy was located.
Security forces had fired tear gas into the crowds and loosed their weapons into the air in a desperate but failed attempt to stop the onslaught.
The extremist mobs, armed with stones and sticks, seized fire engines, overturned police vehicles and garbage containers to use them as barricades, badly damaged cars and threw stones at a church in the wealthy Ashrafieh area. Security officials said 30 people were injured, half of them members of the security forces. All the injuries were from beatings and stones.
Orange flames and thick, grey smoke billowed from the 10-story building, which also houses the Austrian Embassy and the residence of Slovakia’s consul.
Protesters waved green and black flags from the broken windows of the building and threw papers and filing cabinets from the windows.
The Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes to leave Lebanon quickly.
Legislator Saad Hariri, a Sunni Muslim who heads a majority bloc in Parliament, said “it is a black day for Muslims in Lebanon".
In a press conference from Paris where he has been staying for security concerns, he said “anyone who threw a stone today on any house, embassy, church or car is going to pay a very high price". He said some 60 to 100 people were arrested today.
Grand Mufti Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, spiritual leader of Lebanon’s Sunni Muslims, denounced the violence, saying there were infiltrators among the protesters who’s aim was to “harm the stability of Lebanon".
More than 4,000 people also demonstrated across Afghanistan against the caricatures, and police in one city fired into the air to disperse a group of rowdy protesters, officials said. No one was hurt.
The Iraqi transport ministry said it would cancel contracts with Danish firms and reject any offers of Danish reconstruction money.
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