THOUSANDS DEMONSTRATED ACROSS the world today and violent clashes erupted in Niger and Pakistan as Muslims vented fury over a new Prophet Mohammed cartoon published by French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Four people were killed and 45 injured in protests in Niger’s second city of Zinder that turned violent with demonstrators ransacking three churches and torching the French cultural centre.
A doctor in the city’s hospital told AFP that all of the dead and three of the injured had gunshot wounds. “We’ve never seen that in living memory in Zinder,” a local administration official said. “It’s a black Friday.”
There was also bloodshed in Karachi, Pakistan, where three people were injured when protesters clashed with police outside the French consulate, officials said.
Among them was an AFP photographer, who was shot in the back.
As Muslims raged, with protesters in Dakar and Mauritania torching French flags, Qatar and Bahrain warned that the new Prophet Mohammed cartoon published Wednesday by the French satirical weekly could fuel hatred.
On the Muslim weekly day of prayers, thousands flooded the streets of Bamako, in response to calls by leading clerics and Mali’s main Islamic body, chanting “Hands off my prophet” and “I am Muslim and I love my prophet”.
In Amman, around 2,500 protesters set off from Al-Husseini mosque under tight security, holding banners that read “insulting the prophet is global terrorism.”
In Algiers, 2,000-3,000 marchers chanted “We are all Mohammed,” though some shouted their support for the Islamist Kouachi brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre and clashed with police.
The latest issue of Charlie Hebdo features a cartoon of Mohammed on its cover holding a “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) sign under the headline “All is forgiven.”
It was the first edition since brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi gunned down 12 people in an attack on the magazine’s Paris offices on January 7 over such cartoons.
The image has angered many Muslims as depictions of Mohammed are widely considered forbidden in Islam.
Algerian protesters chanted: “Kouachi martyrs” or “I am Kouachi” as the demonstration wound its way to the National Assembly, and some clashed with riot police deployed around the building.
French flags torched
AFP photographer Asif Hassan, a policeman and a local TV cameraman were injured in Karachi when clashes also broke out between police and protesters.
A police official said the violence began when police prevented some 350 protesters from approaching the French consulate, in the sprawling metropolis.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, protesters in Peshawar and Multan burnt French flags on the streets, while rallies were also held in Islamabad and Lahore.
In the capital of Senegal, police fired tear gas grenades to disperse about 1,000 protesters who chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) and torched a French flag.
In Nouakchott, thousands marched chanting “We are here to defend the prophet”. Some set fire to a French flag after security forces prevented them from reaching France’s embassy, witnesses said.
Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz addressed the marchers, condemning the controversial cartoon as “an attack on our religion and on all religions”.
In Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated quietly, some with banners reading “Islam is a religion of peace!”
In Khartoum, hundreds poured out of the Grand Mosque and marched across the adjacent square, chanting “Expel the French ambassador. Victory to the Prophet of God!”
In Lebanon’s flashpoint city of Tripoli, 70 people marched with banners bearing the name of the prophet and chanting.
In Baddawi, on the outskirts of the city, prayer leader Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahimi addressed hundreds of worshippers saying: “May God punish this newspaper and those who back it”.
In Tunis, worshippers at El-Fath mosque walked out as prayer leader Noureddine Khadmi said: “We are all against insults made against our prophet but it is not a reason to kill.”
Some of them cried out that Charlie Hebdo journalists “deserved to be killed because they insulted our prophet many times.”
Protests also erupted Friday in areas of conflict-hit Syria held by rebels and jihadists with demonstrators demanding “respect for religions,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A protest in Tehran was cancelled, with no official reason given, as senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ali Movahedi Kermani told worshippers the cartoon’s publication amounted to “savagery.”
‘Disgraceful’
Muslim governments also joined the chorus of condemnation of the cartoon.
Qatar branded as “offensive” the drawing, which was reprinted by several European papers in a show of solidarity with the victims of last week’s attack.
“These disgraceful actions are in the interest of nobody and will only fuel hatred and anger,” the foreign ministry warned.
Bahrain’s foreign ministry echoed that, saying publication of such cartoons “will create fertile ground for the spread of hatred and terrorism.”
Charlie Hebdo’s latest cartoon is “disgraceful” and no more than attempt to provoke Muslims and mock their beliefs, it said.
Both Qatar and Bahrain had sent representatives to a massive march in Paris last Sunday in support of free speech, alongside French President Francois Hollande and many other world leaders, including Muslims.
- © AFP 2015.
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