Anger over images of Mohammad spreads (Reuters) Updated: 2006-02-03 19:50
PARIS - Outrage spread across the Islamic world on Friday over Danish
cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, as Muslims condemned them as "blasphemous" and
more European newspapers published them, arguing freedom of speech was sacred.
An Indonesian
Muslim militant shouts a slogan in front of a building housing the Danish
embassy in Jakarta February 3, 2006.
[Reuters] | Up to 300 militant Indonesian Muslims
went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in
Jakarta.
Shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), they smashed lamps with bamboo
sticks, threw chairs, lobbed rotten eggs and tomatoes and tore up a Danish flag.
No one was hurt.
The drawings have touched off international fury as well as a debate on the
clash between freedom of speech and respect for religion.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen summoned foreign envoys in
Copenhagen to discuss the outcry and the government's response to the
publication of the drawings, which first appeared in Danish newspaper
Jyllands-Posten.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Yuri Thamrin said the dispute was not
just between Jakarta and Copenhagen.
"It involves the whole Islamic world vis-a-vis Denmark and vis-a-vis the
trend of Islamophobia," he said.
Pakistan's parliament on Friday passed a resolution condemning the cartoons
as "blasphemous and derogatory." Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be
blasphemous. Among the Danish drawings, one depicted him in a turban resembling
a bomb.
"This vicious, outrageous and provocative campaign cannot be justified in the
name of freedom of expression or of the press," the Senate resolution said.
Denmark's Rasmussen, who was to meet ambassadors later on Friday, said the
issue was a question of free speech and he could not control what appeared in
the Danish media.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the protests.
"I am totally shocked and find it unacceptable that -- because there have
been caricatures in the West -- extremists can burn flags or take fundamentalist
or extremist positions which would prove the cartoonists right," he told LCI
television.
Danish companies have reported sales falling in the Middle East after
protests in the Arab world and calls for boycotts.
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