Islam film spread across the Muslim world
Friday, with demonstrators scaling the walls of
U.S. embassies in Tunisia and Sudan, torching
part of a German embassy and clashing with
security forces at an American fast-food restaurant that was set ablaze in northern
Lebanon. Egypt's new Islamist president went on national
TV and appealed to Muslims to not attack
embassies, denouncing the violence earlier this
week in Libya that killed four Americans,
including the U.S. ambassador. Mohammed
Morsi's first public move to restrain protesters after days of near silence appeared aimed at
repairing strains with the United States over
this week's violence. Police in Cairo prevented stone-throwing
demonstrators from nearing the U.S. Embassy,
firing tear gas and deploying armored vehicles
to push them back in a fourth day of clashes in
the Egyptian capital. The day of protests, which spread to around 20
countries, started small and mostly peacefully in
countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, India,
Afghanistan and Pakistan. The most violent
demonstrations took place in the Middle East.
In many places, only a few hundred took to the streets, mostly ultraconservative Islamists —
but the mood was often furious. The demonstrators came out after weekly
Friday Muslim prayers, where many clerics in
their mosque sermons called on congregations
to defend their faith, denouncing the obscure
movie produced in the United States that
denigrated the Prophet Muhammad. At least one protester was killed around the region. Several thousand demonstrators protested
outside the US Embassy in Tunis and battled
with security forces, throwing stones as police
fired volleys of tear gas and shot in the air.
Some protesters scaled the embassy wall and
stood on top of it, planting a black flag with the Islamic profession of faith, "There is no god but
Allah and Muhammad is his prophet." Police chased them off the wall and took the
flag down. The heaviest violence came in Sudan, where a
prominent sheik on state radio urged
protesters to march on the German Embassy to
protest alleged anti-Muslim graffiti on mosques
in Berlin and then to the U.S. Embassy to
protest the film. "America has long been an enemy to Islam and
to Sudan," Sheik Mohammed Jizouly said. Soon after, several hundred Sudanese stormed
into the German Embassy, setting part of an
embassy building aflame along with trash bins
and a parked car. Protesters danced and
celebrated around the burning barrels as palls
of black smoke billowed into the sky until police firing tear gas drove them out of the
compound. Some then began to demonstrate outside the
neighboring British Embassy, shouting slogans. Several thousand then moved on the American
Embassy, on the capital's outskirts. They tried
to storm the mission, clashing with Sudanese
police, who opened fire on some who tried to
scale the compound's wall. It was not clear
whether any protesters made it into the embassy grounds. The police then launched giant volleys of tear
gas to disperse the crowd, starting a
stampede. Witnesses reported seeing three
protesters motionless on the ground,
apparently dead, though there was no
immediate confirmation of deaths in the violence. Ahead of the expected wave of protests on
Friday — a traditional day for rallies in the
Islamic world — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton explicitly denounced the movie,
aiming to pre-empt further turmoil at its
embassies and consulates. The film, called "Innocence of Muslims," ridicules the Prophet
Muhammad, portraying him as a fraud, a
womanizer and a child molester. "The United States government had absolutely
nothing to do with this video," she said before a
meeting with the foreign minister of Morocco at
the State Department. "We absolutely reject
its content and message." She said the video
was "disgusting and reprehensible." Egypt's Morsi said his TV address that "it is
required by our religion to protect our guests
and their homes and places of work," he said. He called the killing of the American ambassador
in Libya unacceptable in Islam. "To God,
attacking a person is bigger than an attack on
the Kaaba," he said, referring to Islam's holiest
site in Mecca. His speech came after President Barack Obama
spoke with Morsi by telephone. The Obama
administration has been angered by Morsi's slow
response to the attack Tuesday night on the
U.S. Embassy in Cairo. He made little more than
vague statements about it for days without an outright condemnation of the breach, in which
police did nothing to stop protesters from
climbing the embassy walls. His silence reflected the heavy pressure that
Morsi, a longtime figure from the Muslim
Brotherhood, faces from Egypt's powerful
ultraconservative Islamists. They are using the
film issue to boost their own political
prominence while challenging Morsi's religious credentials. Leaders of Egypt's Jihad group, a former
militant organization, held a conference in the
Egyptian city of Alexandria and said anyone
involved in "defamation" of the prophet should
be killed. They called on Morsi to cut relations
with U.S. "I appeal to President Mohammed Morsi to cut
our relations with those monkeys and pigs," said
Rifaei Taha, a leading member of the group. Several hundred people, mainly
ultraconversatives, protested in Cairo's Tahrir
Square after weekly Muslim Friday prayers and
tore up an American flag, waving a black, Islamist
flag. A firebrand ultraconservative Salafi cleric
blasted the film and in his sermon in Cairo's Tahrir Square said it was upon Muslims to
defend Islam and its prophet. Many in the crowd then moved to join
protesters who have been clashing for several
days with police between Tahrir and the U.S.
Embassy. "With our soul, our blood, we will
avenge you, our Prophet," they chanted as
police fired volleys of tear gas. Elsewhere, one protester was killed in the
northern Lebanese city of Tripoli in clashes with
security forces, after a crowd of protesters set
fire to a KFC and a Hardee's restaurant.
Protesters hurled stones and glass at police in
a furious melee that left 25 people wounded, 18 of them police. In east Jerusalem, Israeli police stopped a
crowd of around 400 Palestinians from marching
on the U.S. consulate to protest the film.
Demonstrators threw bottles and stones at
police, who responded by firing stun grenades.
Four protesters were arrested. Security forces in Yemen shot live rounds in the
air and fired tear gas at a crowd of around
2,000 protesters trying to march to the U.S.
Embassy in the capital, Sanaa. Though
outnumbered by protesters, security forces
were able to keep the crowd about a block away from the mission. A day earlier, hundreds of protesters chanting
"death to America" stormed the embassy
compound in Sanaa and burned the American
flag. The embassy said nobody was harmed.
Yemen's president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi,
quickly apologized to the United States and vowed to track down the culprits. In Tripoli and Benghazi, civil soceity groups
planned demonstrations to voice their
opposition to violence and the killing of the U.S.
ambassador. Worshippers during Friday prayers
said that they will carry flowers and lay them in
front of the ambassador's house in Benghazi. Over the past days, since the attack on the
consulate, hundreds held protests in Benghazi
and Tripoli city centers mainly against the
attack on the consulate. A small, peaceful demonstration was held Friday
outside the U.S. Embassy in the Malaysian
capital, Kuala Lumpur. Hundreds of hardline Muslims held peaceful
protests against the film throughout Pakistan,
shouting slogans and carrying banners criticizing
the U.S. and those involved in the film. Police in Islamabad set up barricades and razor
wire to prevent protesters from getting to the
diplomatic enclave, where the U.S. Embassy and
many other foreign missions are located.
Protests were also held in Karachi, Peshawar
and Lahore, where protesters shouted "Down with America" and some burned the U.S. flag.
About 200 policemen and barbed wire ringed
the U.S. Consulate in Lahore. About 1,500 protest in the eastern city of
Jalalabad, shouting "Death to America" and urge
President Hamid Karzai to cut relations with the
U.S. A prominent cleric in Indonesia urged Muslims
there to remain calm despite their anger about
the film. But Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, a branch of
the international network that advocates a
worldwide Islamic state, on its website blamed
the U.S. government for allowing the film to be produced and released, calling it "an act of
barbarism that cannot go unpunished."
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