The White House on Monday condemned the violent protests against the publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad and urged governments to take steps to lower tensions.
“We understand fully why people, why Muslims, find the cartoons offensive,” said White House spokesperson Scott McClellan. “And we’ve also spoken out about the importance of the right for people to express their views and freedom of speech in society.”
He said “those who disagree with the views that were expressed certainly have the right to condemn them, but they should be peaceful and we urge constructive dialogue about this difficult issue”.
In Brussels, the European Commission condemned the latest wave of violence by Muslim protesters and urged all sides to favour calm debate.
Acknowledging that the “cartoons have aggrieved Muslims across the world”, spokesperson Johannes Laitenberg nonetheless insisted that “no grievance, perceived or real, justifies acts of violence such as perpetrated on the weekend”.
McClellan said: “There should be a constructive and peaceful dialogue that emphasises respect for all religious faiths.”
Violent protests have erupted around the world over caricatures of the prophet Muhammad published in European newspapers.
Danish and Norwegian diplomatic missions in Damascus were torched on Saturday, and the Danish consulate in Beirut on Sunday.
The Muhammad cartoons were first published in a Danish newspaper in September and have outraged Muslims who regard images of their prophet as blasphemous. The caricatures have since been reproduced by newspapers in several other European countries, including France.
Demonstrators were killed in Afghanistan on Monday, one day after demonstrators set fire to the building housing the Danish mission in Beirut, Lebanon.
At least one person was killed and seven others wounded in the Puntland region of Somalia on Monday as security forces clashed with hundreds of Muslims protesting the publication in Europe of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, witnesses and police said.
Demonstrators in the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Monday pelted and smashed several windows of the embassy of Austria, which currently holds the European Union’s rotating presidency.
Australia was also drawn on Monday into the widespread anger over the cartoons after a weekend newspaper printed one of the images.
The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ameer Ali, urged newspapers not to print the cartoons, which Muslims say are blasphemous and contrary to Islamic tradition prohibiting depictions of the prophet.
In South Africa, the Mail & Guardian — which had printed one of the cartoons in last Friday’s edition of the newspaper — decided to remove the image from its website after its editor, Ferial Haffajee, and some of her family members received threatening phone calls.
At the weekend, South African Sunday newspapers were not allowed to publish the cartoons after a Muslim pressure group, the Jamiat-ul Ulama of Transvaal, was granted a court interdict, and talk-radio lines have been jammed with listeners debating the issue.
Meanwhile, Iran’s commerce minister announced on Monday that all trade between the Islamic republic and Denmark has been suspended in retaliation for the publication of the cartoons.
London
British police announced an investigation on Monday into angry protests in London against the publication around the world of the cartoons.
The move follows widespread calls from politicians and the media for action against demonstrators chanting and bearing aggressive slogans, including some that read “Massacre those who insult Islam” and “Europe, your 9/11 will come”.
One protester outside the Danish embassy in London on Saturday who dressed up as a suicide bomber apologised “wholeheartedly” for any offence to families of those who died in the July 7 bombings last year in the British capital.
London’s metropolitan police said in a statement on Monday that their “post-event investigation team” will review evidence gathered from the protests, including video, audio and closed-circuit television footage and officers’ written records.
No arrests were made among the London demonstrators, many of whom were from the Islamist political group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, because of public order fears, police reportedly said at the weekend.
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesperson said earlier on Monday that police and prosecutors would have the “full support” of the government if they were to decide to bring legal action.
Gaza City
Palestinian police on Monday broke up a rally outside the EU’s offices in Gaza City where hundreds of students had been protesting the publication of the cartoons.
The police fired shots into the air and used their batons to disperse the demonstrators, who in turn threw stones at the force.
The offices have been closed for a week for fear of a violent backlash against European targets in Gaza. Gunmen besieged the offices last Thursday when the offices were already closed.
Thousands of Palestinians also demonstrated in Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus Christ, and dozens more in the southern West Bank city of Hebron. Danish flags were burnt in both towns.
In Bethlehem, officials from Fatah and radical Islamist movement Hamas, as well as Christian mayor Victor Batarseh, addressed the crowd, calling for Christian-Muslim solidarity and demanding that Denmark apologise.
The EU is the biggest aid donor to the Palestinian Authority.
Denmark
Denmark told its nationals on Monday to avoid Muslim countries even as it pursued diplomatic efforts to defuse worldwide tensions surrounding the publication of the cartoons.
The foreign ministry warning, which affects thousands of holidaymakers and business executives, lists 14 Muslim countries travellers should avoid following violent protests against the cartoons. They are Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Sudan, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates.
Danish tour operators promptly cancelled all trips to Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.
The government’s recommendation follows weekend attacks by angry demonstrators on Danish diplomatic missions in Syria and Lebanon.
The foreign ministry has already advised Danish nationals to leave those countries.
“I am horrified to see the way violence and attacks are spreading throughout the Middle East,” Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said on Sunday, calling escalating protests in Lebanon and Syria “beyond comprehension”.
Solidarity
Denmark obtained expressions of solidarity from Britain and France.
“We and our EU partners stand in full solidarity with them [Denmark] in resisting this violence and believe the Danish government has done everything it reasonably can to handle a very difficult situation,” said Britain’s Blair.
French President Jacques Chirac “condemned acts of violence aimed at Danes and Danish representatives overseas, and voiced his solidarity with Denmark”, said a spokesperson for the French Presidency.
Stig Moeller proposed visiting the headquarters of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Saudi Arabia in a bid to calm Muslim anger.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he would ask Damascus to compensate Norway for the damage done to its embassy, but he also said that he disagreed with the decision by Magazinet, a small, Norwegian Christian publication, to reprint the satirical cartoons last month.
“What is dangerous in this type of situation is that extremists use a wrong action to justify another wrong action,” he said.
The Danish foreign ministry said Danes should abstain from any non-essential travel to the countries on the list published on Monday after the attacks in Syria and Lebanon.
“Developments have shown that the crisis could spread to other countries,” it warned.
Those already in one of the countries should exercise “the greatest caution”, the ministry warned, but it stopped short of asking them to come home. — Sapa-AP, Sapa-AFP
On the net
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