Friday 21 September 2012
Thursday 20 September 2012
Tensions high for day of anti-Islam film protests
21/09/2012
Security forces in several Muslim countries are gearing up for a day of fresh protests against an anti-Islam film made in the US.
In Pakistan, the government has declared a national holiday to enable people to demonstrate peacefully.
Washington has paid for adverts on Pakistani TV that show President Barack Obama condemning the film.
Widespread unrest over the film, Innocence of Muslims, has already claimed several lives around the world.
Although the US has borne the brunt of protests, anti-Western sentiment has been stoked further by caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a satirical French magazine.
Pakistan has declared Friday a "day of love for the Prophet" and urged people to demonstrate peacefully.
All major political parties and religious organisations have announced protests, along with trade and transport groups, and large crowds are expected following Friday prayers.
Foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar told AP news agency that the national holiday was intended to motivate Pakistan's peaceful majority and not allow extremists to turn the protest into a show of anger against the US."We are very confident this will lessen the violence," she said, but added: "There will always be elements that will try to take advantage of these things."
Correspondents say stores, markets and petrol stations are expected to close and transport is likely to grind to a halt.
Embassies closed
On Thursday, police used tear gas and live rounds to control a mass protest against the film outside the US embassy in Islamabad.
Protesters burned an effigy of President Obama and threw missiles at the police. At least 50 people were reported to have been injured.
Dozens of protests against the film had already been held across Pakistan over the past week - killing at least two people - but Thursday was the first time violence erupted in the capital.
The US state department has issued a warning against any non-essential travel to Pakistan.
France has closed its embassies and other official offices in about 20 countries across the Muslim world on Friday after French magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, including two drawings showing him naked.
French Muslim leaders condemned the magazine and said an appeal for calm would be read in mosques across the country on Friday.In Tunisia - where France is the former colonial power - the government has banned Friday protests.
Calls to protest against the caricatures have turned up in Tunisian social media and Interior Minister Ali Larayedh said it was believed that some groups were planning violent protests after Friday prayers.
Rival protests
There are also fears of violence in the Libyan city of Benghazi after rival groups said they would take to the streets.
One group intends to denounce extremism and urge militias to disband, following an attack on the US consulate in the city on 11 September that killed the US ambassador and another official.
Throughout the week, Benghazi residents have left wreaths and placards condemning the attack outside the US mission.
Meanwhile, Ansar al-Sharia, the jihadist militia blamed by some local people for the attack, called for protests "in defence of the Prophet Mohammed". Both protests are scheduled for the same time.
In the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, protests are planned outside both the French and US embassies on Friday.
In Cairo, where the protests against the film began, Egyptian security forces are patrolling the streets around the US embassy.
Radical Islamists have clashed with security forces there in recent days, although President Mohammed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood has stayed away from the unrest, only condemning the film and calling for peaceful demonstrations.
The low-budget film that sparked the controversy was made in the US and is said to insult the Prophet Muhammad.
Its exact origins are unclear and the alleged producer for the trailer of the film, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is in hiding.
Anti-US sentiment grew after a trailer for the film dubbed into Arabic was released on YouTube earlier this month.
CM Shahbaz Sharif has expressed deep sense of grief in Peshawar bomb blast
LAHORE, September 19
Punjab Chief Minister, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has
expressed deep sense of grief and sorrow over the loss of precious human lives
in bomb blast in Peshawar today. He prayed that may Allah Almighty
rest the departed
souls in eternal peace and grant strength and courage to the members of
bereaved families to bear the irreparable loss with equanimity.
Wednesday 19 September 2012
Pakistani lawyers rallied against anti-Islam film at diplomatic enclave
19/09/2012
ISLAMABAD: Up to 500 Pakistani lawyers managed to break through a gate to Islamabad’s heavily-guarded diplomatic enclave on Wednesday in a fresh protest to denounce an American-made anti-Islam film.
Wearing headbands inscribed with “Lovers of Prophet, Death to the blasphemer, America’s friends are traitors”, the protesters chanted slogans including “We are ready to sacrifice our lives to safeguard honour of the prophet”.
More than 200 riot police armed with batons and shields stood guard as the lawyers broke through the first of two gates leading to the enclave, which contains most Western embassies in the Pakistani capital.
The lawyers halted at the second gate, where their leaders delivered fiery speeches against the US, urging the Pakistan government to expel the American Ambassador and break its “criminal silence” over the “Innocence of Muslims” film.
“The government should stop the policy of appeasing the US,” they said, castigating the country’s rulers for not officially registering their protest with the US.
A US flag was laid on the ground and the protesting lawyers walked over it one by one. Later they burnt the flag before the rally ended peacefully.
More than 30 people have been killed in a week of attacks and violent protests linked to the controversial film, deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan have all blocked access to YouTube, following the video-sharing website’s failure to take down the film.
Special Troops Disperse Protesters against USA in Cairo
Cairo, Sep 15 (Prensa Latina) The Devil 300 meters, the distance between the U.S. Embassy here and Tahrir Square, the scene of clashes between police and protesters, is calm today after police action.
However, there are still traces of almost five days of fighting between protesters and riot police and soldiers: debris, rocks and large puddles of water used to contain the protesters, the smell of tear gas.
There is also a solid wall of concrete blocks erected by emergency authorities, blocking the street that leads to the entrance of the U.S. embassy and it appears that is there to stay.
One man was killed and up to 400 people were injured in the clashes, according to differing versions.
As a precautionary measure, Washington withdrew its diplomatic staff, including the ambassador, according to a version released by the daily Al Masry al Youm, which refrains from citing its source.
The crisis began to subside on Friday when The Ajuan Musulmin (Muslim Brotherhood) chose to announce that their protests against "Innocence of Muslims", a
sacrilegious film to Islam, would be carried away from Tahrir Square.
The decision of the Brotherhood appears to be dictated by reasons of State since Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, left their ranks and in the current circumstances considered advisable to put some distance of facts that present themselves as an aggressive or hostile entity from the Government.
U.S. closes consulate in Indonesia over protests
Sep. 19, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Several hundred lawyers protesting an anti-Islam video forced their way into an area in Pakistan's capital that houses the U.S. Embassy and other foreign missions on Wednesday, and the United States temporarily closed its consulate in an Indonesian city because of similar demonstrations.
The lawyers who protested in Islamabad shouted anti-U.S. slogans and burned an American flag after they pushed through a gate, gaining access to the diplomatic enclave before police stopped them. They called for the U.S. ambassador to be expelled from the country, and then peacefully dispersed.
The demonstration followed three days of violent protests against the film in Pakistan in which two people were killed. At least 28 other people have died in violence linked to the film in seven countries, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans killed in a Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Much of the anger over the film, which denigrates Islam's Prophet Muhammad, has been directed at the U.S. government even though the film was privately produced in the United States and American officials have criticized it.
The U.S. Embassy in Indonesia sent a text message to U.S. citizens saying that the consulate in Medan, the country's third-largest city, has been closed temporarily because of demonstrations over the film, "Innocence of Muslims."
About 300 members of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia, a pan-Islamic movement, rallied peacefully on Wednesday in front of the consulate in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province. Later, about 50 Muslim students also protested there. Both groups called on Washington to punish the makers of the film.
It was the third consecutive day of protests in Medan. On Monday, protesters hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails outside the embassy in Jakarta, the capital.
In France, the government has barred a planned protest by people angry over the anti-Islam film, but defended a newspaper's right to publish caricatures of the prophet.
France's foreign minister said security is being stepped up at some French embassies amid tensions in France and elsewhere around the film. French authorities and Muslim leaders urged calm in the country, which has the largest Muslim population in western Europe.
Riot police took up positions outside the Paris offices of a satirical French weekly that published crude caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Wednesday that ridicule the film and the furor surrounding it. The provocative weekly, Charlie Hebdo, was firebombed last year after it released a special edition that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a "guest editor" and took aim at radical Islam.
The investigation into that attack is still under way.
Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault of France said organizers of a planned demonstration Saturday against the film won't receive police authorization. Ayrault told French radio RTL that "there's no reason for us to let a conflict that doesn't concern France come into our country. We are a republic that has no intention of being intimidated by anyone."
On Tuesday, Islamic militants sought to capitalize on anger over the film, saying a suicide bombing that killed 12 people in Afghanistan was revenge for the video and calling for attacks on U.S. diplomats and facilities in North Africa.
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