Muslims from London to Jakarta today mounted vigorous protests against cartoons of the prophet Muhammad which have appeared in European newspapers.
Answering the call to mount an international "day of anger", Muslim crowds spilled from Friday prayers into protest demonstrations, demanding apologies from newspaper editors and the governments of a half dozen European countries that have refused to block the publication of the images.
The first protests took place in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, when around 150 members of the Islamic Defenders Front tried to storm the Danish Embassy in Jakarta after pelting the building with eggs. "Let’s slaughter the Danish ambassador!" Read banners carried by the crowd. "We're ready for jihad!" They shouted.
Denmark's best-selling broadsheet, the right-of-centre Jyllands-Posten, has been at the heart of the controversy since publishing 12 cartoons depicting Muhammad last September. One of the offending drawings shows Muhammad's turban as bomb with a lit fuse. In another he turns suicide bombers away from heaven because "We have run out of virgins".
Despite the best efforts of the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who appeared last night on Arabic satellite television to stress his country's respect for Islam, anger has deepened this week after newspapers in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands reprinted at least one of the images.
Syria and Saudi Arabia have withdrawn their ambassadors in protest at the cartoons and Libya has closed its embassy altogether. According to the Hadith, the sayings of the prophet, all depictions of Muhammad, however complimentary, are considered idolatrous.
Amid demonstrations in Singapore, the country's senior Islamic organisation said that the cartoons had no purpose but hatred: "No one is allowed to ridicule or cast aspersions on the faith of a people under the cloak of free expression," it said.
Crowds gathered in Bangladesh and in cities across Pakistan, where the national parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning the drawings. "I have been hurt, grieved and I am angry," said President Pervez Musharraf. Last November, Islamic extremists in Islamabad issued death threats against the authors of the cartoons. Newspaper offices are frequently attacked in Pakistan for perceived slights against Islam.
Across the Middle East, Danish dairy produce has been boycotted by an estimated 50,000 shops since Saudi Arabian clerics asked shopkeepers to remove the items from their shelves. As Friday prayers ended in the region, thousands took to the streets to burn flags and threaten violence.
"We must tell Europeans, we can live without you. But you cannot live without us," said Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, a leading imam in Qatar. "We can buy from China, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia... We will not be humiliated."
The Palestinian Territories have been alive with marches and unrest since the victory of the Islamist group, Hamas, in last week's parliamentary elections.
Today a week of anti-Danish and anti-European protests reached its climax with 50,000 people attending a rally organised by the group, which is yet to take power. Danish goods were burnt and the crowd chanted: "Let the hands that drew be severed!"
Western diplomats have already been forced to abandon their missions in the Gaza Strip after reports of gunmen searching hotels for Europeans, declaring them legitimate targets. The Danish Red Cross has pulled out workers from Yemen and Gaza City after they received death threats.
Arab newspaper editorials held no trace of the ambivalence that led a Jordanian newspaper, al-Shihan, to print three of the cartoons yesterday. Instead, Jihad Momani, the newspaper's editor who was fired for his decision to publish, issued an apology: "Oh I ask God to forgive me and I announce to everyone my deep regret for the gross mistake I have committed in Shihan without intention, which I fell into in my enthusiasm to defend our religion and the life of the Prophet," he said.
By this afternoon, London also was witnessing furious demonstrations. After a small protest at the BBC television centre last night to complain about glimpses of the cartoons in news bulletins and on Newsnight, hundreds of Muslims gathered in Regent's Park to march to the Danish Embassy on Sloane Street.
Placards reading: "Behead the one who insults the prophet" and "Free speech go to hell!" were carried by the protesters. Bushra Varakat, a 26-year-old student from Egham, Surrey, said: "This is our prophet, he did a lot of things for humankind, both Muslim and non-Muslim.
"We don’t know why these silly people use these cartoons unless they were showing how much they hate us. We have to defend our prophet otherwise Allah will punish us. We will not accept this ridicule."
So far, British newspapers have declined to reprint the cartoons. Most explained their reasons today. The Sun said it seemed "ridiculous... that mayhem is breaking out over a handful of cartoons. Can we all get real." The Financial Times said that it found the images offensive, but warned autocratic Arab leaders against letting extremists take over the debate.
In the most extended comment from a Government minister yet on the subject, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, welcomed the restraint shown by the press in a strong denunciation of the Danish cartoons.
"There is freedom of speech, we all respect that," he said. "But there is not any obligation to insult or to be gratuitously inflammatory. I believe that the republication of these cartoons has been unnecessary, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been wrong."
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, condemned the images too, but urged British Muslims to resist the entreaties of extremists seeking to hijack the controversy.
"There may be elements that would want to exploit the genuine sense of anguish and hurt among British Muslims about the manner in which the prophet has been vilified to pursue their own mischievous agenda," he said. "We would caution all British Muslims to not allow themselves to be provoked."
