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‘Sad Friday’ Rallies Against Yassin Assassination
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In Ramallah, some 5,000 people protested against the assassination
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Additional
reporting by Sobhy Mujahid, IOL Correspondent
WORLD
CAPITALS, March 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Masses of
world Muslims protested Friday, March 26, against the Israeli
assassination of Hamas spiritual leader earlier this week, calling for
revenge and support to Palestinian resistance against occupation.
In
the West Bank city of Ramallah, some 5,000 people, including
representatives of all the main Palestinian resistance factions,
gathered in the city center after Friday prayers, chanting slogans and
carrying posters of Yassin.
“Hamas
is in good health and will continue its resistance,” the leader of
the movement's Damascus-based political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, -
recently elected Hamas number 1 - told the Ramallah demonstrators on
telephone linkup.
“We
will continue our sacrifices until the end of the occupation,"
Meshaal told crowd chanting "Death to Israel, Death to Israel,”
quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying.
In
the city of Nablus, some 300 masked people marched through the streets
with mock Qassam rockets, named after and manufactured by the armed
wing of Hamas.
Sheikh
Hamed al-Bitawi, an Islamic leader who addressed the angry crowd,
lambasted a group of leading Palestinian figures who recently
published a petition calling for restraint after Yassin's
assassination.
“We
want to ask those officials in the Palestinian Authority who speak of
a peaceful Intifada: will this Intifada liberate our homeland, oust
the occupiers and free our detainees?” He charged.
Following
Yassin assassination, Hamas urged its fighters to carry out
retaliatory attacks and declared all-out war against Israel.
Egyptians
Urge Support
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“Death to Israel, death to America,” shouted thousands of Iranians
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Friday's
demonstrations in the Palestinian territories were echoed by others
across the Muslim world, with thousands taking to the streets in
Nigeria, Turkey, Iraq and most countries in the Middle East.
In
Cairo, thousands of Egyptians gathered after the Friday prayers in the
Al-Azahr mosque for mass protests against the killing.
“Blood
begets blood,” “We all Yassin, all Hamas,” and “Intifada
continues,” read some of the slogans waived aloft by the
demonstrators.
The
crowds wearing Hamas headbands and T-shirts carrying the image of
Yassin called on Hamas to strongly avenge the assassination, and for
Arab and Islamic countries to support resistance factions in occupied
Arab territories.
“Demonstrations
should continue till the shutdown of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo and
the abolishing of the Camp David Agreement,” said Magdi Hussein, a
leader of the now-frozen Labor Party.
He
was referring to the agreement that initiated for a peace treaty
between Israel and Egypt on 1979.
Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak called off his country’s participation in
celebrations marking the signing of the peace deal in Tel Aviv a few
hours after the assassination, as university students demonstrated for
a firm reaction.
Security
was reinforced around the U.S. and British Embassies in Cairo and
police vehicles were deployed on Tahrir Square in downtown where a
demonstration against the U.S. occupation of Iraq took place a few
days earlier.
‘Death
To Israel, U.S.’
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“We are all Sheikh Yassins, we are all Palestinians,” Turkish crowds
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In
Tehran, thousands of Iranians demonstrated to denounce Israel's
extrajudicial execution of Yassin and to voice support for the
Intifada.
The
demonstrators gathered at the official rally, waving pictures of the
Hamas spiritual leader alongside Palestinian and Iranian flags.
“Death
to Israel, death to America,” “Palestine will conquer, Israel will
sink,” shouted the demonstrators as they torched Israeli and U.S.
flags.
In
Baghdad, hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated after the prayers, burning
Israeli flags to protest the extrajudicial execution.
The
worshipers at the capital’s al-Kazimiyah mosque marched out of the
shrine, carrying a symbolic coffin for Yassin, wrapped with a
Palestinian flag, an AFP correspondent said.
“No,
no to Israel. No, no to occupation,” shouted the protestors, many
carrying portraits of Sheikh Yassin.
In
the southern Shiite city of Najaf, hundreds of worshipers held a
similar street protest after Friday prayers at the Imam Ali mosque,
following a call for the demonstration by imam Sheikh Sadreddine
al-Qobbanji.
Protests
have been held in Iraq on a near-daily basis to denounce Israel's
assassination of the Palestinian Islamic leader, considered the symbol
of Palestinian resistance.
Members
of Iraq's U.S.-appointed Interim Governing Council had expressed fears
that the killing of Yassin, who was respected around the Arab world,
would fuel violence in their own war-torn country.
Turkish
Protests
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Indian Muslims join the world outrage over the killing
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In
Turkey, about 2,000 people, among them many women and children,
gathered in Istanbul's historical Beyazit square after Friday prayers
waving pictures of the slain spiritual Hamas leader.
The
demonstrators stoned and then burnt an effigy of Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon. An Israeli flag was also burnt.
“Down
with Israel,” “Sharon is a murderer,” “We are all Sheikh
Yassins, we are all Palestinians,” the crowd shouted.
Protestors
also burnt an Israeli flag in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir,
in Turkey's southeast, where about 1,000 people prayed for Yassin and
shouted anti-Israeli slogans. Similar demonstrations were held after
Friday prayers in other cities across the country.
The
Turkish leadership's criticism of Sharon's heavy-handed policies
against the Palestinians have also become harsher.
Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week called Israel's assassination
of Yassin a “terrorist” act and said it had “messed up”
Turkey's bid to mediate for peace in the Middle East.
Memorial
Service In Afghanistan
In
Kabul, Afghans held a memorial service Friday for the assassinated
Palestinian leader at which they condemned Sharon and U.S. foreign
policy in the Middle East.
About
200 scholars, university students and Hamas supporters said Monday's
assassination of Hamas leader Yassin in an Israeli air force strike
was "an act of terror”.
“We,
the Afghan nation, appreciate the Islamic resistance of Palestinians
and support the suffering nation of Palestine against the invaders,”
one point in a 14-article resolution passed by the crowd said.
Nigerians
Call It ‘Barbaric’
In
Kano, thousand of Nigerian Muslims marched through this northern
Nigerian city in protest at Israel's extrajudicial execution of
Yassin.
“This
barbaric act shows that there can be no peace with Israel," Turi
told AFP earlier this week. "The martyrdom of Sheikh Yassin will
only revive the spirit of struggle against Israel and the United
States,” Shiite scholar Mohammed Turi said in the protests.
Demonstrations
were also held in other countries. In Indonesia, protestors converged
in the outside the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, slamming Israel’s
assassination and Washington’s apparent connivance.
Muslims
in Bangladesh and India also expressed their fury over the killing in
mas protests after the Friday prayers.
The
assassination of
the 67-year-old wheelchair-bound Yassin drew a world outrage for being
a serious escalation that would entrench the region in more violence.
The European Union said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been made
worse by the killing.
Sheikh
Yassin frequently
said that Hamas was willing
to stop its operations if Israel ended its occupation of Palestinian
territories and stopped killing Palestinian women, children and other
innocent civilians there.
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