CAIRO,
February 3, 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The
International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS) has called worldwide
Muslim protests Friday, February 3, in protest of the blasphemous
cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) published by several European
newspapers.
"Let
us make Friday, February 3, a day for worldwide Muslim protests over the
insulting campaigns against Allah and His Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), all
messengers and religious sanctities," IUMS said in a statement
e-mailed to IslamOnline.net Thursday, February 2.
"Let
all Muslim scholars and preachers in all mosques make their sermons
focus on the issue," said the IUMS, headed by prominent Muslim
scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi.
Last
September, Denmark's Jyllands-Posten published twelve drawings
that included portrayals of a man assumed to be the Prophet wearing a
time-bomb shaped turban and showed him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked
by shrouded women.
Several
European newspapers, in the name of freedom of the press, reprinted some
or all of the blasphemous cartoons, including the French daily France-Soir
and Germany's Die Welt.
Day
of Anger
 |
|
Indonesian Muslims set the Danish flag on fire in protest of the blasphemous cartoons (Reuters).
|
The
French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) echoed similar calls for world
protests over the insulting drawings.
"The
CFCM has called for making Friday a day to highlight the merciful
traditions and biography of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and to protest the
provocative anti-Prophet allegations," the CFCM leader Zuhair Breik
told IOL.
The
Muslim anger over the insulting caricatures also continued to rage on in
many Muslim countries.
Pakistan's
Islamic parties urged a second day of protests over the drawings, Agence
France Presse (AFP) reported.
"We
have given a call for nationwide protests after Friday prayers to
condemn the publication of the cartoons," said Shahid Shamsi,
spokesman for Pakistan's main alliance of Islamic parties, Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA).
The
alliance said the demonstrations would call for the Pakistani government
and all Islamic countries to withdraw their diplomats from France,
Norway and Denmark until Copenhagen apologizes.
Massive
protests were also expected in Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai
late Thursday branded the cartoons an insult to more than one billion
Muslims across the world.
At
least 15 people were killed in Afghanistan in May, 2004, in protests
erupted after US magazine Newsweek reported that the Noble Qur'an
had been mistreated by US jailers in the US detention facility in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In
Malaysia, the opposition Islamic party (PAS) said it would present a
protest letter to the Danish embassy in Kuala Lumpur after Friday
prayers.
Jyllands-Posten
editor-in-chief Carsten Juste said Thursday that he would not have
published the cartoons if he had known the consequences.
Firestorm
 |
|
Iraqis step on the Danish flag. (Reuters).
|
The
firestorm of reaction over the cartoons also spread throughout the
Middle East and other Asian countries.
In
the occupied Palestinian territories, a German national was briefly
seized by two masked gunmen from a hotel in the West Bank town of Nablus
"thinking he was French or Danish, and handed him over to police
after realizing their mistake," said a source from the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades.
In
Jakarta, around 100 demonstrators forced their way into the building
where the Danish mission is located, pelting the embassy's external coat
of arms with eggs.
The
demonstrators were quickly ejected by police and their own leaders.
Maksuni,
the leader of the protesters, said the Danish ambassador met with
representatives of the group and promised to issue an apology.
"If
they don't apologize as they promised we will kick them out of the
country, and we will ask the government to withdraw its ambassador from
Denmark," he added.
Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak warned Thursday that the insistence of European
newspapers on printing the cartoons risked provoking what he termed as
"a terrorist backlash".
Also
read:
