Muslims march against newspaper cartoons
Gaza Strip ? Muslims protested Friday in the Gaza Strip, Pakistan and Denmark against the reprinting of a Danish newspaper cartoon depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Thousands of residents in the conservative Gaza Strip ruled by the militant Islamic Hamas movement marched in the Jebaliya refugee camp chanting: “What Denmark said is heresy.”
“It is shameful that Denmark should renew its offense against the prophet,” Hamas official Mushir al-Masri told reporters at the protest.
In Pakistan, hundreds of people rallied in various parts of the country, setting fire to Danish flags and demanding the Danish ambassador’s expulsion. And in Denmark, a prominent Danish imam urged rioting youths to stop setting fires and hurling rocks at police.
The protests came after Denmark’s leading newspapers reproduced one of 12 cartoons of Islam’s prophet Wednesday in a gesture of solidarity after police said they uncovered a plot to kill the cartoon’s artist. The drawings had sparked deadly riots across the Muslim world in 2006.