Libyans burn Italian consulate in caricature protest

TRIPOLI, Libya - The publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad continued to send shock waves around the world Friday as protesters set fire to the Italian consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and clashed with police hours after an Islamic cleric in Pakistan offered a $1 million reward for killing one of the cartoonists.

Libyan security officials said 11 protesters were killed or wounded in the clashes in Benghazi.An Italian consular official, Antonio Simoes-Goncalves, put the death toll at nine and said several more had been wounded as armed police clashed with a crowd of more than 1,000 demonstrators.

Thousands rally in London

More than 10,000 angry people protested in central London Saturday against the cartoons that have infuriated many in the Muslim world. "Free speech, cheap insults," read one demonstrator's placard. "How dare you insult the blessed Prophet Muhammed?" asked another. Buses brought participants from cities around Britain to gather in Trafalgar Square, and they planned to march later Saturday to Hyde Park.

Source: [MSNBC]

Speakers shouted from the podium and the crowd yelled back as the demonstration grew increasingly angry. "Every Muslim understands this basic concept of the centrality in importance of Muhammad to their lives," said Taji Mustafa, a spokesman for the Muslim Action Committee, which organized the event. "So when he is demonized, the young and old are deeply affected. As long as the abuse is ongoing we will continue to rise up in protest."

Flames engulf Italian consulate

The Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed that the first floor of the consulate in tripoli had been set on fire after the crowd charged into the grounds late Friday. In a statement in Rome, the ministry said the consulate was being protected by Libyan security forces.

Security officials said the demonstrators hurled stones and bottles at the consulate, and later entered the grounds and set fire to the building and a consular car. Police fired shots to try to disperse the crowd, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Simoes-Goncalves told the Associated Press in Rome that the Libyan police were not able to control the crowd, even though they were firing bullets and tear gas. "They are still continually firing," he said at 4 p.m. ET, speaking on the telephone from inside the consulate where he was holed up. "They haven't managed to block them." He said the rioters had torched four cars in the consulate compound and also broke windows of the building.

No Italians inside the compound were injured, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.

Riots across Pakistan

In central Pakistan, four people were wounded when shots were fired during another protest over publication of the controversial cartoons. The shooting occurred as protesters pelted police with stones and tried to block a road in the town of Chiniot in the central province of Punjab, a local police official told Reuters. He said it was unclear whether police or protesters fired the shots.

Clerics at mosques across Pakistan condemned the caricatures at Friday prayers. "Give enough power to the Muslim countries and enable them to take revenge," said Qari Saeed Ullah, a prayer leader in Islamabad. Five people have been killed in Islamic Pakistan this week during violent demonstrations against the satirical cartoons.

Earlier, a Pakistani cleric was placed under house detention after announcing a $1 million bounty for killing one of the cartoonists who drew the caricatures, as thousands rallied across the country and authorities arrested scores of protesters.

Reward on cartoonist's head

In Denmark, where the prophet drawings were first published in September, the government said Friday it had temporarily closed its embassy in Pakistan following the violent protests this week. Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Denmark for "consultations" about the caricatures, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said.

Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the historic Mohabat Khan mosque in the conservative northwestern city of Peshawar, announced the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school he leads would give a $25,000 reward and a car for killing the cartoonist who drew the prophet caricatures -- considered blasphemous by Muslims.

He also said a local jewelers' association would give $1 million, but no representative of the association was available to confirm the offer.

"Whoever has done this despicable and shameful act, he has challenged the honor of Muslims. Whoever will kill this cursed man, he will get $1 million from the association of the jewelers bazaar, 1 million rupees ($16,700) from Masjid Mohabat Khan and 500,000 rupees ($8,350) and a car from Jamia Ashrafia as a reward," Qureshi told about 1,000 people outside the mosque after Friday prayers.

"This is a unanimous decision by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophets deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize." Qureshi did not name any cartoonist in his announcement and did not appear to be aware that 12 different people had drawn the pictures. The crowd outside the mosque burned a Danish flag and an effigy of the Danish prime minister.

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten first printed the prophet drawings by 12 cartoonists in September. The newspaper has since apologized to Muslims for the drawings, one of them showing Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with an ignited fuse.

Cartoonists go underground

Other Western newspapers, mostly in Europe but also some in the United States, have reprinted the pictures, asserting their news value and the right to freedom of expression. A spokesman for Jyllands-Posten did not want to comment on Qureshi's offer. "We are not going to discuss this with that kind of people," Tage Clausen said.

The cartoonists have gone underground and lived under police protection since the conflict started escalating last year. The president of the Danish Journalist Union, Mogens Blicher Bjerregaard, who is a spokesman for the cartoonists, would not say whether security surrounding them had been increased.

The publication of the drawings set off weeks of protests across the Muslim world in which at least 19 people have been killed, most of them in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Islamabad, former President Clinton criticized the drawings but said Muslims wasted an opportunity to build better ties with the West by mounting violent protests.

"I can tell you most people in the United States deeply respect Islam ... and most people in Europe do," he said.

Danish closures

Denmark's decision to close its embassy comes after the government temporarily closed its embassies in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Indonesia last week amid anti-Danish protests and threats against staff.

"We have decided to do so because of the general security situation in the country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Thuesen said of the Pakistani closure. "Our staff are still in the country but not at the embassy in Islamabad."

Reporters Without Borders, a leading media watchdog group, urged the release of six journalists held in Algeria and Yemen for reprinting the prophet drawings.

In India, police used batons and tear gas to disperse several thousand angry Muslims worshippers who rioted over the drawings, police said. The protesters burned Danish flags, pelted police with stones, and looted shops after Friday prayers in Hyderabad, a city of 7 million people, nearly half of them Muslim.

Thousands of Hong Kong Muslims also marched Friday to condemn the caricatures.