Fresh protests erupted in the Muslim world yesterday over an anti-Islam film as a French magazine added fuel to the fire with the publication of obscene cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad.
France braced for a backlash over the cartoons, stepping up security at its embassies and banning demonstrations on its own soil as senior officials and Muslim leaders appealed for calm.
More than 30 people have been killed in attacks or violent protests linked to the controversial US-made film Innocence of Muslims, including 12 people who died in an attack by a female suicide bomber in Afghanistan on Tuesday.
In Pakistan yesterday, around 1,000 students from the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party took to the streets in Lahore, chanting anti-US slogans and burning the American flag.
A similar number demonstrated in Karachi, burning an effigy of US President Barack Obama, while in Islamabad, around 500 lawyers burst into the capital’s diplomatic enclave, chanting anti-US slogans and castigating the government for not taking strong action against the film.
The Pakistan government declared on Friday – the Muslim holy day – a national holiday in honour of Mohammad, in a sudden announcement made after religious parties called for a day of protest.
In Afghanistan, about 1,000 protesters took to the streets, blocking a key road to Kabul and chanting “Death to America” and “Death to the enemies of Islam.”
Indonesia saw hundreds of protesters tear up the American flag and throw eggs at the US embassy in the capital Jakarta.
In Lebanon, gunmen opened fire on a KFC fast-food restaurant, just days after another outlet of the US chain was torched and a demonstrator killed in a protest over the film. No one was hurt in yesterday’s attack.
Meanwhile France stepped up security and appealed for calm yesterday after a weekly magazine published cartoons of a naked Prophet Mohammad that fanned outrage in the Islamic world.
The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons mocking the film Innocence of Muslims and caricaturing the Muslim prophet, including two showing him naked. Another cartoon depicts a cover of Closer, the magazine which last week created a furore by publishing photographs of Prince William’s wife Catherine, topless promising exclusive snaps of “Mrs Mohammad”.
The figure shows a man’s gap-toothed, bearded head on top of a woman’s body with bared breasts.
Police were deployed outside the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo yesterday.