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In response to the Muslim outrage.... now it's gonna get interesting.

http://cagle.com/news/Muhammad/

Isn't one of those "things I learned in kindergarten" go something like?..
Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.

Can't you just see history classes 100-years from now explaining the great world wars and when it comes to the European War of 2006 and the lesson being told that cartoons started it? Insanity

And the beat goes on.....

Quote:

Cleric: $1 Million to Kill Cartoonist

By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 42 minutes ago

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A Pakistani cleric announced Friday a $1 million bounty for killing a cartoonist who drew Prophet Muhammad, as thousands joined street protests and Denmark temporarily closed its embassy and advised its citizens to leave the country.

Police confined the former leader of an Islamic militant group to his home to prevent him from addressing supporters over the cartoons, amid fears he could incite violence, after riots this week killed five people.

Security forces were out in strength, particularly around government offices and Western businesses, as Muslims streamed onto the streets after Friday prayers. More than 200 people were detained, but most gatherings were peaceful.

In neighboring India, police used batons and tear gas to disperse thousands of angry worshippers who rioted in the southern city of Hyderabad. They burned Danish flags, pelted police with stones, and looted shops. Hundreds more protested in Bangladesh.

In the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar, prayer leader Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi announced the bounty for killing a cartoonist to about 1,000 people outside the Mohabat Khan mosque.

Qureshi said the mosque and his religious school would give $25,000 and a car, while a local jewelers' association would give another $1 million. No representative of the association was available to confirm it had made the offer.

"This is a unanimous decision by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," Qureshi said.

Qureshi did not name any cartoonist in his announcement. He did not appear aware that 12 different people had drawn the pictures.

A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, first printed the prophet pictures by 12 cartoonists in September. The newspaper has since apologized to Muslims for the cartoons, one of them showing Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with an ignited fuse. Other Western newspapers, mostly in Europe, have reprinted the pictures, asserting their news value and the right to freedom of expression.

In Islamabad, former U.S. President Bill Clinton criticized the cartoons but said Muslims wasted an opportunity to build better ties with the West by holding violent protests.

"I can tell you, most people in the United States deeply respect Islam ... and most people in Europe do," he said on a visit to sign an HIV- AIDS project by his foundation.

Denmark announced it had temporarily closed its embassy in Pakistan. It also advised against all travel to Pakistan and urged Danes still in the country to leave.

"We have decided to do so because of the general security situation in the country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lars Thuesen said.

Denmark has already temporarily closed its embassies in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Indonesia after anti-Danish protests and threats against staff.

Pakistan, meanwhile, recalled its ambassador to Denmark for "consultations" about the cartoons, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.

Unrest over the cartoons has spiraled in Pakistan, even as it has ebbed in the rest of Asia and in the Middle East. Big riots in Lahore and Peshawar this week caused millions of dollars in damage, as hundreds of vehicles were burned and protesters targeted numerous U.S. and other foreign-brand businesses, including KFC, McDonald's, Citibank, Holiday Inn and Norwegian cell phone company Telenor.

Intelligence officials have said scores of members of radical and militant Islamic groups, such as Jamaat al-Dawat, joined the unruly protests in Lahore on Tuesday and had incited violence in a bid to undermine President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government.

On Friday, police confined Jamaat al-Dawat's leader, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, to his home in Lahore to stop him from addressing supporters in the city of Faisalabad, about 75 miles away, his spokesman Yahya Mujahid said.

Saeed used to lead Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a militant group closely associated with Jamaat al-Dawat and banned by Musharraf four years ago.

A senior police official in Lahore who confirmed Saeed's detention said the government had ordered police to restrict the movement of all religious leaders who might address rallies and to round up religious activists "who could be any threat to law and order."

The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to discuss the matter with media because of its sensitivity.

Police used tear gas and batons in isolated incidents at Friday's protests, but generally they were free of violence. About 7,000 protested in Rawalpindi, 5,000 in the southwestern city of Quetta and 5,000 in Karachi.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060217/ap_on_re_mi_ea/prophet_drawings

And the beat goes on....

Quote:

Nine Killed in Libyan Cartoon Protest

By KHALED EL-DEEB, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 27 minutes ago

TRIPOLI, Libya - Libyans protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad set fire to the Italian consulate in Benghazi on Friday and clashed with police in a riot that killed at least nine people, an Italian diplomat said.

Libyan state television showed a part of the consulate on fire, and firefighters trying to extinguish it as ambulances took casualties away in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, about 400 miles east of the capital Tripoli.

Libyan security officials said police fired bullets and tear gas to contain more than 1,000 demonstrators hurling rocks and bottles during the five-hour riot.

Antonio Simoes-Concalves, an Italian consular official, said nine protesters were killed and several more had been wounded. He 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 Friday night, speaking by phone from inside the consulate where he was holed up. "They haven't managed to block them."

The Libyan officials said 11 people were killed or wounded. The casualties included police officers, but the officials declined to say how many people had died. No Italians were injured during the riot, the Italian Foreign Ministry said.

There was no indication why the Italian consulate was targeted in this North African country, which was once an Italian colony. The Italian Foreign Ministry said the consulate was the only Western diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

However in Rome, Italian politicians blamed Cabinet Minister Roberto Calderoli, who recently said he would wear a T-shirt printed with the prophet cartoons, and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi asked for his resignation Friday.

The Italian ambassador, Francesco Trupiano, however, told SkyTG 24 that the rioters' main protest was against the original publication in the European media of the caricatures.

With the nine dead in Benghazi, at least 28 people have been killed in protests over the drawings in the past several weeks, most of them earlier in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Beirut, angry demonstrators torched the building housing the Danish mission on Feb. 6.

Libyan television showed two cars burning and another two gutted by fire, and a police vehicle with its rear window smashed. Wounded men were shown being carried to ambulances.

Police fired shots to try to disperse the crowd, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The Italian ambassador to Tripoli met late Friday with the Libyan interior minister "who expressed the condemnation of his government for the acts of violence occurring in Benghazi," the Italian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060218/ap_on_re_mi_ea/prophet_drawings_libya

Bueller?

Quote:

Deadliest cartoon riots kill 16 in Nigeria
By Tume Ahemba

LAGOS (Reuters) - Deadly protests over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad spread in Africa, killing 16 people in Nigeria on Saturday a day after claiming 11 lives in Libya.

Many of those who died in northern Nigeria were Christians, killed after a Muslim protest over the cartoons turned violent and rioters torched churches, shops and vehicles, police and local officials said.

It was the bloodiest protest so far over satirical cartoons of the Prophet, first published in a Danish newspaper, that Muslims regard as blasphemous.

"They went on the rampage, burning shops and churches of the Christians. The protesters killed the others. Some were even killed in the churches," said Joseph Hayab, north-west secretary of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

The row over the cartoons also forced two ministers out of their jobs in Europe and the Middle East after 11 people died in the Libyan town of Benghazi in clashes on Friday between police and protesters who had tried to storm the Italian consulate.

Italian Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli, who had the cartoons made into a T-shirt which he wore on television, resigned after he was widely blamed for the violence in Libya.

In Tripoli, the General People's Congress fired Interior Minister Nasser al-Mabrouk Abdallah and police chiefs in Benghazi, saying "disproportionate force" had been used.

The Congress hailed the dead as "martyrs" and declared Sunday a day of mourning across Libya.

As thousands of Muslims rallied in central London to keep up the cycle of cartoon protests around the world, there was fresh bloodshed in Pakistan when four people were wounded in gunfire at a demonstration in the central Punjab region.

Protests in Pakistan this week have resulted in at least five deaths, and on Friday it became the latest country where Denmark has decided to temporarily close its embassy. Denmark urged any Danes in Pakistan to leave as soon as possible.

In Nigeria, whose 140 million people are divided about equally between Christians and Muslims, 15 people died in the northeastern state of Borno and one died in the north-central state of Katsina, police spokesman Haz Iwendi said.

He said 11 churches had been torched in Borno and the army had been called in to state capital Maiduguri to impose order.

"The Muslim group came out to protest and the security forces tried to ensure it was peaceful, but there were some hoodlums in the crowd and somehow the security forces shot one or two of them," said Hayab of CAN.

Thousands have been killed in Christian-Muslim clashes over the last five years in Nigeria. Twelve northern states, including Borno, introduced Islamic sharia law in 2000 which has contributed to the animosity between the two religions.

FURY ACROSS THE MUSLIM WORLD

The satirical cartoons were first published in a Danish newspaper last year, but last month newspapers in Europe and elsewhere republished them to assert freedom of expression, triggering protests across the Muslim world.

In a bid to stem the violence, Pakistan on Saturday banned protests in Islamabad. As the ban was introduced, the country's main Islamist alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), said it would go ahead with a demonstration on Sunday.

"The rally will be held in Islamabad. It will be a peaceful rally," Shahid Shamsi, an MMA spokesman said.

The shooting in Pakistan on Saturday occurred as hundreds of protesters pelted police with stones and tried to block a road in the town of Chiniot. It was unclear whether police or protesters fired the shots.

Police detained 40 activists of the student wing of an Islamist group in the city of Multan as they staged a protest in defiance of a government ban on public rallies in Punjab.

Britain's Muslim Action Committee (MAC) which organised the London event said they expected 40,000 to rally peacefully in Trafalgar Square. A police spokeswoman said 10,000 were present. One placard read: "Free Speech = Cheap Insults."

Around 1,000 people protested in Copenhagen on Saturday against the cartoons.

On Friday, a Pakistani Muslim cleric and his followers offered rewards amounting to more than $1 million for anyone who killed the Danish cartoonists who drew the caricatures.

One of the cartoonists, asking for anonymity, said this has not been the first threat.

"This is not the first time we've been threatened, but of course I dislike it every time," the cartoonist told Reuters.

"I didn't think anyone outside the newspaper's readers would see the cartoon and now a billion people have. It's a surreal situation."

(Reporting from European, Asian and Middle Eastern bureaux)

LINK

Ferris?

Quote:

Muslims Assault U.S. Embassy in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates. Several people were injured.

Pakistani security forces, meanwhile, sealed off the capital of Islamabad to block a planned mass demonstration and fired tear gas and gunshots to chase off protesters. In Turkey, tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul chanting slogans against Denmark,
Israel and the United States.

Protests over the cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September and have been republished in other European publications and elsewhere, have swept across the Muslim world, growing into mass outlets for rage against the West in general, and Israel and the United States in particular.

Christians also have become targets. Pakistani Muslims protesting in the southern city of Sukkur ransacked and burned a church Sunday after hearing accusations that a Christian man had burned pages of the Quran, Islam's holy book.

That incident came a day after Muslims protesting in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri attacked Christians and burned 15 churches in a three-hour rampage that killed at least 15 people. Some 30 other people have died during protests over the cartoons that erupted about three weeks ago.

In Jakarta, about 400 people marched to the heavily fortified U.S. mission in the center of the city, behind a banner reading "We are ready to attack the enemies of the Prophet."

Protesters throwing stones and brandishing wooden staves tried to break through the gates. They set fire to U.S. flags and a poster of
President Bush and smashed the windows of a guard outpost before dispersing after a few minutes.

The U.S. Embassy called the attacks deplorable, describing them as acts of "thuggery."

A protest organizer said the West, and particularly the United States, is attacking Islam.

"They want to destroy Islam through the issue of terrorism ... and all those things are engineered by the United States," said Maksuni, who only uses one name.

"We are fighting America fiercely this time," he said. "And we also are fighting Denmark."

In Pakistan, where protests last week left five people dead, police put up roadblocks around Islamabad to keep people from entering the capital for a planned mass protest called by a coalition of six hard-line Islamic parties, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal — United Action Forum.

Authorities also detained several lawmakers and Islamic leaders during raids in three cities and announced they would arrest anyone joining a gathering of more than five people to prevent the demonstration.

Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rahman, a senior figure in the Islamic coalition, was eventually given permission to lead a small rally through a square in the city center. The protesters chanted "God is great!" and "Any friend of America is a traitor."

But when about 100 other protesters tried to reach the square, officers fired tear gas and at least one gunshot to chase them off. More gunshots were heard later in the city, but it wasn't clear who fired them. At least two policemen were injured, one bleeding from the head. Several demonstrators also were hurt.

A crowd of 700 people, some throwing stones at police, tried to march toward Islamabad's heavily guarded diplomatic enclave about 1.3 miles from the square but with blocked by troops in armored personnel carriers.

Police also blocked about 1,500 protesters from reaching Islamabad from the city of Peshawar by putting shipping containers and sandbags on a bridge along a highway leading to the capital, said Mohammed Iqbal, a key member of the religious alliance.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, about 600 people staged a protest in Chaman, a town near the Afghan border, burning Danish flags and an effigy of the Danish prime minister.

Such protests prompted Denmark on Sunday to temporarily recall its ambassador to Pakistan, Bent Wigotski, because it was impossible for him "to perform his job duties during the present circumstances," the Danish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

jrjo wrote:

Can't you just see history classes 100-years from now explaining the great world wars and when it comes to the European War of 2006 and the lesson being told that cartoons started it? Insanity

C'mon - countries have gone to war over soccer games. This should surprise nobody.

political cartoons

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