Snapshot: Cartoon anger spreads
Street protests across the Middle East and Asia condemning the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad continued on Tuesday as leaders struggled to contain a growing diplomatic crisis.
Afghanistan continued to see some of the worst violence with fierce fighting erupting during a protest in Maymana, a city in the northwest, where four people were killed and at least several dozen injured.
At least 10 people have now been killed in protests in Somalia, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
In Iran, which is locked in a nuclear stand-off with the West and which has cut trade ties with Denmark where the satirical images were first published, a crowd pelted the Danish embassy in Tehran with petrol bombs and stones for a second day.
EU warning
After rioters set Danish missions ablaze in Syria and Lebanon at the weekend, the EU presidency issued a strongly worded warning to 19 countries across the Middle East that they are obliged to protect EU missions.
In Palestine, masked gunmen fired on a picture of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, peppering the image bullets and setting fire to a mock Danish flag.
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Iraqis burn the Danish flag in |
Gunmen in Iraq have called for the seizure and killing of Danes and the boycott of Danish goods.
Demonstrators in Bangladesh burned a Danish flag on Tuesday during a protest. Thousands of protestors from the student wing of the party Jamaat-e-Islami, shouted “hang the cartoonists” and “boycott Danish goods”.
Further protests erupted on Tuesday in Egypt, Yemen, Djibouti and Azerbaijan, while Croatia became the latest country where a newspaper printed the cartoons, one of which depicts the Prophet wearing a turban resembling a fizzing bomb.
Calling for calm
With embassies reviewing security in Muslim countries, Indonesia joined a list of nations Denmark considers unsafe for its nationals. Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten daily has apologised for the cartoons published last September but the Danish government has refused to apologise saying it is the paper’s responsibility.
Heeding security advice, thousands of Danes cancelled travel plans to the Middle East and Indonesia and one major Danish company, dairy firm Arla, sent some workers home as a result of a Middle East boycott of Danish goods.
In Turkey, a high school student arrested on suspicion of killing a Catholic priest told police he was influenced by seeing the cartoons. The priest was shot dead while praying.