Fresh protests erupted across Asia and the Middle East on Monday
over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, despite calls by world
leaders for calm after Danish diplomatic missions were set ablaze
in Lebanon and Syria.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed alarm and urged
restraint, but oil giant Iran said it had cut all trade ties with
Denmark because of the cartoons and vowed to respond to "an
anti-Islamic and Islamophobic current."
"All trade ties with Denmark were cut," Iranian Commerce
Minister Massoud Mirkazemi was quoted by the Iranian student news
agency ISNA as telling a news conference.
He said Iran would stop any Danish goods from entering its
customs areas from Tuesday. Iran imports some US$280 million worth
of goods a year from Denmark.
The announcement came as protesters threw petrol bombs at the
Danish embassy in Tehran and tried to break into the compound on
Monday night in a protest against the cartoons.
Chanting "God is Greatest" and "Death to America" some 1,000
people rammed the metal gate to the embassy, which sits behind a
high wall in northern Tehran. Police drove them back with teargas
and arrested some, a Reuters correspondent said.
Firefighters were seen trying to put out a fire inside the
compound, apparently caused by a firebomb.
Earlier on Monday, about 200 people pelted the embassy of EU
president Austria with petrol bombs and stones over the cartoons
and Iran's nuclear confrontation with the West.
Denmark has been the focus of Muslim rage as the images, one
showing the Prophet with a turban resembling a bomb, first appeared
in a Danish daily and Gulf Muslims have stepped up a boycott of
Danish goods.
The furor has developed into a clash between press freedom and
religious respect. Depicting the Prophet is prohibited by Islam but
moderate Muslims, while condemning the cartoons, have expressed
fear about radicals hijacking the affair.
Enraged Muslims again took to the streets. A 14-year-old boy was
shot dead by police when a protest in northeastern Somalia turned
violent on Monday, residents and hospital sources said.
In Afghanistan, one protester was killed in clashes with police.
Another person died at the weekend when flames forced him to jump
from the burning Danish consulate in Beirut.
In Algiers, Islamists burned Danish and U.S. flags during a rare
sit-in protest by about 2,000 people held under the watchful eyes
of plain-clothed policemen on Monday.
Ukraine became the latest country where papers published the
cartoons, joining Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Poland, the United States,
Japan, Norway, Malaysia and Australia, Jordan and Yemen.
Yemen closed down a small weekly and ordered its editor held on
Monday for reprinting the cartoons, Saba news agency said.
Annan, on a visit to Dubai, appealed for calm.
"I urge all who have authority or influence in different
communities ... to engage in dialogue and build a true alliance of
civilizations, founded on mutual respect," he said.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy also called on
Arab countries "to talk with moderation" about the cartoons.
Search for answers
The leader of al Muhajiroon, an Islamist group banned in
Britain, called for executing those who insult the Prophet.
"In Islam, God said, and the messenger Mohammad said, whoever
insults a prophet, he must be punished and executed," Omar Bakri
Mohammad told BBC radio by telephone from Beirut.
Britain issued a stern warning after some protesters marched in
London with placards threatening beheadings and bloodshed.
"The attacks on the citizens of Denmark and the people of other
European countries are completely unacceptable," it said in a
statement.
Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini on Monday said violent
protests sweeping Muslim countries over the cartoons have been
deliberately encouraged by Islamist militants. "We're sitting on a
powder keg," he told an RAI television talk show.
Moderate Muslims as well as Western leaders condemned the
weekend violence and calls to arms and urged calm.
"With growing concern, we are witnessing the escalation in
disturbing tensions," the prime ministers of Turkey and Spain said
in the International Herald Tribune.
"We shall all be the losers if we fail to immediately defuse
this situation, which can only leave a trail of mistrust and
misunderstanding between both sides in its wake," Tayyip Erdogan
and Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said in the joint article.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for dialogue between
Islam and the West.
"The events as we have seen them unfolding are another calling
for us to face that dialogue and to assure ourselves of our own
values, but also to articulate them clearly and responsibly," she
told public broadcaster ZDF on Monday evening.
Iran, which has withdrawn its ambassador from Denmark said the
cartoons "launched an anti-Islamic and Islamophobic current which
will be answered."
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called for an emergency
meeting of the world's largest Muslim body, the Organization of the
Islamic Conference to discuss Islamophobia in the West.
There was a flurry of public statements as well as
behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity to contain the situation.
French President Jacques Chirac telephoned Danish Prime Minister
Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday to express solidarity with Denmark
and to examine how to calm the situation.
EU ambassadors agreed at an emergency meeting in Brussels on
Monday to enhance diplomatic contacts to improve dialogue with the
Islamic world and ensure security of diplomatic premises.
(Chinadaily.com via agencies February 7, 2006)
