Angry protests have taken place throughout Muslim world over the US online anti-Islam film. Muslim clerics condemned the violence by protestors, while others called for criminalizing insulting of the religion and its holy prophets
Angry protests have taken place throughout Muslim world over the US online anti-Islam film. Muslim clerics condemned the violence by protestors, while others called for criminalizing insulting of the religion and its holy prophets.
In Lebanon, Women’s Association of Parties and National Forces organized a massive rally Friday in central Beirut, in front of ESCWA building, denouncing the offensive film against the Holy Prophet of Islam Mohammad (PBUH) and refusing to insult sanctities of divine religions.
During the protest, participants delivered a message to the ESCWA delegate to be handed over to the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon.
In the Chechen capital Grozny, a court has ruled the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ as extremist material, allowing the authorities to block access to it all over the Russian Federation.
Chechen Minister for Ethnic Policy, Press and Information, Murat Tagirov, explained the court had established that further distribution of the film can lead to serious negative consequences and destabilizes the situation in the whole region as a considerable part of its population is Muslim.
The court also ordered the authorities to take measures against the film’s distribution before the final ruling on the issue comes into force.
The decision effectively bans ‘Innocence of Muslims’ in the whole territory of the Russian Federation as, according to the Russian Law on Extremism, any work that is recognized as extremist material by any court is added to the federal list of extremist materials.
Earlier, internet providers in Chechnya took measures to block the user access to the ‘Innocence of Muslims’.
Hearings on the extremist nature of the’ Innocence of Muslims’ are also scheduled in Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court on October 1.
The wave of protest over the US anti-Islam film has hit Bauchi city in Nigeria Friday, where hundreds of members of the state's Muslim community staged a demonstration against the insulting film.
Participants went around major streets of the state capital carrying banners and placards with various inscriptions that expressed their disapproval of what they described as an offensive video.
For their part, Iraqis have staged a huge anti-US demonstration in the capital to protest against the offensive film insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
Tens of thousands of Iraqis took to the streets on Friday to express their anger over the US sacrilegious movie.
The demonstrators also called for the boycott of US-made goods in response to the insulting film, while condemning publication of cartoons mocking Islam's prophet in a French magazine.
The rally was organized by Iraqi National Alliance. Iraqis have held several anti-US rallies since the release of the insulting film on September 11.
Protests against the US-made movie and French cartoons were also held in several other countries, including Pakistan and the Philippines, where demonstrators demanded Google and YouTube websites to stop circulating the insulting film.
On the other hand, Pakistani protesters demanded Friday the expulsion of the US ambassador to Pakistan and the removal of the movie from the the YouTube and Google websites. They also slammed the West’s so-called freedom of expression and called for severing ties with Washington.
Lawyers of Pakistan staged a demonstration against ant-Islam film in Islamabad and presented a protest resolution to the US Embassy in this regard.
Earlier the lawyers managed to enter the heavily-guarded diplomatic enclave up to the gate of the US Embassy.
About 600 police officers have been deployed at the Red Zone along with riot police. Participants demanded from Pakistani government to pressurize the US administration to arrest the accused and execute him.
Due to the continued anti-US protests, Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey has cancelled his trip to Islamabad, where he was to hold a private meeting with Pakistani counterpart General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
"I originally planned to go to Pakistan to meet with General Kayani, and because of some of the issues related to that film, he and I discussed postponing that visit, mostly so that I would give him the time to deal with the issues he was dealing with internally," Dempsey told media outlets.
On the same Friday, Indian Muslims organized many massive demonstrations in New Delhi, Ahmad Abad and Loknow, where participants denounced the US offensive film.
Also in the Benghali capital of Daka, security forces impeded angry Muslim demonstrators to approach the US embassy to protest the blasphemous film
The insulting movie has sparked anti-US protests across the globe with protesters demanding the US government apologize to the Muslim world over the film and punish those behind the blasphemous act.
Anger in the Muslim world was further fuelled after French magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons insulting the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) on September 19.
