Protesters storm Danish embassy over cartoons

By Irwan Firdhaus, AP 
Published: 03 February 2006 


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article342950.ece

Protesters storm Danish embassy over cartoons Muslim
protesters stormed a building housing the Danish
Embassy in Indonesia today and burned the nation's
flag to protest caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed, as
outrage over the drawings rippled across Asia. 

Pakistan's parliament unanimously passed a resolution
condemning the provocative drawings, as rowdy
demonstrators in Malaysia chanted "Destroy our
Enemies." 

Singapore's top Islamic advisory body said the
cartoons were intended to incite hatred. 

The 12 cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper
in September and were reprinted in several European
newspapers this week in a gesture of press freedom. 

One of the drawings showed Muhammad wearing a turban
shaped as a bomb. Another portrays him holding a
sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. 

In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation,
150 demonstrators pelted the high-rise building
housing the Danish Embassy with rotten eggs, then
pushed their way past security guards. 

Shouting "God is Great," they tried to enter elevators
to reach the mission on the building's 25th floor, but
were told to stop by protest leaders. 

Before leaving the building in the heart of the
Indonesian capital's business district, they tore the
embassy's flag down and set it on fire on the
pavement. 

"We are not terrorists, we are not anarchists, but we
are against those people who blaspheme Islam," a
protester wearing a white Arabic-style robes shouted
outside the building. 

Islamic tradition bars depictions of the prophet,
favorable or otherwise, to prevent idolatry. The
drawings have prompted boycotts of Danish goods, bomb
threats and demonstrations against Danish facilities
in Muslim nations and sparked debate about freedom of
speech. 

Afghanistan — like Indonesia — has criticized the
drawings. 

Pakistani lawmakers called them blasphemous before
unanimously condemning them, and a coalition of
hardline Islamic parties planned street protests in
major cities. 

"They claim that this is to test free expression. In
fact, their intention seems to be to incite Muslim
anger unnecessarily," the Islamic Religious Council of
Singapore said in a statement. 

In mostly-Muslim Malaysia, about 60 members of the
opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party demonstrated
outside Denmark's Embassy in Kuala Lumpur demanding
the Danish government stop newspapers from reprinting
the drawings. 

"It's an uncivilized act, it's heinous," Hanifah
Maidin, the party's youth chief, said after submitting
a letter of complaint to Danish officials.