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Cartoon Protests Stoke Anti-American Mood
Authorities were bracing for larger demonstrations on Tuesday.
Worldwide, the protests are in their second week. They were spurred by the September publication in a Danish newspaper of 12 caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, pictures that have been reprinted in other European papers. Islam forbids any visual depiction of the prophet. Some of the cartoons mocked him, picturing him with a bomb for a turban.
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Fury in the Muslim World Anger grows in the Middle East after European publications reprint cartoon caricatures of Muslim prophet Muhammad. |
In the world's most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, police on Monday fired warning shots to repel a crowd outside the U.S. Consulate in Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city.
Two police officers were wounded, police said, and at least one protester was injured, according to television footage of the demonstration, which began at the Danish Consulate less than a mile away and moved to the U.S. facility.
Police estimated a crowd of 650 and U.S. officials said that as many as 1,000 protesters gathered in front of the consulate at about 3:30 p.m. They threw rocks and bottles and tried to breach a security wall, U.S. and Indonesian officials said.
Television footage showed several protesters, in a driving rain, banging on a 12-foot-high iron fence at the U.S. Consulate and trying to pry off a U.S. seal. In a clip broadcast by Metro TV, police beat protesters, many of whom wore white prayer caps. Police also aimed their rifles in the air, and at least 12 warning shots sounded.
"This was a precaution," Surabaya's police chief, Anang Iskandar, said in a telephone interview. "We did not ban the demonstration. But when it turned violent, with attempts at destruction, we had to stop it." Iskandar said the protesters charged that the United States also was responsible for the caricatures, but he did not explain how.
On Saturday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned the images as "an act of blasphemy" and their publication as "clearly insensitive to the views and beliefs of other religions." But he urged the public to remain calm and accepted an apology extended by the Danish Embassy in Jakarta.
On Friday, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the cartoons were "offensive," but that "we vigorously defend" individuals' right of expression.
In a Metro TV interview, an Islamic scholar dismissed the free speech defense. "I see a bigger agenda to discredit Islam," said Umar Shihab, chairman of the Indonesian Council of Ulemas. In Iraq, people threw stones and shot at Danish troops in the southern part of the country, where about 500 are based. No one was hurt in the attacks, which took place as the soldiers stopped to help children hurt when a car swerved into a crowd.
"All these things add up to the idea that we might not be as popular as we have been, as a result of the prophet Muhammad drawings," Danish Capt. Filip Ulrichsen told the Associated Press. "It is unusual for anyone to shoot at us."
Iran, meanwhile, announced it was cutting commercial ties with Denmark, and the pro-Russian government of Chechnya said it would not allow Danish aid groups to work there.
Political leaders continued to try to quell the violence. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan co-wrote an article published in Monday's International Herald in which they called for "respect and calm." "We shall all be the losers if we fail to immediately defuse this situation," they wrote, "which can only leave a trail of mistrust and misunderstanding between both sides in its wake."
Nakashima reported from Jakarta. Correspondent Jonathan Finer in Baghdad, special correspondent Yayu Yuniar in Jakarta and researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.
