15 døde under muslimske optøjer i Nigeria (eng).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060219/ap_on_re_af/nigeria_prophet_drawings
|
| By NJADVARA MUSA, Associated Press Writer
|
| MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Nigerian Muslims protesting caricatures of the
Prophet
| Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches on Saturday, killing
at
| least 15 people in the deadliest confrontation yet in the whirlwind of
| Muslim anger over the drawings.
|
| It was the first major protest to erupt over the issue in Africa's
most
| populous nation. An Associated Press reporter saw mobs of Muslim
protesters
| swarm through the city center with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One
group
| threw a tire around a man, poured gas on him and set him ablaze.
|
| In Libya, the parliament suspended the interior minister after at
least 11
| people died when his security forces attacked rioters who torched the
| Italian consulate in Benghazi.
|
| Right-wing Italian Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli resigned under
| pressure, accused of fueling the fury in Benghazi by wearing a T-shirt
| emblazoned with one of the offending cartoons, first published in
September
| in a Danish newspaper.
|
| Danish church officials met with a top Muslim cleric in Cairo,
meanwhile,
| but made no significant headway in defusing the conflict.
|
| And in what has become a daily event, tens of thousands of Muslims
| protested - this time in Britain, Pakistan and Austria - to denounce
the
| perceived insult.
|
| But it was in Nigeria, where mutual suspicions between Christians and
| Muslims have led to thousands of deaths in recent years, that tensions
| boiled over into sectarian violence.
|
| Thousands of rioters burned 15 churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour
rampage
| before troops and police reinforcements restored order, Nigerian
police
| spokesman Haz Iwendi said. Iwendi said security forces arrested dozens
of
| people in the city about 1,000 miles northeast of the capital, Lagos.
|
| Chima Ezeoke, a Christian Maiduguri resident, said protesters attacked
and
| looted shops owned by minority Christians, most of them with origins
in the
| country's south.
|
| "Most of the dead were Christians beaten to death on the streets by
the
| rioters," Ezeoke said. Witnesses said three children and a priest were
among
| those killed.
|
| The Danish cartoons, including one showing Muhammad wearing a
bomb-shaped
| turban with an ignited fuse, have set off sometimes violent protests
around
| the world.
|
| After the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed the caricatures in
| September, other Western newspapers, mostly in Europe, followed suit,
| asserting their news value and the right to freedom of expression.
|
| But Nigeria has been spared much of the violence seen elsewhere in the
| world, though lawmakers in the heavily Muslim state of Kano burned
Danish
| and Norwegian flags and barred Danish companies from bidding on a
major
| construction project. Kano lawmakers also called on the state's 5
million
| people to boycott Danish goods.
|
| Nigeria, with a population of more than 130 million, is roughly
divided
| between a predominantly Muslim north and a mainly Christian south.
|
| With Saturday's deaths, at least 45 people have been killed in
protests
| across the Muslim world, according to a count by The Associated Press.
|
| In the violence in Libya, Seif el-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Libyan
leader
| Moammar Gadhafi, said four of the 11 dead were believed to have been
| Egyptians or Palestinians.
|
| "Setting the consulate on fire was a mistake, but using excessive
force was
| the most tragic response," the younger Gadhafi said, explaining the
| suspension of Interior Minister Nasr al-Mabrouk.
|
| Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi blamed the riots in Libya, Italy's
former
| colony, on "thoughtless action by our minister," the Italian news
agency
| ANSA quoted him as saying.
|
| Calderoli said he wore the shirt to show "solidarity to all those who
were
| hit by the blind violence of religious fanaticism." He said he did not
| intend "to offend the Muslim religion nor to be the pretext for
yesterday's
| violence."
|
| At the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, U.S. Undersecretary of
State
| Karen Hughes said U.S. newspapers generally did not reprint the
caricatures
| "because they recognize they are deeply offensive, even blasphemous to
the
| precious convictions of our Muslim friends and neighbors."
|
| In Cairo, Bishop Karsten Nissen, of Denmark's Evangelical Lutheran
Church,
| met with Grand Imam Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi of al-Azhar University,
the
| world's highest Sunni Muslim seat of learning.
|
| Tantawi said the Danish prime minister must apologize for the drawings
and
| further demanded that the world's religious leaders meet to write a
law that
| "condemns insulting any religion, including the Holy Scriptures and
the
| prophets." He said the United Nations should impose the law on all
| countries.
|
| In response, Nissen did not address the issue of a global law but said
it
| was impossible for Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to apologize.
|
| "I have brought to his excellency (Tantawi) the apology of the
newspaper,
| but our prime minister did not draw these cartoons. Our prime minister
is
| not the editor of this newspaper. He cannot apologize for something he
did
| not do," Nissen said.
|
| In Pakistan on Sunday, police raided offices and homes of dozens of
radical
| Islamic leaders, putting several under house arrest and detaining
hundreds
| of their associates to foil a rally in the capital, officials said.
|
| So far the West and Islamic nations remain at loggerheads over
fundamental,
| but conflicting cultural imperatives - the Western democratic
assertion of a
| right to free speech and press freedom, versus the Islamic dictum
against
| any representation of the Prophet Muhammad. Muslims say such
depictions
| could encourage idolatry.
|
| ___
|
| Associated Press writer Dulue Mbachu in Lagos and Khaled al-Deeb in
Tripoli,
| Libya, contributed to this report.
|
--
regards, Peter Bjørn Perlsø
http://haxor.dk
http://liberterran.org
http://haxor.dk/fanaticism/