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Syrians torch embassies over caricatures
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-05 06:17
Thousands of Syrians enraged by caricatures of Islam's revered prophet
torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday — the most
violent in days of furious protests by Muslims in Asia, Europe and the Middle
East.
In Gaza, Palestinians marched through the streets, storming European
buildings and burning German and Danish flags. Protesters smashed the windows of
the German cultural center and threw stones at the European Commission building,
police said.
![Thousands of outraged Syrians protesting offensive caricatures of Islam's prophet torch the Danish Embassy in Damascus on Saturday Feb. 4, 2006. [AP]](xin_04020305062448416191.jpg)
Thousands of outraged Syrians protesting
offensive caricatures of Islam's prophet torch the Danish Embassy in
Damascus on Saturday Feb. 4, 2006. [AP] |
Iraqis rallying by the hundreds demanded an apology from the European Union,
and the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas called the cartoons "an
unforgivable insult" that merited punishment by death.
Pakistan summoned the envoys of nine Western countries in protest, and even
Europeans took to the streets in Denmark and Britain to voice their anger.
At the heart of the protest: 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad first
published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European
media in the past week. One depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a
bomb with a burning fuse. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the
pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim
issues.
The drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is
interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.
Aggravating the affront, Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has
said repeatedly he cannot apologize for his country's free press. But other
European leaders tried Saturday to calm the storm.
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said she understood Muslims were hurt —
though that did not justify violence.
"Freedom of the press is one of the great assets as a component of democracy,
but we also have the value and asset of freedom of religion," Merkel told an
international security conference in Munich, Germany.
The Vatican deplored the violence but said certain provocative forms of
criticism were unacceptable.
"The right to freedom of thought and expression ... cannot entail the right
to offend the religious sentiment of believers," the Vatican said in its first
statement on the controversy.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who has criticized European media for
reprinting the caricatures, said there was no justification for the violence in
Damascus.
"We stand in solidarity with the Danish government in its call for calm and
its demand that all its diplomats and diplomatic premises are properly
protected. It's incumbent on the Syrian authorities to act in this regard."
But Denmark and Norway did not wait for more violence.
With their Damascus embassies up in flames, the foreign ministries advised
their citizens to leave Syria without delay.
"It's horrible and totally unacceptable," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig
Moeller said on Danish public television Saturday.
No diplomats were injured in the Syrian violence, officials said. But Swedish
Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds — whose country, along with Chile, has an
embassy in the same building — said she would lodge a formal protest over the
lack of security.
In Santiago, the Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Chilean Embassy
in Damascus was also torched but nobody was injured.
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