"Police Gas Students Protesting Cartoons," by Riaz Khan - AP (Peshawar, Pakistan), 13 Feb 2006
Police fired tear gas and wielded batons Monday to stop about 7,000 students protesting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from marching on the governor's residence in northwestern Pakistan.
The students had marched to several universities in Peshawar and hurled stones at a Christian school, breaking windows and causing other damage. They also threw stones at shops in the main business district, chanting "Down with America" and "Down with Denmark."
There were no immediate reports of casualties, but an Associated Press reporter saw students carrying away a classmate with an injured leg....
The cartoons have been reprinted in numerous publications in Europe and elsewhere in what publishers say is a show of solidarity for freedom of expression, setting off protests from Canada to Indonesia. Some demonstrations have been violent, and the tension has noticeably increased anti-Western dialogue in the Muslim world.
In the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinian children stomped on a Danish flag and shouted anti-Danish slogans Monday to protest the caricatures. The demonstration in Hebron was organized by a school affiliated with the Islamic militant group Hamas, which is poised to lead the next Palestinian government.
Palestinians have held mass protests against the drawings in recent weeks, threatened to kidnap Europeans in Gaza and chased foreign observers out of Hebron.
One of Iran's largest newspapers opened a contest Monday seeking caricatures of the Holocaust. Hamshahri newspaper said it wanted to test whether the West extends its principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the cartoons of Islam's prophet....
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the drawings as "insensitive and rather offensive," but he called for dialogue.
"Right now there's megaphone diplomacy," Annan told Denmark's national broadcaster DR. "And I think we should turn off the megaphones and begin to talk quietly to each other."
"Muslim Crowds Decry Cartoons, Violent Retort," by Mary Jordan (in London) - the Washington Post, 12 Feb 2006 (registration required)
LONDON, Feb. 11 -- Thousands of Muslims in London and other European cities rallied peacefully Saturday to condemn both published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad and the violent reactions to them.
Men and women, some pushing babies in strollers, crowded into Trafalgar Square as speakers not only denounced the cartoons as an unacceptable insult to the holiest figure in Islam, but also condemned the burning of embassies in Syria and Lebanon, deaths in Afghanistan and other violence that has come in response.
"We want to move on to positive dialogue," said Anas Altikriti, a spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, which helped organize the rally. Police estimated the crowd at 5,000.
Peaceful crowds of Muslims also gathered in Paris, Berlin and other European cities with the aim of lowering global tension over the controversy, but anger still simmered in the Middle East and Africa....
In France, where thousands of people peacefully demonstrated in Paris and in Strasbourg, a poll published Friday showed that 54 percent of those surveyed said they disagreed with the decision of French newspapers to publish the caricatures and felt that doing so amounted to useless provocation.
Abderrahmane Morabet came to the Paris rally with his 12-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son. He said he was frustrated that only extremists seem to be shown on the evening news: "When we protest like this, nobody listens to us. They only do when embassies burn."
Mindful of a recent London rally where a small group of radicals held placards that urged beheadings and death for those who insulted Islam, police officers were stationed at subway stations looking for people who might disrupt the rally. Organizers said they were pleased that moderates -- at least for a day -- had grabbed the headlines from radicals. The Islam Channel, which also supported the Trafalgar rally, broadcast the event to hundreds of thousands of Muslims around the world, organizers said....
"Denmark Pulls Ambassadors from Syria, Iran, Indonesia" - AP (Copenhagen), 11 Feb 2006; as published on USAToday.com
Denmark has temporarily withdrawn its ambassadors from Syria, Iran and Indonesia because their safety was at risk in the wake of a Danish newspaper's publication of drawings of the Prophet Muhammad, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday.
Denmark's embassy buildings in all three countries had been targeted by angry mobs protesting the publication of the caricatures in September. European and American newspapers subsequently reprinted the drawings.
The Foreign Ministry said it withdrew all Danish staff from its embassy in Tehran, Iran, because of "serious and concrete threats" against the ambassador.
Threats had also been directed at the embassy personnel in Indonesia, the ministry said, without giving details. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country.
The Finnish Embassy would take over Denmark's consular services in Tehran, while the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta would handle the same duties in Indonesia, the Foreign Ministry said.
Earlier Saturday, the ministry announced it had temporarily pulled back its ambassador and other Danish staff from Syria because they were not getting enough protection from authorities.
The building housing the embassy in Damascus was burned last week by protesters.
"The de-escalation of the protection of the ambassador and his staff to an inadequate level is the reason for the departure," the ministry said in a statement.
It said the German Embassy in Damascus would handle Denmark's consular services for the time being.
Sweden, whose embassy is in the same building in the Syrian capital, said it did not have any immediate plans to withdraw staff, said Jan Janonius, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Stockholm.
Denmark temporarily closed its diplomatic mission in Lebanon earlier this week after similar protests there....
There were several questions about the US public diplomacy response to the cartoon controversy taken in Thursday's State Department noon press briefing:
Daily Press Briefing for 9 Feb 2006- Sean McCormack, Spokesman, US Department of State, Washington, DC
...QUESTION: On public diplomacy, I'm wondering, you know, we've talked about it a little bit this week, but what is the U.S. strategy in terms of -- I mean, is this something that is considered one of the things Karen Hughes talked about, rapid response, something that needs to -- you know, U.S. message needs to get out there as soon as it hits? And how are we specifically getting our message out? If you could point to some examples, that would be great.
MR. MCCORMACK: Sure. In a lot of different ways. First of all, Karen has been involved from the very beginning in not only the substance of our response but how that happens. It's part of what Secretary Rice has asked her to do, and that is really be at the crossroads of policy and communications, and that's what she has been focused on.
From the early days of our first response, which goes back to last week, she was deeply involved in how we respond and also the mechanisms that are used to respond to this. We do so in public from this podium. We also do so through our embassies in the region and all over the world -- Europe, the Middle East. They have been sent all the information that we have concerning this issue and how it is that we are responding to it. So, those are the basic outlines of what she has been doing and how we've been responding to it.
In addition to that, you've also, on the policy side, seen the President call the Danish Prime Minister. Secretary Rice has been in touch with the Danish Foreign Minister as well as the Norwegian Foreign Minister on this. We have instructed our embassies overseas to, where they can and as possible, offer any assistance that might be needed to Danish representatives in their particular country, working with host governments or offering them any assistance where Danish representation might have some security or other kinds of concerns....
QUESTION: Yeah, one more follow-up. Some reports this morning suggested that the U.S. is sort of changing its strategy in handling the cartoons now, saying, you know, condemning the violence more than calling the cartoons offensive. What would you say to that? Do you agree with that?
MR. MCCORMACK: I guess I would say that there is, as of Saturday, there was a qualitative change in this story. As of Saturday, people started burning down embassies. And if you look at the White House statements and our statements, after those attacks our statements focused on the fact of violence and the use of violence against these foreign missions. As of Friday, I laid out very clearly what the U.S. position is, and I think if you look at what I laid -- if people would look at the transcript of what I said on Friday -- the entire transcript of what I said on Friday -- they will see that the elements of the response that I gave on Friday have been consistent throughout but for the fact that on Saturday there was an added dimension to this and of course we had to -- we felt it appropriate that we respond very clearly to those acts of violence....
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