[Mb-civic] Muslim Crowds Decry Cartoons, Violent Retort - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Muslim Crowds Decry Cartoons, Violent Retort

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 12, 2006; A24

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.

Most notably, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, addressing tens of 
thousands of people in Tehran celebrating the anniversary of the 1979 
Islamic revolution, said the United States and Europe should pay a heavy 
price for publication of the cartoons, according to the Associated 
Press. The caricatures of Muhammad were first printed in a newspaper in 
Denmark and have been reprinted in many European papers.

"Now in the West, insulting the prophet is allowed, but questioning the 
Holocaust is considered a crime," the Iranian president said. "We ask, 
'Why do you insult the prophet?' The response is that it is a matter of 
freedom, while in fact they are hostages of the Zionists. And the people 
of the U.S. and Europe should pay a heavy price for becoming hostages to 
Zionists."

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.

"The benefit of today is to let the world know that people in Europe 
appreciate peaceful rallies," said Dilowar Hussain Khan, the director of 
the East London Mosque. Khan, whose mosque routinely attracts 5,000 
people for Friday prayers, said he hoped the controversy would have 
another benefit: raising awareness among non-Muslims of the importance 
of Muhammad, the "messenger of God."

Kamran Safdar, 19, said he and 40 other Muslims traveled two hours by 
bus from Birmingham for the rally because they were tired of the images 
of Islam they see portrayed. "We don't want to be labeled as terrorists. 
We promote peace."

Mohammad Abdullah, 34, a London businessman, said he came simply to say 
that in Britain, "we respect the queen, we should also respect the prophet."

In Denmark, the epicenter of the debate, the Foreign Ministry said that 
it had temporarily withdrawn its ambassadors from Syria, Iran and 
Indonesia because of security concerns. But there was also movement to 
find a middle ground. The office of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen 
announced that he planned to meet Monday with a new organization of 
moderates called Democratic Muslims, headed by Naser Khader, a 
Syrian-born member of parliament.

The European Union's senior foreign policy official, Javier Solana, is 
also scheduled to meet Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the 
Organization of Islamic Conference in Saudi Arabia on Monday in an 
attempt to defuse the crisis.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021101332.html?nav=hcmodule
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