The furor in the Muslim world over the Muhammad cartoons published in European news media escalated Saturday with attacks on the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria and Iran's president calling for a review of trade ties with relevant European countries.
Demonstrators in the Syrian capital Damascus attacked and set fire to the Norwegian and Danish embassies in protest over the cartoons depicting the prophet, which were offensive to Muslims.
Syrian police using water cannon and tear gas fought pitched battles with stone-throwing protestors into Saturday evening.
Witnesses said that groups of protestors broke into the Danish embassy and used furniture from the offices to start fires which spread to the entire three-storey building. The building also houses the Swedish and Chilean embassies.
The embassies were closed at the time of the attacks and there were no reports of casualties at either building.
The Gaza Strip was also the scene of angry attacks on European diplomatic missions on Saturday. Around a dozen men, many of them masked, threw missiles at the German consulate office - which was closed at the time - while protestors also managed to hoist a Palestinian flag above the European Union's offices next door.
Elsewhere in the Middle East, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday instructed the commerce ministry in Tehran to review trade ties with all European countries involved in the cartoons affair.
The Iranian leader told the ministry to proceed immediately with "revision or even annulment of economic contracts with involved states," starting with Denmark.
His instructions followed a call by four leading Iranian ayatollahs Friday for Muslims to "confront" European countries over the matter.
Also in the Middle East, the editor of a Jordanian weekly was detained for 14 days on Saturday for questioning, days after being being sacked for reprinting the Danish cartoons.
Jihad Momani, of Shihan weekly, was detained under a clause in the penal code dealing with "tarnishing religions" - an offence which carries a penalty of between three months and three years in prison.
The authorities were also contemplating legal action against the editor of another weekly al-Mehwar, which published the cartoons.
Meanwhile, in Cairo, a meeting of information ministers of Arab states announced a media campaign to "dispel the bad image of Islam."
The ministers, who met at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo said they were prepared to spend 22.5 million dollars on the Islam awareness campaign.
They also said they would be seeking a United Nations resolution forbidding "offensive attacks on religious convictions."
The cartoons, first published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten daily and then reprinted elsewhere in Europe, have touched a raw nerve in the Arab world, partly because Islamic law forbids any representation of the prophet and also because one of the cartoons showed him wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a burning fuse.
The Danish government and Jyllands-Posten have both expressed regret for the offence caused to Muslims by the images.
In Copenhagen, results of a poll commissioned by DR television network showed 47 per cent of Danes felt, in light of the reaction of Muslims, Jyllands-Posten should not have published the 12 caricatures. Some 46 per cent remained in favour, while a further 6 per cent were undecided.
Calls for a mass boycott of Danish products in Arab states continued Saturday, but a glimmer of optimism that the protest was abating was reported in Denmark.
DI industry association saying some companies had noticed the "first gaps" in the boycott.
Food company Arla has been particularly affected. Falling revenues have prompted it to close a dairy employing 800 people in Saudi Arabia and to lay off some 100 staff in Denmark.
Elsewhere in Europe, leaders commenting Saturday on the debacle included German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the annual Munich Security Conference, who said she understood Muslim anger over the cartoons but not the violent reaction that has ensued.
"It is unacceptable to see this as a legitimization for violence," she said.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg however condemned the publication in his own country's Magazinet Catholic magazine of the cartoons.
In London, hundreds of Muslims gathered to protest outside the Danish embassy in the centre of the city.
The protests, said to have been peaceful, were organized by the radical Islamic Hizb ut-Tharir organization that Prime Minister Tony Blair wants to outlaw.
Other related stories from around the world:
-- SOUTH AFRICA: The Johannesburg High Court granted an injunction against two of the country's largest newspaper groups preventing them from publishing the cartoons following an application by a prominent Muslim cleric.
Media houses and editors have described the court order that would effectively gag all local publications as "alarming."
-- INDONESIA: The leader of the world's most populous Muslim country, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, condemned the cartoons as "clearly insensitive."
-- NEW ZEALAND: Ethnic Affairs Minister Chris Carter attacked two newspapers that published the cartoons.
At least one Muslim shopowner reportedly refused to sell the Wellington daily Dominion Post which, along with The Press in Churchtown, reprinted the 12 cartoons. Some were also shown on New Zealand television on Friday night.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_...s.php?id=77623
Crazy stuff for sure, thats 5 embassys that have been set alight because of a stupid cartoon :eek:
I have a feeling this will get a lot worse before it gets any better
Regards,
Lee
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