Gotta love the media.....this protest was "peaceful", while the protestors were chanting Death to Israel and Death to America.
Massive cartoon protest in Beirut
Iran, Syria deny U.S. claim they are inciting violence
Thursday, February 9, 2006; Posted: 9:23 a.m. EST (14:23 GMT)
BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- About half a million Muslims turned a Beirut religious ceremony into a peaceful protest against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, as Iran and Syria rejected U.S. accusations they were inciting anger over the caricatures.
Unlike Sunday, when protesters torched the building housing the Danish Consulate, there were no signs of violence in Thursday's march in the Lebanese capital, Reuters reported.
"At your service, oh Mohammed, at your service, oh Prophet of God," the crowds chanted with fists raised. "Death to America, Death to Israel."
"No dignity to a nation whose prophet is insulted," one sign read. "What comes after insulting sacred values?" another asked.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged the faithful this year to take a stand against the cartoons.
Security sources told Reuters the turnout was 400,000, while Hezbollah put it at 700,000. The annual event marks Ashura, when Shiites mourn the death of Mohammed's grandson 1,300 ago.
"Today, we are defending the dignity of our prophet with a word, a demonstration," Reuters quoted Nasrallah as telling the crows.
"But let (U.S. President) George Bush and the arrogant world know that if we have to ... we will defend our prophet with our blood, not our voices.
"Defending the prophet should continue worldwide, let (U.S. Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice, Bush and all the tyrants shut up. We are a nation that can't forgive, be silent or ease up when they insult our prophet and our sacred values," Nasrallah said.
He said there would be no compromise until Denmark apologizes for the cartoons and the European Parliament and national assemblies in Europe ban the media from insulting Mohammed.
The cartoons were originally published in September in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. But protests against Denmark have increased in intensity in recent days after other newspapers -- mainly in Europe -- reprinted the caricatures.
One of the cartoons showed Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as a bomb. Many Muslims consider any depiction of the prophet to be sacrilegious.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has defended his nation, saying the Muslim world has the wrong idea about Denmark and that his government could not apologize on behalf of the newspaper.
"We are portrayed as a society which is intolerant and an enemy of Islam, and it's a false picture," he said.
On Wednesday, Rice accused Iran and Syria of inciting Muslim anger and violent protests over the cartoons of Mohammed -- drawing the ire of Syria's U.S. ambassador and an Iranian vice president.
"Iran and Syria have gone out of their way to inflame sentiments and to use this to their own purposes, and the world ought to call them on it," Rice said at a joint news conference with Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni.
Rice said there was no excuse for the violence that has followed the publishing of the cartoons and said "all responsible people ought to say that there is no excuse for violence."
She did not comment directly about the cartoons themselves or the decision by newspapers to publish them, but said, "We all need to respect each other's religions, we need to respect freedom of the press. But ... (with) freedom of the press comes responsibility."
Bush also condemned the deadly rioting and urged foreign leaders to halt the violence and protect diplomats in besieged embassies.
"We reject violence as a way to express discontent with what may be printed in a free press," the U.S. president said Wednesday.
Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, denied Rice's accusations and told CNN: "We in Syria believe anti-Western sentiments are being fueled by two major things -- the situation in Iraq and the situation in the occupied territories, the West Bank and Gaza."
He added, "We believe that if somebody would tell Secretary Rice that Syria is not the party that occupies Iraq and is not the party that occupies the West Bank and Gaza, then probably she would know it is not Syria who is actually fueling anti-Western sentiments."
Tehran also rejected Rice's contention.
"That is 100 percent a lie," Isfandiar Rahim Mashaee, one of several Iranian vice presidents, told reporters during a visit to Indonesia on Thursday, according to The Associated Press. "It is without attribution."
On Wednesday, the death toll stemming from the violence reached at least 10, as Afghan police shot and killed several of about 600 protesters trying to storm a U.S. military base.
In other developments around the world:
The Malaysian government has suspended the printing license of a newspaper that printed one of the cartoons, AP reported. Police in the Muslim-majority country launched an investigation after the Sarawak Tribune printed the caricature on Saturday. The newspaper's owners have faced public criticism despite apologizing for what it said was an editorial oversight.
Five Muslim groups in Singapore have issued a joint statement saying they objected to "any forms of violence by fellow Muslims who have responded emotionally to the issue." While media outlets that reprinted the cartoons were insensitive to Muslim feelings, the group said, "being overly emotional and responding irrationally and violently will only intensify the negative image that others have toward Islam."
The editor of Afghanistan's most respected newspaper said he has been surprised by the riots in his country. "No media in Afghanistan has published or broadcast pictures of these cartoons. The radio has been reporting on it, but there are definitely people using this to incite violence against the presence of foreigners in Afghanistan," Erada editor Zahor Afghan told AP.
A European Union commissioner said European media should consider adopting a voluntary code of conduct to avoid a repeat of the cartoon furor. Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper such a self-regulating charter would encourage the media to show "prudence" when covering religion. (Full story)
The Danish newspaper at the heart of the controversy said it would not publish Holocaust cartoons being submitted for a contest for an Iranian newspaper. Carsten Juste, the editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten, made the announcement hours after one of the paper's editors told CNN the paper would print the Holocaust cartoons.
Three editors and a staff writer at the New York Press, a weekly alternative newspaper, resigned after being ordered not to publish reprints of the Danish cartoons, former managing editor Tim Marchman told CNN. "We have no desire to be free speech martyrs, but it would have been nakedly hypocritical to avoid the same cartoons we'd criticized others for not running," editor-in-chief Harry Siegel, who also resigned, told colleagues in an e-mail.
CNN is not showing the negative caricatures of the likeness of the Prophet Mohammed because the network believes its role is to cover the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons while not unnecessarily adding fuel to the controversy itself. |
