Pakistan hit by deadly riots over anti-Muslim film
Pakistani Muslim demonstrators shout slogans as police vehicles burn in the background during a protest against an anti-Islam film in Karachi, September 21, 2012. / ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images
Last Updated 10:47 PM ET
(CBS/AP) ISLAMABAD - Pakistan's "Day of Love for the Prophet" turned into a deadly day of gunfire, tear gas and arson.
Thousands angered by an anti-Muslim film ignored pleas for peaceful rallies and rampaged in several Pakistani cities Friday in battles with police that killed 19 people and touched off criticism of a government decision to declare a national holiday to proclaim devotion for the Prophet Muhammad.
The film, which was produced in the United States and denigrates the prophet, has outraged many in the Muslim world in the 10 days since it attracted attention on the Internet, and there were new, mostly peaceful protest marches in a half-dozen countries from Asia to the Middle East.
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But it is Pakistan that has seen the most sustained violence, driven by a deep well of anti-American sentiment and a strong cadre of hard-line Islamists who benefit from stoking anger at the U.S. At 49 people -- including the U.S. ambassador to Libya -- have died in violence linked to the film around the world.
Analysts accused the Pakistani government of pandering to these extremists by declaring Friday to be an official holiday -- calling it a "Day of Love for the Prophet." Officials urged peaceful protests, but critics said the move helped unleash the worst violence yet caused by the film, titled "Innocence of Muslims."
In addition to those killed, nearly 200 others were injured as mobs threw stones and set fire to cars and movie theaters, and battled with police who responded with tear gas and gunfire.
"The people were just waiting for a trigger," said Imtiaz Gul, director of the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies.
In an attempt to tamp down the anger, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad purchased spots on Pakistani TV on Thursday that featured denunciations of the video by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. But their comments, which were subtitled in Urdu, the main Pakistani language, apparently did little to moderate the outrage that filled the country's streets.
Police fired tear gas and live ammunition to push back the tens of thousands of protesters they faced in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, and the major cities of Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar. They were successful in preventing the protesters from reaching U.S. diplomatic offices in the cities, even though the demonstrators streamed over shipping containers set up on major roads to block their path.
The demonstrators, who were led by hard-line Islamist groups, hurled rocks at the police and set fire to their vehicles. They also ransacked and burned banks, shops, cinemas and Western fast-food restaurants such as KFC and Pizza Hut.
Clinton thanked the Pakistani government for protecting the U.S. missions in the country and lamented the deaths in the protests.
"The violence we have seen cannot be tolerated," she said, speaking alongside Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar in Washington. "There is no justification for violence."
Khar thanked Obama and Clinton for speaking out against the video, saying it sent "a strong message, and that message should go a long way to ending the violence on many streets on the world."
The deadliest violence occurred in the southern port city of Karachi, where 14 people were killed, said hospital officials. More than 80 people were injured, said the top government official in the city, Roshan Ali Shaikh. At least three of the dead were policemen, one who died when hundreds of protesters attacked a police station.
"We are all ready to die for Prophet Muhammad," said Karachi protester Mohammad Arshad. "We want to show the world that Muslims are one and united on the issue."
Five people were killed and 60 wounded in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said police official Bashir Khan.
One of the dead was identified as Mohammad Amir, a driver for a Pakistani TV station who was killed when police fired at protesters torching a cinema and hit his vehicle, said Kashif Mahmood, a reporter for ARY TV who also was in the car. The TV channel showed doctors at a hospital trying unsuccessfully to save Amir's life.
At least 45 people, including 28 protesters and 17 policemen were wounded in clashes in Islamabad, where police fought with more than 10,000 demonstrators in front of a five-star hotel near the diplomatic enclave where the U.S. Embassy and other foreign missions are located. A military helicopter buzzed overhead as the sound of tear gas being fired echoed across the city.
In northwestern Pakistan, demonstrators burned the Sarhadi Lutheran Church in the city of Mardan, but no one was injured, said senior police officer Salim Khan
The government temporarily blocked cellphone service in 15 major cities to prevent militants from using phones to detonate bombs during the protests, said an Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Blocking cellphones also had the benefit of making it harder for people to organize protests.
Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf urged the international community to pass laws to prevent people from insulting the prophet, and the Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. charge d'affaires in Islamabad, Richard Hoagland, over the film.
"If denying the Holocaust is a crime, then is it not fair and legitimate for a Muslim to demand that denigrating and demeaning Islam's holiest personality is no less than a crime?" Ashraf said in a speech to religious scholars and international diplomats in Islamabad.
Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany, but not in the U.S.
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People in those societies do not have power in terms of sending drones, F16, ultra tech killing machines to seek "justice" for their loved ones destroyed by the same killing machines sent towards them. So, they take the rage on anything symbolic representing the oppressor/savage power. That's a bargain given what they are going thru in terms of life and limbs.
They have spoken peacefully again and again thru polls and thru their parliament to stop meddling in their countries, to stop aerial attacks and drone strikes on them; but peaceful protest have done nothing. Drone strikes are ever increasing showing arrogance of might is right. Thus, it has become even more personal to all people that they are being violated even when they have spoken against attacking their people/land/homes. Thus, those people have no choice left to take out their anger through violence against anything symbolic to those barbarians.
A foreign power is constantly killing their own kind, so it is only natural that they feel being personally attacked for who they are. Thus, they feel belittled, humiliated and dishonored. In Contrast to people in western societies (except immigrants from other cultures), people in those 80% of the world, muslim and non-muslims alike, have personal respect, honor; and take their life and liberty seriously; and I mean seriously as in giving even their lives for it. That is in sharp contrast to western mind and body that live in fear of itch on their wrist, let alone fear of death. Hence, there is an outpouring of unison among them for a common cause and grievance.
Their govt. can not do anything; they can not go to any court to seek justice. A people in power countries can mobilize their govt killing machines to find "justice" for them thousand miles away, and/or they could go to court to file for damages. Well! Those people do not have that luxury-they are not sitting behind fortified castle protected by ultra-tech machinery; so you can not expect from them the same humble reaction as yours or a noble civilized mannerism. They have been already labelled as "lowly" so they have nothing more to lose.
Similarly, rationalizing barbaric and savage attacks killing other people for some noble cause (declaring anyone terrorist out to get them, and/or "bad guys" being harbored, so you deserve to die etc etc etc) may help power minds sleep better tonight, does not sit well with people on other side of the story. They feel violated and have seen disfigured, mutilated, burned bodies of their loved ones and of their own kind, all at the hands of foreign barbaric and savage powers. While watching on television images of throwing stones may seem uncivilized for a western mind, seeing enormous /cluster/bomb shelling and ultra-tech missiles on mud houses on unsuspecting "enemies" is surely savage and barbaric at firsthand.
Certainly, people of powers will be out in streets with their panties up in the air, calling for annihilation of Mexico if Mexico drones were striking drug dealers and addicts living amongst in apt. buildings. (that wouldn't be any different from what powers are doing in other countries unilaterally ie. declaring indigenous people of other cultures who do not agree with them "enemies" and attacking their supposed hideouts in their indigenous lands-what could be worse than that)
RUBBISH!! The US, Israel, Jews everywhere , British and Europeans have put up with 40+ years of cowardly Islamic terrorism, from the attacks on Israel since it's founding, to the '72 Munich Olympic murders, taking hostages in Tehran in '79. ONLY targeting civilians. From hostages taken in Lebanon in the 1980's, Lockerbie bombing to 9-11, 7-7 in London, 11-26 in Mumbai, 3-11 Madrid-if you try to declare war by ONLY killing innocent people who have nothing to do with what their governments do, then prepare for those same nations to use their funds & power to keep up the fight against a "culture" who teaches hatred and murder of those who don't believe in it's "prophet" !!
that stupid movie piece wasn't a product of any government.
It was done by someone with a good reason to hate islam.
His religion is under attack by islam.
I agree too, Mohammad was a womanizer, molester posing as a man of god.
Islam invaded Israel, not the other way around.
Islam invaded europe, before driven back.
Christian religious fanatics made the anti-Muhammad. Muslim religious fanatics routinely kill Christians in Pakistan or falsely acccuse them of some crime against Islam which results in long prison terms or a death sentence. Recently I read of a very unusual case in which a Christian female aged about 12 was accused of some crime against Islam, possibly destroying a Qu'ran or misusing it in some way -- a popular accusation against Christians, but the case against her was dismissed because the judge believed she was incapable of committing the crime. There was a suggestion that the judge believed she was mentally deficient. I also recently read of the arrest of a Muslim cleric for falsely accusing a Christian of some crime against Islam. This is extremely unusual. In the past two years a Pakistani politician who took up the defense of a woman whom he thought was falsely accused of a crime against Islam was killed by a Muslim religious fanatic who was supposed to be his bodyguard. There is also sectarian violence against other religious minorities, Shiites and other small Muslim sects, whom the Sunni majority do not consider to be Muslims."The Innocence of Muslims" is small potatoes in comparison to what Muslims do to Christians in Pakistan.
"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012/09/21/libyans-storm-militia-in-backlash-of-attack-on-us/57821580/1