[In Islam, visual depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are widely
considered to be forbidden and deeply offensive. Irreverent Western depictions
of Muhammad have set off violent protests several times in recent years, and
that was the case again in several countries on Friday. In Niger, at least four
were reported dead when a protest march turned violent, and many were reported
injured when riot policemen clashed with protesters in Algeria, Reuters
reported.]
 |
| A protest on Friday in Peshawar, Pakistan, against the French satirical newspaper. In Karachi, four people had gunshot wounds. Arshad Arbab/European Pressphoto Agency |
KARACHI,
Pakistan — Clashes between the police and protesters outside the French
Consulate in Karachi on Friday left four people, including two journalists,
with gunshot wounds as demonstrations erupted across Pakistan against the satirical
newspaper Charlie Hebdo and its publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet
Muhammad.
The Karachi protest was led by the student wing of
Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest religious party. The demonstrators threw
stones at riot police officers, who responded with tear gas, water cannons and
gunfire.
A photographer for Agence France-Presse, Asif Hassan, was shot
in the chest and was “out of danger” after emergency surgery, said Dr. Seemi
Jamali, head of the emergency ward at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center in
Karachi. The news agency said it was trying to determine whether Mr. Hassan had
been specifically targeted.
Protests in other Pakistani cities passed largely peacefully,
but they were the first major reaction since Charlie Hebdo published an issue depicting Muhammad holding a sign that
read, “I am Charlie.” The issue was the newspaper’s first after an attack by jihadist gunmen killed 12 people in and around its office in Paris.
On Thursday, the Pakistani Parliament passed a resolution
condemning the cartoon as hate speech and calling on the international
community to “take a decisive step to stop such practice.”
“Freedom of expression should not be misused as a means to
attack or hurt public sentiments and religious beliefs,” said the resolution,
which was passed with cross-party support.
In Islam, visual depictions of the Prophet Muhammad are widely
considered to be forbidden and deeply offensive. Irreverent Western depictions
of Muhammad have set off violent protests several times in recent years, and
that was the case again in several countries on Friday. In Niger, at least four
were reported dead when a protest march turned violent, and many were reported
injured when riot policemen clashed with protesters in Algeria, Reuters
reported.
The public reaction in Pakistan to the Charlie Hebdo shootings
was initially muted, but it started to heat up on Tuesday when a cleric in the
northern city of Peshawar led a small crowd that praised the killers, Chérif
and Saïd Kouachi, for having “defended the honor of the prophet of Islam.”
On Friday, lawyers boycotted the courts in Peshawar and Multan,
instead taking to the streets to protest. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the
banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, addressed a large rally in Lahore.
“It is time for us Muslims to unite,” he said. “Otherwise, the
West will continue with such acts.”
The most serious violence occurred in Karachi, the country’s
commercial capital, where protesters yelled slogans calling for the expulsion
of the French ambassador and the severing of diplomatic ties with France.
In an apparent bid to enter the consulate, protesters pelted
police officers with stones. The police responded with baton charges and water
cannons, and tried to disperse the crowd by firing gunshots in the air. The
police said some protesters wore motorcycle helmets and had guns. “They want to
harm the consulate building,” one officer said at the scene of the protest.
It was not immediately clear whether the injured journalists had
been shot by the police or by protesters. “When protesters tried to use force,
police did the same,” said Abdul Khaliq Shaikh, a senior police official.
Salman Khan, a protest leader, said 15 people had been arrested.
“Protesting insults against the prophet is our Islamic and democratic right,”
he said.
A few streets from the French Consulate, a group of civil
society activists and members of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party held a
separate demonstration against terrorism and Islamist militancy to commemorate
the one-month anniversary of a Pakistani Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar that killed
150 people, most of them children.
Demonstrators brandished placards that read, “Silence is
criminal,” and, “Hey Taliban leave our kids alone.” Similar protests took place
in Islamabad and Lahore.
“The people gathered here could be bombed, shot or stoned,” said
Sharmila Farooqi, a minister in the Sindh provincial government. “But their
courage shows that they are frustrated with militancy and want the elimination
of the Taliban.”
Zia ur-Rehman
reported from Karachi, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan. Declan Walsh
contributed reporting from London.
