HOLY WAR UPDATE

Afghan police kill four amid rage over cartoons

Tue Feb 7, 2006 6:31 PM ET

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan police shot dead four people protesting on Tuesday against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that have unleashed waves of rage and soul-searching across the Muslim world and Europe.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) head Ekmelettin Ihsanoglu and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana jointly condemned violent protests but also urged respect for religion.
Tens of thousands of Muslims demonstrated in the Middle East, Asia and Africa over the drawings, first published in Denmark, then Norway and then several other European countries. Some Muslim leaders urged restraint.
The 12 cartoonists whose work touched off the firestorm were reported to be in hiding, frightened, and under police guard. Iran's best-selling newspaper launched a competition to find the best Holocaust cartoon.
In Iran, locked in a nuclear stand-off with the West, a crowd pelted the Danish embassy with petrol bombs and stones for a second day. Protesters hurled a petrol bomb and broke windows at Norway's mission.
Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller called his Iranian counterpart "and demanded in clear terms that Iran does all it can to protect the embassy and Danish lives", a spokesman said. Iran has cut trade with Denmark and pulled out its ambassador.
Afghan crowds attacked a base of NATO Norwegian troops with guns and grenades and Afghan police opened fire, bringing the death toll in protests against the cartoons to nine.
After rioters set Danish missions ablaze in Syria and Lebanon at the weekend, the European Union presidency issued a strongly worded warning to 19 countries across the Middle East that they were obliged to protect EU missions.
"FANNING FLAMES"
Accusing "radicals, extremists and fanatics" of fanning the flames of Muslim wrath to "push forward their own agenda", Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen repeated a call for dialogue with offended Muslims.
"We're facing a growing global crisis that has the potential to escalate beyond the control of governments and other authorities," he said.
President Bush called him to express support and solidarity, Rasmussen said. The White House said both leaders "reiterated the importance of tolerance and respect for religions of all faith and freedom of the press".
A State Department spokesman criticized Syria and Iran.
"We call upon all governments to lower the temperature, to urge calm, and to urge dialogue and not misunderstanding. Sadly, we have not seen any of that from the Iranian government or the Syrian government," he said, adding Iran's Holocaust cartoon contest was "outrageous".
Depicting the Prophet is prohibited by Islam. Moderate Muslims, while condemning the cartoons, have expressed fears radicals are hijacking debate over the boundary between media freedom and religious respect.
Militants in Iraq have called for killing Danes and the boycott of Danish goods over the cartoons, one of which depicts Mohammad wearing a turban resembling a bomb with a burning fuse.
In London, protesters have brandished placards demanding the beheading of those who insulted Islam. One dressed as a suicide bomber but later apologized.
Copies of a British student paper which reproduced one cartoon were hastily shredded and the editor suspended from a student union. A French court however refused to order the confiscation of a magazine which planned to print the images.
FREE SPEECH VS. RESPECT
The joint UN, OIC and EU statement said: "We believe freedom of the press entails responsibility and discretion, and should respect the beliefs and tenets of all religions. But we also believe the recent violent acts surpass the limits of peaceful protest."
Further protests erupted on Tuesday in Pakistan, Egypt, Yemen, Djibouti, Gaza and Azerbaijan. At least 10,000 marched in the Bangladeshi capital and tens of thousands turned out in Niger's capital Niamey to vent their anger. State assembly members in Muslim Kano, northern Nigeria, burned Danish flags.
A Croatian newspaper printed the drawings, which have also appeared in Australia, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Fiji, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the United States, Ukraine and Yemen.
Iran said the cartoons "launched an anti-Islamic and Islamophobic current which will be answered".
"Disrespecting different religions and the sanctities of different countries is not something that can be accepted," said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Norwegian press association chief Per Edgar Kokkvold said after receiving death threats: "It is important to defend not only freedom of expression but also the right to offend people, even if offending people is not always a beautiful sight."
A radical Muslim group in Belgium put on its Web site a cartoon of Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who wrote a wartime diary of hiding from the Nazis.
Denmark's Jyllands-Posten daily has apologized for the cartoons, first published in September. The Danish government has refused to do so, saying it is the paper's responsibility.