Islamabad: Violence flared in Pakistan on Friday as the country shut down for mass protests against an anti-Islam film and blasphemous cartoons that has fanned global Muslim anger, inflamed further by French cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).
Western missions across the Islamic world went on high alert, fearing further escalation of a 10-day violent backlash over the low-budget film “Innocence of Muslims” that has spread to at least 20 countries and left more than 30 people dead.
France, where a satirical magazine this week published a series of cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed, has shut embassies, consulates, cultural centres and schools in around 20 Muslim countries, fearing that the backlash could spread from US targets.
In Pakistan, where the government declared Friday a holiday to allow tens of thousands to protest in defence of Islam and the Prophet, security forces fanned out across major cities, sealing off Western and government targets.
The government issued orders for mobile telephone networks to be shut down until at least 6pm (1300 GMT) in measures that appeared to be designed to prevent Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked extremists from carrying out bomb attacks.
Shops, markets and petrol stations closed en masse, shuttering windows and erecting barriers in an unprecedented closure not seen on religious or public holidays.
In the first sign of violence on Friday, a crowd of several hundred angry demonstrators armed with clubs and bamboo sticks set fire to two cinemas in the conservative, northwestern city of Peshawar, police and witnesses said.
At least one protester was wounded when a guard opened fire as the crowd smashed up one of the picture houses, setting furniture ablaze, police officer Gohar Ali told AFP.
The government said Friday would be a “day of love for the prophet” and urged people to protest, albeit peacefully, to show their opposition to the crudely made film, believed to have made by extremist Christians in the United States.
On Thursday, around 5,000 angry protesters, many armed with wooden clubs tried to storm Islamabad’s heavily guarded diplomatic enclave, demanding access to the US embassy, as police used tear gas and live rounds to disperse the crowd.
Dozens of officers were wounded and a police post burnt to the ground before the army was eventually called in to disperse the protesters.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf made a renewed call for peace in an address to religious and political party leaders, broadcast live on television, before Friday prayers.
“The holy prophet gave the message of peace and harmony. It is in this same spirit that I would like to make an appeal to the nation to maintain peace and avoid violence,” he said, making his remarks in both English and Urdu.
“It is our collective responsibility to protest peacefully without causing harm or damage to life or property,” he added.
Washington has warned citizens not to travel to Pakistan and spent $70,000 to air adverts on Pakistani television disassociating the US government from the film.
In Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi, police told AFP they were on maximum alert and that bomb disposal squads were sweeping planned locations of rallies to ensure that Pakistan’s extremists could exploit protests to cause carnage.
“All the entry and exit points of the city are heavily guarded. Helicopters are on stand-by for aerial surveillance,” provincial police chief Fayyaz Laghari told AFP.
“We have deployed our maximum police force to the sensitive parts of the city to ensure security during protest rallies today,” he added.
Across the border in India’s Muslim-majority Kashmir, thousands of police deployed and areas went into lock down ahead of Friday prayers.
US interests last week bore the brunt of protests against the amateur film, which depicts Mohammed as a thuggish sexual deviant.
But this week France has found itself in the firing line after the weekly Charlie Hebdo printed cartoons caricaturing the founder of Islam, including two showing him naked.
Its interior ministry says it will deny all requests to protest against the film after a demonstration last weekend near the US embassy in Paris turned violent, but news of the cartoons has appeared slow to filter into Islamic countries.
Leaders of France’s Muslim community — the largest in Western Europe — said an appeal for calm would be read in mosques across the country on Friday but condemned Charlie Hebdo for publishing “insulting” images.
The magazine’s editor, Stephane Charbonnier, mocked those angered by the cartoons as “ridiculous clowns” and accused the government of pandering to them by criticising the magazine for being provocative.
The United States is still investigating a deadly attack on one of its consulates in Libya on September 11 that left four Americans dead, including the ambassador.
The White House says FBI investigators suspect that Al-Qaeda may have been linked to the attack on the Benghazi compound, but it remains unclear whether it was a pre-panned assault or whether it sprang out of a protest against the film.
US President Barack Obama’s spokesman called the killings a “terrorist attack” and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed a high-level security review in the wake of the killings.
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