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Tens of thousands of Muslims, from Pakistan to Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, emerged from prayer services to join protests against France on Friday, as the French president’s vote to protect the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad continues to shake the Muslim world.
Demonstrations in the Pakistani capital Islamabad turned violent when some 2,000 people who tried to march towards the French embassy were pushed back by police, firing tear gas and beating protesters with batons.
Crowds of protesters hung an effigy of French President Emmanuel Macron from a highway overpass after furiously hitting it with his shoes. Several protesters were injured in clashes with police when authorities pressed to evict them from the red zone, a security area that houses Pakistani diplomatic missions. As night fell, the protesters held a sit-in on a main street.
In the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, thousands of worshipers celebrating Mawlid, the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, took to the streets chanting anti-France slogans, raising banners and blocking main roads on the way to a Sufi shrine.
In Multan, a city in the eastern Punjab province, thousands more set fire to an effigy of Macron and demanded that Pakistan sever ties with France and boycott French goods.
Global crisis
Protests also took place in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. A few hundred protesters flocked to the Palais des Pins, the official residence of the French ambassador to Lebanon, but found the way blocked by lines of police in riot gear.
Waving black and white flags, the activists shouted: “At your service, O Prophet of God.” Some threw stones at the police who responded with tear gas.
Demonstrators gestures during a protest against the cartoon publications of the Prophet Muhammad in France in Beirut [Reuters]
In Jerusalem, hundreds of Palestinians protested against Macron in front of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest place in Islam, chanting: “With our souls and with our blood, we sacrifice for our Prophet, Muhammad.” Some young people got into a fight with the Israeli police when they left the esplanade towards the Old City. Israeli police said they dispersed the meeting and detained three people.
Many more occurred in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas organized demonstrations against France in mosques throughout the territory it controls.
Fathi Hammad, a Hamas official, addressed a demonstration in the Jabaliya refugee camp and vowed to “stand together to confront this criminal offensive that damages the faith of some two billion Muslims,” referring to depictions of the Muslim prophet. . He reiterated the call of the Hamas authorities to the Palestinians to boycott all French products.
One protester, who identified himself as Abu Huzayfa, was equivocal when asked about recent attacks in France in retaliation for the cartoons.
“We don’t target innocents,” he said. “But those who directly insult our Prophet will take responsibility.”
In Afghanistan, members of Hezb-i-Islami set the French flag on fire. Its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, warned Macron that if he does not “control the situation, we are going to a third world war and Europe will be responsible.”
Shouts of “Death to France” echoed through the Afghan capital, Kabul, and several other provinces as thousands filled the streets. The protesters trampled on Macron’s portraits and called on Afghan leaders to close the French embassy, sever ties and expel French citizens from the country. In the western province of Herat, protesters hoisted an effigy of Macron on a crane and set it on fire.
Protesters set fire to a poster of French President Emmanuel Macron in Kabul on Friday [Omar Sobhani/Reuters]
In a Friday sermon broadcast live on Egyptian state television, the country’s minister of religious donations appeared to denounce any violent retaliation for the cartoons.
“Love for the prophet cannot be expressed by killing, sabotaging or responding to evil with evil,” said Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa, addressing dozens of worshipers at a mosque in Egypt’s Daqahleya province in the Delta.
Cartoon
The protests come amid mounting tensions between France and Muslim-majority nations, which erupted earlier this month when Macron described Islam as a religion “in crisis” globally.
The gap widened after a man beheaded a French teacher who had shown cartoons of the Prophet in class. In Islam it is forbidden to represent the Prophet Muhammad in any way.
While Muslims have condemned the killing, they fear a crackdown on Islamic organizations and are upset by renewed support for the right to show the cartoons, which often suggest Islam and “terrorism” are linked.
Those images were republished by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to mark the opening of the trial for the deadly 2015 attack on the publication.
France was sent into further commotion on Thursday, when a Tunisian with a knife killed three people in a church in the Mediterranean city of Nice. That same day, a Saudi man stabbed and slightly injured a security guard at the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The leaders of many Muslim countries offered their condolences to France after the attack and expressed their solidarity by condemning the violence.
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