Rawalpindi - Pakistani Islamists took to the streets Friday to protest the republishing of cartoons in Danish newspapers depicting the Muslim Prophet Mohammed. Around 400 people, many of them Islamic seminary students, assembled after Friday prayers outside a mosque in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, chanting "Death to Denmark" and "Hang the blasphemous Danish editors."They also burned a Danish flag.
"We demand the government immediately end diplomatic and trade ties with Denmark and any other country where the blasphemous cartoons are printed," Abdul Rehman a local Islamic scholar and protest leader, told the rally.
The cartoons were first published in 2006, sparking protests and rioting in numerous Muslim nations including Pakistan, where a dozen people were shot dead by police.
Rehman warned Western countries that Muslims would never forgive anyone who insulted Islam by displaying the image of Mohammed, which is forbidden under Islamic law, and would die to protect his honour.
Similar demonstrations were held across Pakistan after calls by two Muslim-based political parties, Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam and Jamaat-I-Islami, including in the capital Islamabad, where around 300 students of Quaid-e-Azam University held a rally few hundred meters from the Danish embassy.
Riot police stopped the students from marching towards the embassy building.
Danish newspapers republished the controversial cartoons on February 13 to defend what they deemed to be freedom of speech after a plot to murder the cartoon's artist was uncovered two weeks ago.
The reproductions sparked protests in several Arab and Asian Muslim countries, while angry young Muslims in Denmark set fire to cars and containers.
