125 prophet marchers arrested

2006-02-18 09:03

Multan - Police arrested 125 prophet cartoon protesters for violating a ban on rallies in eastern Pakistan and put a radical Islamist leader under house detention, amid fears of more deadly demonstrations on Friday, officials said.

Police were ordered to restrict the movement of all religious leaders who might address any rallies and round up religious activists "who could be any threat to law and order," a senior police official said in the main eastern city of Lahore.

In Multan, another city in Punjab province, about 300 police swooped down on 125 protesters, who gathered on Friday morning at a traffic circle, chanting, "We are slaves of the prophet," and trampling on a Danish flag, said Sharif Zafar, a police official.

Protesters shouted "Death to Musharraf" as they were bundled into two police buses, referring to Pakistan's leader, President General Pervez Musharraf.

Zafar said they were being taken to a police station because they were violating a ban on rallies in Punjab - declared after deadly riots in Lahore on Tuesday.

In Karachi, police fired tear gas and swung batons to disperse about 2 000 protesters, many wielding sticks, who blocked the main highway into the southern city, said Alim Jafari, a Karachi police official. The road was cleared and some 30 protesters were detained, he said.

The crackdown follows violent protests in Pakistan this week in which five people died and Western businesses were vandalised and burned. Thousands of security forces were deployed on Friday in major cities in anticipation of more rallies.

Opportunity missed

In Islamabad, former US President Bill Clinton criticised the cartoons, but said Muslims wasted an opportunity to build better ties with the West by holding violent protests.

"I can tell you most people in the United States deeply respect Islam... and most people in Europe do," he said.

Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, chief of the radical group Jamaat al-Dawat, became the first religious leader detained by authorities since protests began in Pakistan early this month.

The group's spokesperson Yahya Mujahid said a heavy contingent of police arrived at Saeed's Lahore home on Friday morning and told him he could not go outside. He was due to make a speech in Faisalabad, about 120km away.

The police official confirmed Saeed had been confined at his home.

Peaceful protest

Lahore police chief Khawaja Khalid Farooq said 12 000 police and an unspecified number of paramilitary troops were guarding government and foreign installations, mosques, shopping centres, restaurants, cinemas and bus stops.

"There is a ban on rallies and we will not allow any one to violate the ban," he said.

In Karachi, a youth group called Pasban called a strike in the teeming port city, where about 40 000 people joined a peaceful protest on Thursday.

- AP