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Kill the cartoonist, get a car
17/02/2006 15:21 - (SA)
Peshawar - A Pakistani cleric offered a 1.5 million rupee ($25 000) reward and a car to anyone who kills the cartoonist who drew Prophet Muhammad, while another Islamist leader was put under house detention amid fears of more deadly demonstrations, officials said on Friday.
Thousands of security forces had been deployed as crowds took the streets across the country on Friday. Police arrested 125 protesters for violating a ban on rallies in eastern Pakistan and arrested 70 others after firing tear gas to disperse protests in the southern city of Karachi. Thousands staged rallies in other cities.
Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the historic Mohabat Khan mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school he leads would give 1.5 million rupees ($25 000) and a car as a "prize" for the killing of the prophet cartoonist.
He also said a local jewellers association would give $1,m. No representative of the association was available to confirm it had made the offer.
'Deserves to die'
Qureshi did not name any cartoonist in his announcement, made to about 1 000 people outside the mosque after Friday prayers, where worshippers burned a flag of Denmark and an effigy of the Danish prime minister. He did not appear aware that 12 different people had drawn the pictures - considered blasphemous by Muslims.
"This is a unanimous decision of by all imams (prayer leaders) of Islam that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," Qureshi said.
Sirajul Haq, a minister in the hardline Islamic provincial government, told the same gathering the government should demand the extradition of the cartoonist and put him on trial in Pakistan.
A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, first printed the prophet pictures by 12 cartoonists in September. The newspaper has since apologised to Muslims for the cartoons, one of them showing Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with an ignited fuse. Other Western newspapers, mostly in Europe, have reprinted the pictures, asserting their news value and the right to freedom of expression.
In Copenhagen, the Danish government said Friday it has temporarily closed its embassy in Pakistan following violent cartoon protests - in which Western businesses were burned or vandalized and five people killed this week.
"We have decided to do so because of the general security situation in the country," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lars Thuesen said.
Denmark last week temporarily closed its embassies in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Indonesia, after anti-Danish protests and threats against staff.
Clerics at mosques across Pakistan condemned the cartoons at prayers on Friday - the Muslim sabbath.
"Give enough power to the Muslim countries and enable them to take revenge," said Qari Saeed Ullah, a prayer leader in Islamabad.
In Peshawar - violent protests on Wednesday left two dead and scores injured.
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