Coalition calls for Bangladesh shutdown over anti-Islamic film

DHAKA: A coalition of 12 Islamic groups on Saturday called for a nationwide shutdown on Sunday after 40 activists were arrested as they tried to stage a street protest against the anti-Islam film ‘Innocence of Muslims’, a French weekly’s cartoon demeaning Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).

Witnesses said several hundred Islamists fought pitched battle with police as they tried to stage a scheduled street protest in front of downtown Press Club defying a ban, prompting law enforcement people to use tear gas and batons to disperse them.

They said at least 30 policemen were injured during the clash that left over three dozen protesters wounded who used brickbats and stones. The protesters torched a journalist’s motorcycle at the press club and a police van and vandalised several other vehicles as the clash continued for nearly an hour when police in riot gear lobbed at least 20 tear gas canisters, a journalist who witnessed the clash said.

“The protesters used the press club to defy the ban while main opposition BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) and their ally Jamaat-e-Islami activists joined the protestors chanting anti-government slogans as part of their anti-government campaign,” a police officer told Gulf News.

Police enforced a road block on streets around the press club diverting vehicles to alternative roads as smoke engulfed the area sending journalists trapped inside as protestors used stones and brickbats.

Prime Minister Shaikh Hasina last week strongly condemned the making of the film by a US producer and urged the US government to immediately stop sale and projection of the controversial film.

“No Muslim can tolerate such defamation of the Prophet,” she said also asking the US authorities to expose to exemplary punitive actions the filmmaker for demeaning Islam’s Prophet, while main opposition BNP chief Khaleda Zia also joined her archrival in condemning the film.

Meanwhile, French police on Saturday arrested a man for apparently calling on a jihadi website for the decapitation of the editor of a magazine that published cartoons mocking the Prophet, a judicial source said.

The man was detained in the western city of La Rochelle for calling on the radical website for the head of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, which on Wednesday published cartoons of the Prophet.

“The essential thing is not to let him live in peace,” the man allegedly wrote.

Police have opened a preliminary probe on charges of incitement to commit murder, the source said.

France’s Muslim leaders on Friday urged militants not to defy a ban on protests over the cartoons, as a security alert closed the country’s embassies across the Islamic world.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls has made it clear he would not sanction any demonstrations at the weekend on the grounds they will inevitably represent a threat to public order.

The cartoons were published as often violent — and sometimes deadly — protests continued across the world against an anti-Islam film made in the US that enraged many Muslims.

A rowdy protest at the film close to the US embassy in Paris last weekend led to 150 arrests and there have been calls on social networks for another demonstration in central Paris on Saturday.