Srinagar: Protests on Monday turned violent for the first time in Afghanistan and Indonesia over an American film mocking Islam as hundreds of angry men clashed with police, hurling stones and shouting Death to America.
The outbreaks of violence were the latest eruptions of anger over the low-budget trailer made in the United States and aired on YouTube that has fanned unrest around the world, leaving at least 18 people dead.
The movie entitled Innocence of Muslims produced in USA has sparked a week of furious protests outside US embassies and other American symbols in at least 20 countries.
Lebanon
Syed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, made a rare public appearance to address tens of thousands of supporters who took to the streets of Beirut to denounce a film mocking Islam and the Prophet Mohammed.
Monday’s address was only Nasrallah’s fifth public appearance in six years, and the first time he made a full speech in person to thousands of his supporters since 2008.
“O Prophet, we die for you, my soul and my blood are for you,” the leader of the powerful resistance movement said, urging the crowd to repeat the words after him for the whole world to hear.
“America must understand … the US must understand that releasing the entire film will have dangerous, very dangerous, repercussions around the world.
“It’s a very big protest – one of the biggest if not the biggest I have seen here,” said Al Jazeera’s Rula Amin, reporting from Beirut. “Hassan Nasrallah himself showed up, joined the protests, took the podium and delivered a live speech.”
She said the fact that Nasrallah was physically there “was a sign how significant this issue is and was only the beginning of what they would do to protest”.
“He said anger should not be directed towards Christians, but that it’s a political issue with anger directed towards the US and Israel. They didn’t target anyone [violently] or make any sign they would target US businesses or citizens.”
‘Breadth of the humiliation’
According to AP, diplomats at the US Embassy in Beirut began destroying classified material as a security precaution amid anti-American protests in Lebanon and elsewhere.
A State Department status report obtained Monday by AP news agency said the Beirut embassy had “reviewed its emergency procedures and is beginning to destroy classified holdings”.
Pakistan
Hundreds clashed with police for a second day in the southern city of Karachi as they tried to reach the U.S. Consulate there. Police lobbed tear gas and fired in the air to disperse the protesters who were from the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami party. Police arrested 40 students, but no injuries were reported.
Protesters also demonstrating against the film torched a press club and a government building in the northwestern town of Wari, setting off clashes with police that killed one demonstrator and wounded several others.
Afghanistan
In Kabul on Monday, more than 1,000 Afghans protested, setting police cars and commercial storage containers ablaze on Jalalabad Road, Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi told AFP.
Between 40 to 50 policemen were very slightly wounded by stone throwers and members of the crowd waving sticks, said Salangi, who added that he had also been grazed by a stone.
Burning tyres sent thick black smoke streaming into the sky and rocks littered the road as shopkeepers hurriedly locked up and ran away.
A police official, who gave his name only as Hafiz, said protesters also threw stones at Camp Phoenix, a US-run military base in the capital, but were later driven back.
Indonesia
In Jakarta, protesters hurled petrol bombs and clashed with Indonesian police outside the US embassy shouting America, America go to hell in the first violent film protests in the worlds most populous Muslim nation.
Police were seen kicking or dragging away some of the protesters, while one policeman was taken away in an ambulance with his face bleeding.
Jakarta police spokesman Rikwanto, said officers used tear gas, water cannon and warning shots, but did not say whether they had fired live ammunition or blanks.
Many of the protesters were supporters of Islamic groups and were dressed in identical white Muslim garb, an AFP reporter saw.
Philippines
About 3,000 Filipino Muslims burned US and Israeli flags in a protest.
The protesters in the southern city of Marawi gathered in a public square to express their anger at the movie, stamping on huge American and Israeli flags that they then set on fire.
The protesters carried placards saying, Americans are satanic and Israeli Jews enemy of Muslim Ummah (community) in the Muslim-majority city with some protesters calling on President Benigno Aquino to ban the film.
However, there were no untoward incidents during the rally.
Meanwhile, Aquino told reporters he did not have the power to ban the low-budget US film that has sparked fury across the Islamic world.
Dont forget in our constitution, we have freedom of expression and we are not allowed to have laws limiting freedom of speech, he said.
However he said the government movie censors board could ban the movie from being shown in local theatres or television.
Middle East and Africa
The whole world needs to see your anger on your faces, in your fists and your shouts, he said in a televised speech broadcast just hours after Pope Benedict XVI ended a historic three-day visit to Lebanon.
Google bars access
Following complaints, Google is barring access to the video in Egypt, India, Indonesia, Libya and now Malaysia, while the government has restricted access to Google-owned YouTube in Afghanistan.
Boiling point
The unrest began in Cairo, where protesters stormed the US embassy late Tuesday, replacing the Stars and Stripes with an Islamic banner.
Hours later, the US consulate in Libyas eastern city of Benghazi came under sustained attack, with four Americans killed, including ambassador Chris Stevens.
Mass demonstrations after the Friday prayers saw 11 protesters killed as police battled to defend US missions from mobs in Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen.
The United States has deployed counter-terror Marine units to Libya to protect the Tripoli embassy and stationed two destroyers off the North African coast.
It has also sent a Marine unit to protect the US embassy in Yemen, where police shot dead four protesters and wounded 34 others on Thursday as a mob breached its perimeter.
Hundreds of Yemeni students demonstrated on Monday calling for the expulsion of the US ambassador and condemning the Marines deployment, reports said.
The United States has evacuated all non-essential staff and family members from Sudan and Tunisia and warned US citizens against travel to the two countries.
And in Afghanistan, two US soldiers died and six US fighter jets were destroyed when Taliban fighters on Friday stormed one of the countrys largest airfields to avenge the anti-Islam film. KO Monitoring Desk
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