Bounty offered on cartoonists as protests rage
Fri Feb 17, 2006 9:50 AM ET168
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By Simon Cameron-Moore
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani Muslim cleric and his followers
offered rewards amounting to over $1 million for anyone who killed
Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad
that have enraged Muslims worldwide.
The cleric offered the bounty during Friday prayers as Muslim anger
against the cartoons flared anew in parts of Asia.
Weeks of global protests over the cartoons have triggered fears of
a clash of civilizations between the West and Islam, and have led
to calls on all sides for calm.
On Friday, thousands rallied in Pakistan, police in Bangladesh
blocked demonstrators heading for the Danish embassy in Dhaka and
in the Indian city of Hyderabad, police fired teargas shells and
batons to beat back hundreds of protesters, who had stoned shops
and disrupted traffic.
Protests in Pakistan this week have resulted in at least five
deaths and hundreds of detentions, and on Friday it became the
latest country where Denmark has decided to temporarily close its
embassy.
The Danish foreign ministry also issued a travel warning for
Pakistan, urging any Danes to leave as soon as possible.
In the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, cleric Maulana
Yousef Qureshi said he had personally offered to pay a bounty of
500,000 rupees ($8,400) to anyone who killed a Danish cartoonist,
and two of his congregation put up additional rewards of $1 million
and one million rupees plus a car.
"If the West can place a bounty on Osama bin Laden and Zawahri we
can also announce reward for killing the man who has caused this
sacrilege of the holy Prophet," Qureshi told Reuters, referring to
the al Qaeda leader and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri.
The cleric leads the congregation at the historic Mohabat mosque,
on street known for goldsmith shops in the provincial capital of
North West Frontier Province -- a stronghold of Pakistan's Islamist
opposition parties.
The cartoons were first published in Denmark last September, but
last month newspapers and magazines in Europe and elsewhere began
republishing to assert principles of freedom of expression.
Muslims believe images of the Prophet are forbidden
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