Protests spread over Danish cartoon

THAILAND: Hundreds of Thai Muslims rallied Wednesday outside the Danish embassy in Bangkok to condemn the publication of a controversial cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in Danish media last month.

Organisers said 1,000 people joined the protest calling on the Danish government to stop the printing of the cartoon, which was first published in 2005 and sparked violent protests across the Muslim world in early 2006.

The crowd, which police estimated at 400 people, burned a Danish flag and called for a boycott of goods from Denmark.

They broke up peacefully after two hours, police said. “We denounce the Danish government for protecting cartoonists and artists and for failing to stop the printing of the cartoon by citing freedom of expression,” Mureed Timasen, a member of the group Muslims for Peace, told AFP.

He vowed to stage new protests if Denmark allowed publications to print the cartoon again.

Last month, at least 17 Danish dailies reprinted the drawing featuring Prophet Mohammed’s head with a turban designed to look like a bomb with a lit fuse.

The caricature was one of 12 first published in a Danish newspaper in 2005. It was reprinted in mid-February after Danish police foiled a plot to kill the cartoonist, again triggering angry reactions in numerous Muslim countries.

Protesters in Afghanistan and Pakistan have recently taken to the streets over the reprinting of the cartoon, but until now, Thai Muslims had not staged any demonstrations over the depiction.

Thailand is predominantly Buddhist, but is battling an Islamic separatist insurgency in Muslim-majority provinces along its southern border with Malaysia.

Bangkok, Wednesday, AFP