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BEIRUT, Lebanon - Thousands of Muslims rampaged Sunday in Beirut, setting fire to the Danish Embassy, burning Danish flags and lobbing stones at a Maronite Catholic church as violent protests spread over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Troops fired bullets into the air and used tear gas and water cannons to push the crowds back after a small group of Islamic extremists tried to break through the security barrier outside the embassy.
Demonstrators attacked policemen with stones and set fire to several fire engines, witnesses said. Black smoke was seen billowing from the area. Security officials said at least 18 people were injured, including policemen, fire fighters and protesters. Witnesses saw at least 10 people taken away by ambulance.
A security official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said staff at the Danish Embassy had been evacuated two days ago.
‘It is a critical situation’
The Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes to leave Lebanon as soon as possible as Danes and Norwegians heeded a similar call in neighboring Syria, where violent protests broke out on Saturday.
“It is a critical situation and it is very serious,” Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said Sunday on Danish public radio.
Protesters also took to the streets in Afghanistan, the West Bank, Iraq and New Zealand, a day after demonstrators in Syria charged security barriers outside the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus and sent the buildings up in flames.
Those attacks earned widespread condemnation from European nations and the U.S., which accused the Syrian government of backing the protests.
The Danish foreign minister said: “enough is enough.”
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“Now it has become more than a case about the drawings: Now there are forces that wants a confrontation between our cultures,” Moeller said. “It is in no one’s interest, neither them or us.”
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Mohamed Azakir / Reuters A man chants slogans in front of the burning Danish consulate in Beirut on Sunday. |
“(Denmark’s) government was able to avoid reaching this point ... simply through an apology” as requested by Arab and Muslim diplomats, state-run daily Al-Thawra said in an editorial Sunday.
“It is unjustifiable under any kind of personal freedoms to allow a person or a group to insult the beliefs of millions of Muslims,” the paper said.
Rising anger
Anger has broken out across the Muslim world over 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European media and New Zealand in the past week.
One depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues.
The drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad for fear they could lead to idolatry.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said he personally disapproves of the caricatures and any attacks on religion — but insisted he cannot apologize on behalf of his country’s independent press.
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