The Taliban on Saturday issued a call to young Muslims worldwide and within the country to rise up against an anti-Islam movie. Hundreds of people demonstrated in cities across Pakistan on Friday to denounce the low-budget film, but there was none of the violence that left several dead in other parts of the Muslim world. The movie, “Innocence of Muslims”, portrays Muslims as immoral and gratuitously violent. A mob stormed the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday, killing the US ambassador and several other staff.
“We invite… especially youth of Pakistan to stand up in defense of their religion and its sanctity,” Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said in an email. “You are no less than the lads of Benghazi… stop looking toward your tyrant rulers that they will do something, as they have accepted a life of humiliation,” the spokesman said. He added that “atrocities” against Muslims were rising across the world. “Zionist and crusader enemies of Islam are insulting the signs of Islam everywhere,” the Taliban spokesman said. Pakistan on Thursday blocked access to the video on the Internet and beefed up security around US diplomatic missions, following attacks on American consulates and embassies in Libya, Egypt and Yemen.