Police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of more than 2,000 protesters trying to reach the US consulate in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, as fresh demonstrations erupted against an anti-Islam film.
Protesters chanting anti-US slogans and burning the Stars and Stripes flag gathered outside the mission in the city of Peshawar to vent their fury at the “Innocence of Muslims” film, which was made in America and is deemed insulting to Prophet of Islam.
Around 2,000 people marched through the country’s largest city, Karachi, towards the US consulate to protest against the film, which has triggered a week of deadly protests across the Muslim world.
Riot police with armoured vehicles were deployed to block access to the consulate in Peshawar, the main city in Pakistan’s restive northwest, where Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants have strongholds.
“We used tear gas shells and lobbed gas grenades because the protesters were trying to come closer to the sensitive area,” senior police officer Imtiaz Khan told AFP.
He said more than 1,000 police were on hand to block the road to the US consulate.
Addressing the crowd, the local leader of the hardline Sunni party Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Shabbir Ahmed lashed out at the United States, demanding the Pakistani government expel the American ambassador and close its missions in Pakistan.
“We are ready to sacrifice our lives to uphold the dignity of our Prophet,” he said.
In the eastern city of Lahore, up to 900 people demonstrated near the US consulate.
The protest came after a female suicide bomber killed 12 people in Kabul on Tuesday in an attack claimed by an insurgent group as revenge for the film.
The blast brought the total number killed in a week-long violent backlash against over the film to 30.
There have been furious protests outside US embassies and other American symbols in at least 20 countries, and the American ambassador to Libya and three other US diplomats in the North African country have been among those killed.
In Pakistan, two protesters died after demonstrating against the film in the northwest, close to the Afghan border, and outside the US consulate in Karachi.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan have all blocked access to YouTube, following the video-sharing website’s failure to take down the anti-Islam film.
I am not sure if the Pakistani people will understand it, but I thought I will give it a try:
“Well, if they think it’s bad and against their values, why didn’t they stop it or punish those who produced it?” The standard response is that we Americans don’t suppress or penalize ideas we regard as wrong and even dangerous; in accordance with the First Amendment, we tolerate them and allow them to present themselves for possible purchase in the marketplace of ideas.
But that means that protecting the marketplace by refusing to set limits on what can enter it is the highest value we affirm, and we affirm it no matter what truths might be vilified and what falsehoods might get themselves accepted. We have decided that the potential unhappy consequences of a strong free speech regime must be tolerated because the principle is more important than preventing any harm it might permit. We should not be surprised, however, if others in the world — most others, in fact — disagree, not because they are blind and ignorant but because they worship God and truth rather than the First Amendment, which not only keeps God and truth at arm’s length but regards them with a deep suspicion.
We Americans have no time to watch such movies or to make such movies. There are fringe elements in every society that I am sure I do not have to tell you about, so you cannot react this way towards the US because of those elements in our society. We did not react that way against the Saudis even though most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia. We are not perfect but so are you, so lets be humble and don't think that you are the only ones who are offended, we are also offended by one thing or the other but we tolerate, even though if we want we can vaporize an entire country by the firepower of only one of our submarines.
Linda S, MD
USA
If they were trying to reach the building rather than peacefully protesting then why were theu dispersed, they should have been arrested ..?
Amrica murda bad. Sunni tehreek.
Amrica murda bad. Sunni tehreek.
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