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Prophet cartoon violence kills rioters in Nigeria
1 hour, 2 minutes ago
Rioting in Nigeria left at least 16 people dead, as police moved to disperse demonstrators caught up in the unabated furore over the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, witnesses and police said.
The protesters in the northern city of Maiduguri turned on the Christian minority, burning churches and shops, as army troops and police reinforcements were deployed to restore order, police spokesman Deputy Commissioner Haz Iwendi told AFP.
A similar protest in the city of Katsina also turned ugly, and one rioter was shot dead by police as marchers pelted officers with stones.
The Nigerian violence followed Friday's clashes in Libya, in which police killed 11 anti-Italian demonstrators, protesting the "provocative and outrageous" anti-Islamic insults of Italy's Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi moved to restore damaged ties with Islamic nations, belatedly forcing Calderoli's resignation for provoking the deadly clashes in Libya by wearing T-shirts lampooning the Prophet Mohammed.
An embarrassed Berlusconi said he hoped the resignation would "avoid acts of retaliation against our businesses and against our soldiers abroad."
Calderoli, a 49-year-old strongman of the fiercely anti-immigrant Northern League party, sparked outrage when he announced this week he was having T-Shirts printed with the controversial drawings of the Prophed Mohammed first published in a Danish newspaper.
Peaceful demonstrations took place in several European countries with at least 10,000 protestors marching in London.
The Danish cartoonist whose depiction of the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb-shaped turban that sparked worldwide furore said Saturday he did not regret his drawing or its publication.
Kurt Westergaard told Scotland's The Herald newspaper in Glasgow that his inspiration for the cartoon -- one of a dozen that appeared in a Danish newspaper in late September -- was "terrorism."
Westergaard, who agreed to answer questions from the newspaper in writing through an intermediary, defended the cartoons on grounds of freedom of expression and the press.
Asked by The Herald if he had anticipated the uproar that the cartoons provoked, replied: "No -- No."
When asked if he regretted drawing the cartoon or its publication, he said simply: "No."
The fury in the Muslim world overshadowed an US-Islamic forum seeking to find common ground between the United States and the Muslim world which opened in the Gulf state of Qatar Saturday.
In Pakistan, four people were injured when security forces opened fire on protestors to stop them torching banks and other buildings in the eastern city of Chiniot, police said.
Four teenage protestors were injured in the shooting and taken to hospital, a spokesman said, adding that the situation in Chiniot, some 200 kilometres (124 miles) northeast of Multan, was eventually brought under control.
Meanwhile, some 4,000 protestors took part in a rally in the southern port city of Karachi called by the student wing of Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the largest religious party in Pakistan.
More than 10,000 women mostly wearing veils also held a peaceful rally in Karachi under the banner of JI's women's wing.
Peaceful protests were also held in the cities of Quetta in the southwest and Peshawar in the northwest.
In India, newspapers made front page news of an 11.5 million dollar bounty offered by Mohammed Yaqoob Qureshi, a minister in the northern Uttar Pradesh state government, for anyone who decapitated one of the cartoonists.
The government of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, one with a large Muslim community, said the minister's statements were "his personal wish" and did not violate government rules.
Thousands of Muslims took to the streets of London marching and waving banners in the British capital's biggest demonstration since protests began against publication of the cartoons.
Police said 10,000 joined the protest, organized by the Muslim Action Committee (MAC) which represents 650 mosques and Muslim communities in the UK.
The MAC said some 40,000 people took part.
About 3,500 protestors demonstrated in two German cities, Duisburg in the west and Kassel in the centre.
In Copenhagen police estimated at 2,500 the number of demonstrators of both Danish and immigrant origin who took part in a peaceful march.
About 1,000 people protested in the centre of the Austrian capital on Saturday against the cartoons, police said.
