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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Violence mars Day of Love for the Prophet
Pakistani police quell anti-U.S. outbursts
A plainclothes Pakistani police officer fires a tear gas canister to disperse protesters, not shown, during clashes in Karachi, Pakistan, Friday. (FAREED KHAN / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's "Day of Love for the Prophet" turned into a deadly day of gunfire, tear gas and arson.
Thousands angered by an anti-Muslim film ignored pleas for peaceful rallies and rampaged in several Pakistani cities Friday in battles with police that killed 19 people and touched off criticism of a government decision to declare a national holiday to proclaim devotion for the Prophet Muhammad.
The film, which was produced in the United States and denigrates the Prophet, has outraged many in the Muslim world in the 10 days since it attracted attention on the Internet, and there were new, mostly peaceful protest marches in a half-dozen countries from Asia to the Middle East. But it is Pakistan that has seen the most sustained violence, driven by anti-American sentiment and a cadre of hardline Islamists who benefit from stoking anger at the U.S.
Forty-nine people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, have died in violence linked to the film.
Analysts accused the Pakistani government of pandering to these extremists by declaring Friday to be an official holiday -- calling it a "Day of Love for the Prophet." Officials urged peaceful protests, but critics said the move helped unleash the worst violence yet caused by the film Innocence of Muslims.
Nearly 200 others were injured as mobs threw stones and set fire to cars and movie theatres, and battled with police who responded with tear gas and gunfire.
"The people were just waiting for a trigger," said Imtiaz Gul, director of the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies.
In an attempt to tamp down the anger, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad purchased spots on Pakistani TV on Thursday that featured denunciations of the video by U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. But their comments, which were subtitled in Urdu, the main Pakistani language, apparently did little to moderate the outrage.
Police fired tear gas and live ammunition to push back the tens of thousands of protesters they faced in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, and the major cities of Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar. They were successful in preventing the protesters from reaching U.S. diplomatic offices in the cities, even though the demonstrators streamed over shipping containers set up on major roads to block their path.
The demonstrators, who were led by hardline Islamist groups, hurled rocks at the police and set fire to their vehicles. They also ransacked and burned banks, shops, cinemas and western fast-food restaurants such as KFC and Pizza Hut.
Clinton thanked the Pakistani government for protecting the U.S. missions in the country and lamented the deaths in the protests.
"The violence we have seen cannot be tolerated," she said, speaking alongside Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar in Washington.
-- The Associated Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 22, 2012 A23
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