Muslim religious leader puts a price on the heads of the cartoonists . . . .

[aneeshm]

A minister in the state cabinet of Mulayam Singh Yadav , Uttar Pradesh , has put of price of Rs. 51 crore ( $ 11,333,333.333333333 ) on the head(s) of the cartoonists who drew the offending cartoons . I'll post a source as it becomes available ( currently the news has just hit the airwaves , and I couldn't find anything on Google ) . The opposition party ( the BJP ) has demanded the minister's resignation . The party in power has demanded an explanation of Mulayam Singh Yadav .


Tell me - should this person be allowed to hold office after this ?

[Arrian]

Cleric offers reward for killing cartoonist
Vow comes as Pakistan arrests 125, including radical Islamic leader

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 9:04 a.m. ET Feb. 17, 2006


PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A Pakistani Muslim cleric said Friday that he and supporters were offering rewards of more than $1 million for killing Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Maulana Yousef Qureshi, a cleric in the northwestern city of Peshawar, said during Friday prayers that he personally had offered to pay a bounty of 500,000 rupees ($8,400), while a jewelers association was putting up $1 million, and others were offering $17,000 plus a car.

Qureshi repeated the offer at rally later in the city to protest against the cartoons.

"If the West can place a bounty on Osama bin Laden ... we can also announce reward for killing the man who has caused this sacrilege of the holy prophet," Qureshi told Reuters, referring to the $25 million U.S. bounty on the al-Qaida leader's head.

He apparently did not realize that 12 cartoonists, not one, drew the drawings that have led to protests across the Muslim world

Earlier this month a Taliban commander in Afghanistan was reported as offering a bounty of 220 pounds of gold to anyone who killed a cartoonist who drew the pictures.

The commander, Mullah Dadullah, also offered 12 pounds of gold to anyone who killed a Danish, Norwegian or German soldier.

Protests over the cartoons have turned violent in several Pakistani cities this week and at least five people have died.

125 arrested
Also on Friday, police detained 125 protesters for violating a ban on rallies in eastern Pakistan and put a radical Islamist leader under house arrest, amid fears of more deadly demonstrations.

Police were ordered to restrict the movement of all religious leaders who might address any rallies and round up religious activists “who could be any threat to law and order,” a senior police official said in the main eastern city of Lahore.

In Multan, another city in Punjab province, about 300 police swooped down on 125 protesters who had gathered Friday morning at a traffic circle, calling themselves “slaves of the prophet” and trampling on a Danish flag, said Sharif Zafar, a police official.


Protesters shouted “Death to Musharraf!” as they were bundled into two police buses, referring to Pakistan’s leader, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

Zafar said they were being taken to a police station because they were violating a ban on rallies in Punjab — imposed after deadly riots in Lahore on Tuesday.

In Karachi, police fired tear gas and swung batons to disperse about 2,000 protesters, many wielding sticks, who blocked the main highway into the southern city, said Alim Jafari, a Karachi police official. The road was cleared and some 30 protesters were detained, he said.

Protests in Pakistan against the cartoons have turned violent this week. Five people have died in riots, and Western businesses have been vandalized and burned.

Wide protests
Demonstrations broke out in Muslim countries after newspapers in several European countries reprinted cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that were first published in Denmark in September. Islamic tradition frowns on any depiction of Muhammad, and the satiric nature of some of the Danish cartoons — such as one showing Muhammad’s turban as a bomb — further inflamed some Muslims.

In Hong Kong, thousands of Muslims, mostly Pakistanis, Indians, Indonesians and Sri Lankans living in the territory, angrily chanted slogans as they marched from a downtown mosque to the local office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

“Don’t play with our religion,” read a placard held up by a protester. “No double standards. We want justice!” read another.

Ghulam Mustafa, one of the organizers, said more than 3,000 people participated in the protest. Police put the figure at about 2,000.

The crowds dispersed peacefully after march leaders presented a U.N. representative with a petition condemning the cartoons as sacrilegious.


In Bangladesh, about 500 protesters marched through streets outside Dhaka’s main mosque, chanting “Down with Islam’s enemies.”

In Lahore, a spokesman for the radical group Jamaat al-Dawat said a heavy contingent of police arrived at the home of its leader, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, on Friday morning and told him he could not go outside. He was due to make a speech in Faisalabad, about 75 miles away, said the spokesman, Yahya Mujahid.

Lahore police chief Khawaja Khalid Farooq said 12,000 police and an unspecified number of paramilitary troops were guarding government and foreign installations, mosques and other public places like shopping centers, restaurants and cinemas.

Supporters of the radical Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s largest Islamic group, also planned to hold rallies in Karachi after midday prayers Friday, said Sarfaraz Ahmed, a spokesman for the anti-U.S. group.

More anti-cartoon protests were expected Friday in other Pakistani cities, including Rawalpindi, Quetta and Peshawar — the northwestern city ravaged by riots on Wednesday. Police were guarding multinational businesses and government buildings, witnesses said.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[Az]

there are no threats of violence to cartoonists

[aneeshm]

Not this one . There is a government minister in India who said this , and offered the said reward .

[rah]

The religion of peace.

[Arrian]

If the West can place a bounty on Osama bin Laden ... we can also announce reward for killing the man who has caused this sacrilege of the holy prophet," Qureshi told Reuters

See, flying jumbo jets into buildings and killing ~3000 people is morally equivalent to drawing bad cartoons.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Not this one . There is a government minister in India who said this , and offered the said reward .

Oh, really? Sorry, I had recently seen the article about the cleric and didn't read your post carefully enough.

-Arrian

[Az]

Yours does fit the bill, though, Arrian. :b

[MOBIUS]

I've decided that what freedom of speech actually stands for is:

The assumed righteous justification in being able to say increasingly stupid and outrageous things...

[Arrian]

That's part of it, MOBIUS. I mean, we don't censor your posts.

-Arrian

[Wezil]

Originally posted by rah
The religion of peace.

If we keep repeating it enough hopefully it will come true.

[Verto]

I for one look forward to the Great Danish Patriotic War: Middle East Campaign.

[BlackCat]

Do you know how difficult it is to find the right kind of oak trees so we can build a fleet ?

[Winston]

Right after the embassy burnings two weeks ago, some top religious dude in Afghanistan put out a bounty of 100 kilos of gold to the person or persons who killed "the people behind the blasphemous drawings".

The next day, Rasmus (last name omitted.. ), who made the drawing of Muhammed with a drawn sword and a black bar across his eyes, flanked by two women in burkhas, made a drawing for the paper of himself lying beside his wife in bed saying, "Honey, why do keep looking at me in such a funny way?", while you can see the wife is thinking about jewelry, fur coats, Mercedes limos etc.

[BlackCat]