ISLAMABAD: Hard-line Islamists who started a march toward Pakistan’s capital to protest a far-right Dutch lawmaker’s plans to hold a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest have been stopped by police.
Some 10,000 supporters of the Tehreek-i-Labaik group, which helped Imran Khan to become prime minister following last month’s elections, set out on the march Wednesday, calling on him to cut ties with the Netherlands.
The party’s spokesman, Eijaz Ashrafi, says police halted the march on Thursday in Jhelum, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad. He says the protesters refuse to disperse, and that police will have to “kill us” to stop the march.
Physical depictions of the prophet are forbidden in Islam and deeply offensive to Muslims. Pakistan’s government has vowed to protest the contest at the UN
Pakistan blocks Islamist march against Dutch cartoon contest
Pakistan blocks Islamist march against Dutch cartoon contest
- Some 10,000 supporters set out on the march
- Physical depictions of the prophet are forbidden in Islam
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Meloni, Vance hail ‘shared values’ amid pre-Olympic protests
- Meloni said sport and religion were “values that keep together Italy and the US, Europe and the US, Western civilization“
- There has been anger in Italy ahead of the Games over the presence of some ICE agents
MILAN: US Vice President JD Vance and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, a fellow conservative, hailed their “shared values” on Friday ahead of the Olympics as hundreds protested against the US in Milan.
Prime Minister Meloni, one of the European leaders closest to President Donald Trump, said sport and religion were “values that keep together Italy and the US, Europe and the US, Western civilization.”
Vance praised Meloni for Italy’s organization of the Olympics and also welcomed “coming together around shared values.”
Meloni and Vance — a fervent Catholic who converted in 2019 — last met in Rome following the election last year of Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff.
There has been anger in Italy ahead of the Games over the presence of some agents from the US immigration enforcement agency ICE as part of security for the US delegation.
ICE operations in a number of US cities have triggered large-scale protests, and the recent killings of two demonstrators have caused outrage.
Hundreds of students from high schools and universities in Milan gathered in front of the Politecnico di Milano to protest against ICE.
“This is all unacceptable for us,” Leonardo Schiavi, a protester, told AFP, referring to Vance’s visit and the presence of ICE agents.
Giacomo Calvi said he was protesting the American “anti-immigration police which are carrying out all kinds of violence in the United States.”
The Italian government has said the ICE agents will not have any operational role on its soil.
The agents will be from ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations Unit, which is a different division from the one accused of violence in the US.
