ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government distanced itself yesterday from a $100,000 bounty offered by a Cabinet minister for the death of the maker of an anti-Islam film that has sparked protests across the Muslim world.
Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour invited members of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda to take part in the “noble deed,” and said given the chance he would kill the filmmaker with his own hands.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf rejected Bilour’s comments, made on Saturday, a day after angry protests across Pakistan against the “Innocence of Muslims” left 21 people dead and more than 200 injured. “This is not government policy. We completely dissociate (ourselves) from this,” the spokesman told AFP.
More than 50 people have died in protests and attacks around the world linked to the low-budget film which mocks Islam, since the first demonstrations on Sept. 11.
Nationwide rallies against the movie mobilized more than 45,000 people on Friday, which the government had made a public holiday to allow people to protest, though numbers were comparatively low in a country of 180 million people. Police used tear gas and live rounds to fight back protesters, many of them members of right-wing religious parties and supporters of banned terror groups, as they attacked shops and cinemas in Karachi and Peshawar and tried to reach Western embassies in the capital.
Bilour, a member of the Awami National Party (ANP), a key partner in the fragile coalition government led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) announced the bounty on Saturday.
“I announce today that this blasphemer who has abused the holy prophet, if somebody will kill him, I will give that person a prize of $100,000,” he told reporters in Peshawar.
“I also announce that if the government hands this person over to me, my heart says I will finish him with my own hands and then they can hang me.”
The producer of the film, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is reported to be a 55-year-old Egyptian Copt and convicted fraudster, based in Los Angeles and currently out on parole.
In Bangladesh, most schools, shops and offices were closed yesterday as opposition parties enforced a nationwide strike to protest against the film.
Thousands of police patrolled the capital Dhaka and roads were quiet across the country on what is normally a business day in the Muslim-majority country of 153 million people.
About 40 activists were briefly detained after they tried to barricade a main road and threw bricks at police, local Dhaka police chief Abul Kashem told AFP.
In Chittagong, Bangladesh’s second largest city and only port, protesters torched a bus and damaged a police van, police said, adding that three students had been arrested.
In Hong Kong, thousands of Muslims staged protests against the anti-Islam film and French cartoons yesterday, briefly scuffling with police as they tried to deliver a letter to the US consulate.
The protesters, who numbered more than 3,000 according to police and organizers, held up banners to denounce the film and cartoons as they marched through the city chanting “Allahu akbar” or “God is greater”.
The group, including women in headscarf and children, briefly clashed with police as they tried to break through a cordon outside the US consulate to deliver a petition letter, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
“Freedom of speech should not be used against any religion,” Saeed Uddin of the Incorporated Trustees of the Islamic Community Fund of Hong Kong, a group that claims it represents some 300,000 Muslims in the city, said before the march.
“This is not the first time that our Holy Prophet has been insulted and attacked,” he said, branding the cartoons and the film as “malicious, disrespectful and derogatory”.
Uddin, a Pakistani who has lived in the southern Chinese city for 35 years, urged the American and French governments to take action against the filmmaker and cartoonist who are behind the controversial works.
Pakistan government rejects bounty on filmmaker
Pakistan government rejects bounty on filmmaker
Anger over Minneapolis shooting probe fuels protests
- Federal immigration officers armed with pepperball guns and tear gas clashed with the noisy crowd
- After he passes in front of the car, another agent can be heard ordering Good to exit the vehicle before she tries to drive off and shots ring out
MINNEAPOLIS: Local officials in Minneapolis slammed federal agencies Friday for excluding them from the probe into an immigration officer’s fatal shooting of a woman, as public outrage grew ahead of planned weekend protests.
Officials in the midwestern state of Minnesota said their law enforcement agencies have been excluded from the investigation into the killing of motorist Renee Good by a federal immigration officer on Wednesday.
A local prosecutor said Friday that federal investigators had taken Good’s car and the shell casings from the scene.
The Trump administration has sought to paint the victim as a “domestic terrorist,” insisting that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot her was acting in self-defense.
Cell phone footage apparently taken by the officer who fired the fatal shots shows him interacting with Good as he approaches and circles her car, and her saying, “I’m not mad at you.”
After he passes in front of the car, another agent can be heard ordering Good to exit the vehicle before she tries to drive off and shots ring out.
The White House insisted the video gave weight to the officer’s claim of self-defense — even though the clip does not show the moment the car moved away, or him opening fire.
“This is not the time to bend the rules. This is a time to follow the law... The fact that Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice and this presidential administration has already come to a conclusion about those facts is deeply concerning,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, told a briefing on Friday.
“We know that they’ve already determined much of the investigation,” he said, adding that the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, within its department of public safety, has consistently run such investigations.
“Why not include them in the process?” Frey said.
On Thursday, US Vice President JD Vance said that the ICE officer, named in US media as Jonathan Ross, had “absolute immunity” — a claim disputed by local prosecutors.
Court filings seen by AFP showed that in June 2025, Ross was dragged 100 yards along a road by a car driven by a man who was the subject of immigration enforcement activity.
“When the FBI, when the federal agencies, say they won’t share evidence with the local authorities, the public can’t trust that it’s going to be a true, transparent investigation,” said local Patrick O’Shaughnessy, 43.
- ‘Get out’ -
Minnesota officials have said that local investigators were initially invited by the FBI to participate in the inquiry into the shooting of Good, but were subsequently blocked from taking part.
Good, 37, was shot in the head as she apparently tried to drive away from ICE in the Midwestern US city as officers approached her car, which they said blocked their way.
Good was one of four people who have been killed by ICE since Trump launched his immigration crackdown.
Good’s wife Becca Good told local media that they had gone to the scene of immigration enforcement activity to “support our neighbors.”
“We had whistles. They had guns,” she said.
Local prosecutor Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, said “our goal must be that a thorough investigation is completed at the local level.”
“The FBI currently has, for example, Ms Good’s car, the shell casings and witness interviews.”
Moriarty unveiled an online evidence portal, calling for submissions so that all available leads could be compiled.
She added that she hoped federal authorities would reconsider and “at least” give local detectives access to evidence.
Protest action continued Friday with hundreds gathering at a federal facility that has become a focal point of anti-ICE demonstrations with at least one detention seen.
Federal immigration officers armed with pepperball guns and tear gas clashed with the noisy crowd.
There were some 1,000 weekend protest gatherings planned across the United States, according to organizers.
“You can’t trust anything that (the Trump administration) say, they have their own agenda, and I think they’re drunk on power quite clearly,” said master gardener Kate Netwal, 66.
