KADUNA, Nigeria: Muslims continue protesting in several countries of Europe and Africa like Nigeria and Greece displaying anti-Western anger against the anti-Islam film and cartoons.
Thousands of people marched through the Nigerian city of Kaduna yesterday in the latest protest in the country’s mainly Muslim north against the anti-Islam film made in US.
The protests over the film in Africa’s most populous nation have so far been peaceful — apart from soldiers shooting into the air to disperse a crowd earlier this month — and no incidents were reported at yesterday’s protest.
Those protesting left behind graffiti on walls reading: “Death to the Americans, Death to the Israelites.”
The protest comes after a series of protests have taken place in Nigeria, a nation largely split between a Christian south and a Muslim north. All the demonstrations have been peaceful, though one protest was broken up by soldiers firing into the air.
The film, “Innocence of Muslims,” has sparked protests around the world. American leaders have denounced the film, which is protected under US free speech laws.
“I am on the street and it is just a sea of people. You actually can’t count. It is men, women and children denouncing the US and Israel,” said Shehu Sani a Kaduna-based activist.
The crudely-made film has stirred outrage across the world, with protests reported in more than 20 countries and over 50 people killed in attacks or demonstrations.
In Nigeria, where roughly half of the country’s 160 million people are Muslim, a pro-Iranian Shiite group called the Islamic Movement of Nigeria has organised major demonstrations in three key cities.
“We are holding this protest to express our outrage over the movie that blasphemed Islam,” said Mukhtar Sahabi, a protest organiser and member of the Islamic Movement, which was established in Nigeria in the late 1970s.
Some protesters dragged British, US and Israeli flags along the dusty streets as they marched through the northern, Muslim-dominated half of the city.
The low-budget film “Innocence of Muslims” was reportedly produced by an Egyptian Coptic Christian.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Kano on Saturday, Nigeria’s second city, stomping on American flags and burning pictures of US President Barack Obama.
Elsewhere, Greek riot police had a hard time dealing with anti-film protesters who clashed with officers Sunday during at a rally in Athens. No injuries were reported. Six people were detained. About 600 people attended the rally, which remained largely peaceful.
The crowd wanted to march to the US embassy, which is about three kilometers (two miles) away from Omonia Square where they were protesting. Some tried to break through police lines several times, but riot officers pushed them back.
The violence occurred at the end of the rally, when small groups of protesters threw objects at police. Three cars were damaged and three storefronts smashed.
Banners were displayed in English, denouncing the film and called on the US to hang the filmmaker.
Meanwhile, an appeals court in Swiss capital city of Stockholm has acquitted three men accused of plotting to murder a Swedish artist who had depicted the Prophet Muhammad as an animal.
Upholding a lower court’s ruling, the appeals court in Goteborg said there was no conclusive evidence that the three men of Iraqi and Somali origin had planned to kill Lars Vilks in September last year.
The men were carrying knives when they were arrested after inquiring about Vilks at an art exhibition where he had been expected to appear but did not do so.
