Angry protests over anti-Islam film spread to Pakistan

Hundreds of Pakistanis protesting an anti-Islam video broke through a barricade near the US consulate in the southern city of Karachi yesterday, sparking clashes with police in which one demonstrator was killed and more than a dozen injured.

The film, which denigrates Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, has sparked violent protests throughout the Muslim world in recent days, including one in Libya in which the US ambassador was killed.

Police fired tear gas and water cannon at the protesters in Karachi after they broke through the barricade and reached the outer wall of the US consulate, officer Mohammed Ranjha said.

Police and private security guards outside the consulate also fired shots in the air to disperse the crowd.

Ali Ahmar, a spokesman for the Shi’ite Muslim group that organised the rally, said one protester was killed.

An official with the main ambulance service in the city, Khurram Ahmad, confirmed they carried away one dead protester and 18 others who were injured.

All Americans who work at the consulate, located in the heart of Karachi, were safe, said Rian Harris, a spokeswoman for the US embassy in Islamabad.

At least 8,000 people also attended a rally against the film in the eastern city of Lahore yesterday, which was organised by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, believed to be a front organisation for a powerful militant group. The protesters shouted anti-US slogans and burned an American flag.

“Our war will continue until America is destroyed!” shouted some of the protesters. “Dog, dog, America is a dog!” chanted others.

The head of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, who has a $10m US bounty on his head, addressed the crowd, demanding the Pakistani government shut down the US embassy and all consulates in the country until the film makers are punished.

Around 4,000 people attended a demonstration near the north-west city of Dera Ismail Khan organised by the hard-line party Jamiat-Ulema-Islam.

Meanwhile, A semi-official religious foundation in Iran has increased a reward it had offered for the killing of British author Salman Rushdie to $3.3m from $2.8m, a newspaper reported.

Hardline Jomhoori Eslami daily and other newspapers reported yesterday that the move appeared to be linked to protests over the amateurish anti-Islam film.

The report said the 15 Khordad Foundation will pay the higher reward to whoever acts on the 1989 fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which called for the death of the author The Satanic Verses because the novel was considered blasphemous.