Police break up 'cartoons' protest with tear gas, batons

Police fired tear gas and baton-charged about 7,000 students protesting against the Prophet Mohammed cartoons today in north-western Pakistan.

The protest began in the morning when students began marching to universities in Peshawar, urging people to join their demonstration. The crowd threw stones at a Edwards College, breaking windows and causing other damage at the prestigious school founded by Christian missionaries during British colonial rule.

The protesters, whom police said totalled 7,000, also broke windows at the Peshawar Press Club.

Police fired tear gas and baton-charged the protesters when they tried to march on the provincial governor’s residence.

It was unknown whether many were wounded, but an Associated Press reporter saw students carrying away a classmate with an injured leg.

Batons and tear gas were used again when a group of students went to the city’s main business district and threw stones at shops. The protesters chanted, “Down with America” and “Down with Denmark”.

Several large rallies have been held across Pakistan recently. The latest came on Friday when thousands of people protested in the nation’s biggest cities.

People in the Islamic nation have been outraged by the cartoons originally printed in a newspaper in Denmark. Papers in other countries, mostly in Europe, reprinted them.

Muslims are angry because Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet. Under Pakistani laws, insulting the prophet or Islam’s holy book, the Koran, can be punished with the death sentence.