Hundreds protest against Danish 'insult'

RELIGIOUS INSULT: Hundreds of Bahrainis have protested against the Danish media's reprinting of controversial cartoons. (Getty Images)

Hundreds of Bahrainis took to the streets of Budaiya on Saturday to protest against the Danish media’s reprinting of controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The protest was organised by the kingdom's Islamic Scholars Council, Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News reported on Sunday.

At least 17 Danish newspapers reprinted a controversial cartoon of Prophet Mohammed on February 13, vowing to defend freedom of expression, after police foiled a murder plot against the cartoonist.

Three of the country's biggest dailies were among those that published the cartoon, which depicts the founder of Islam with a bomb in his turban, a move which has infuriated Muslims across the world.

Sayed Mohammed, spokesperson for the protest, said the citizens of Bahrain were expressing their anger at the West’s “uncivilised behaviour towards the continuous insult of Prophet Mohammed”, quoted the newspaper.

Mohammed said the protest also aimed to express disapproval of the Islamic governments, who allowed such atrocities and did not defend their prophet.

The protest follows a condemnation by the Bahraini government of the drawing's publication on Thursday.

Bahraini MP’s formed a committee to discuss their response to the actions of the Danish media, and said they would fight those who mock Islam.

The publication of the cartoon has also sparked protests in Pakistan, Gaza, Iran and Denmark, which witnessed a week of riots by Danish Muslim youths.

Three men were arrested on February 12 in Denmark for planning to murder Kurt Westergaard, 73, a cartoonist at Jyllands-Posten, the paper that originally ran the controversial drawings in September 2005.

A number of Danish embassies were attacked and more than 50 people were killed in rioting across the Middle East, Africa and Asia following the original publication of the cartoons, first in the Danish press and subsequently by numerous media outlets around the world.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary-general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said on February 16 that the re-printing of the cartoons was ‘a blatant act of incitement to hatred’ and offensive to the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims.

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