Jordan Islamists demand Danish consulate expulsion

Jordanian Muslims have demanded the expulsion of the Danish consulate from Amman unless they offer an official apology for the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish newspapers.

Dozens of members of the Islamic Action Front (IAF) and the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood protested in the capital on Monday, the Jordan Times daily reported.

In a sit-in near Amman’s Danish consulate, the Islamists also urged Jordanians to boycott Danish products, saying reprinting the drawing was a deliberate insult and part of "the crusade by the West against Islam”.

Zaki Bani Rsheid, IAF secretary-general, said the protestors rejected the “repeated targeting of our prophet and religion", according to the newspaper.

Jordanian media outlets have also launched a campaign to protest the reprinting of the controversial cartoon, which depicts the founder of Islam with a bomb in his turban.

Independent newspapers and websites, including Islamists ones, will run a series of articles and editorials from Wednesday against attempts to distort Islam's image.

The Jordan sit-in also follows a march by hundreds of Bahrainis on Saturday to protest against the controversial cartoons.

At least 17 Danish newspapers reprinted a 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, a move which has infuriated Muslims across the world.

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.

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