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THOUSANDS DEMONSTRATED ACROSS the world today and violent clashes erupted in Niger and Pakistan as Muslims vented fury over a new Prophet Mohammed cartoon published by French magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Four people were killed and 45 injured in protests in Niger’s second city of Zinder that turned violent with demonstrators ransacking three churches and torching the French cultural centre.
A doctor in the city’s hospital told AFP that all of the dead and three of the injured had gunshot wounds. “We’ve never seen that in living memory in Zinder,” a local administration official said. “It’s a black Friday.”
There was also bloodshed in Karachi, Pakistan, where three people were injured when protesters clashed with police outside the French consulate, officials said.
Among them was an AFP photographer, who was shot in the back.
As Muslims raged, with protesters in Dakar and Mauritania torching French flags, Qatar and Bahrain warned that the new Prophet Mohammed cartoon published Wednesday by the French satirical weekly could fuel hatred.
On the Muslim weekly day of prayers, thousands flooded the streets of Bamako, in response to calls by leading clerics and Mali’s main Islamic body, chanting “Hands off my prophet” and “I am Muslim and I love my prophet”.
In Amman, around 2,500 protesters set off from Al-Husseini mosque under tight security, holding banners that read “insulting the prophet is global terrorism.”
In Algiers, 2,000-3,000 marchers chanted “We are all Mohammed,” though some shouted their support for the Islamist Kouachi brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre and clashed with police.
The latest issue of Charlie Hebdo features a cartoon of Mohammed on its cover holding a “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) sign under the headline “All is forgiven.”
It was the first edition since brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi gunned down 12 people in an attack on the magazine’s Paris offices on January 7 over such cartoons.
The image has angered many Muslims as depictions of Mohammed are widely considered forbidden in Islam.
Algerian protesters chanted: “Kouachi martyrs” or “I am Kouachi” as the demonstration wound its way to the National Assembly, and some clashed with riot police deployed around the building.
French flags torched
AFP photographer Asif Hassan, a policeman and a local TV cameraman were injured in Karachi when clashes also broke out between police and protesters.
A police official said the violence began when police prevented some 350 protesters from approaching the French consulate, in the sprawling metropolis.
Elsewhere in Pakistan, protesters in Peshawar and Multan burnt French flags on the streets, while rallies were also held in Islamabad and Lahore.
In the capital of Senegal, police fired tear gas grenades to disperse about 1,000 protesters who chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) and torched a French flag.
In Nouakchott, thousands marched chanting “We are here to defend the prophet”. Some set fire to a French flag after security forces prevented them from reaching France’s embassy, witnesses said.
Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz addressed the marchers, condemning the controversial cartoon as “an attack on our religion and on all religions”.
In Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated quietly, some with banners reading “Islam is a religion of peace!”
In Khartoum, hundreds poured out of the Grand Mosque and marched across the adjacent square, chanting “Expel the French ambassador. Victory to the Prophet of God!”
In Lebanon’s flashpoint city of Tripoli, 70 people marched with banners bearing the name of the prophet and chanting.
In Baddawi, on the outskirts of the city, prayer leader Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahimi addressed hundreds of worshippers saying: “May God punish this newspaper and those who back it”.
In Tunis, worshippers at El-Fath mosque walked out as prayer leader Noureddine Khadmi said: “We are all against insults made against our prophet but it is not a reason to kill.”
Some of them cried out that Charlie Hebdo journalists “deserved to be killed because they insulted our prophet many times.”
Protests also erupted Friday in areas of conflict-hit Syria held by rebels and jihadists with demonstrators demanding “respect for religions,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A protest in Tehran was cancelled, with no official reason given, as senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ali Movahedi Kermani told worshippers the cartoon’s publication amounted to “savagery.”
‘Disgraceful’
Muslim governments also joined the chorus of condemnation of the cartoon.
Qatar branded as “offensive” the drawing, which was reprinted by several European papers in a show of solidarity with the victims of last week’s attack.
“These disgraceful actions are in the interest of nobody and will only fuel hatred and anger,” the foreign ministry warned.
Bahrain’s foreign ministry echoed that, saying publication of such cartoons “will create fertile ground for the spread of hatred and terrorism.”
Charlie Hebdo’s latest cartoon is “disgraceful” and no more than attempt to provoke Muslims and mock their beliefs, it said.
Both Qatar and Bahrain had sent representatives to a massive march in Paris last Sunday in support of free speech, alongside French President Francois Hollande and many other world leaders, including Muslims.
- © AFP 2015.
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I have only used windows 8 on friends laptops, I found it disastrous though. A nightmare to navigate and get around. Quite happy with windows 7 and I won’t be in a rush to change
Still with 7 myself, I see it’s included in the update.
Might just wait and see though, hopefully they’ve nailed it this time.
I upgraded to 8.1 as it’s part of the minimum requirements for Kinect for windows V2 only to discover that it’s heavy on USB3 bandwidth and the hardware isn’t up to it.
I have to say though, having used a windows tablet before I really don’t see what people are complaining about with Win 8.1 – I’ve come to the conclusion that people don’t like change and that’s the issue more than anything.
“Linux is for people who want to know why it works. Mac is for people who don’t want to know why it works. DOS is for people who want to know why it does not work. Windows is for people who don’t want to know why it does not work.”
If you like Windows 7 then you’ll love Windows 10. It’s like a fork in the tree, bringing the familiarity of Windows 7 to the performance and features of Windows 8.1, plus more. The UI stuff appears to have been sorted out, with desktops/laptops acting like updated Windows 7 desktops/laptops, and mobile devices focusing more on the “Modern” UI. Hybrid devices can adapt using a feature called Continuum. And best feature: it’s one Windows 10 across phone, tablet, laptop/desktop, and the TV (via Xbox One) with one common store, enabling devs to write for all devices at once using “Universal Apps”. That should prod The Journal to finally give us a native app ;-)
Nah Tony, that’s arse. OSX is also for people who know how the sausage is made but don’t want to make it every time. All the BSD you can eat and mainstream platform support.
Microsoft aren’t really losing revenue that can be expected in this age of platform agnosticism. You can’t even win in the OS market by giving superior product away.
If you can`t getr your head around the new look Windows 8/8.1 – look into a program called “Classic Shell” (free) – it will let you organise windows 8/8.1 into looking like windows 7 , easy to use and configure.
Start8 by Stardock. It’s totally seamless and has everything you need for a native feeling Windows 7 experience. I keep forgetting other Win8 machines don’t have it! The only remnant of Metro is the wifi sidebar. It costs a few quid but it’s perfect and made by a great little company.
Classic shell is great. Surprised few people know about it. So much unnecessary hate towards 8.1
Classic shell is free, where as Start8 is only free for 30days and $9.99 thereafter.
What’s gass about media coverage of tech industry is that they only focus on consumer products. Decline in sales of PC’s doesn’t affect their sales of their Server products and other enterprise software, which back in 2013 brought them in over $20billion in revenue (Windows Server, SQL Server, Exchange, Visual Studio/dev tools)
Windows 8 is a complete balls, the only good thing about it was its fast to load, but it’s a nightmare to use, If they kept the start button and give the option to switch over it wouldn’t be so bad. Windows 7 was grand
They gave the start button back in one of the updates. As for the metro interface if you spend 30 secs putting your programs in and learn the keyboard shortcut that have been a part of windows since at least 95. You find navigation much faster than 7. Also the search function on Windows 8 please you can just type what you what and get it. It people were willing to change a bit they would live how fast windows 8 makes everything.
For the record I hated 8 when I got it but after I used it for a month it and got used to it. I started to like it and then I when back to Windows 7 and found how slow things impossible to deal with.
Using windows 8.1 and it’s fine wouldn’t go back to windows 7 tbh, it’s a very Lean OS and flies along when installed on an ssd. Also I picked up the Microsoft Lumia 535 in Argos for €115 and have to say it’s an nice phone 5″ screen quad core no slowdown main apps are there like Facebook Twitter etc, no journal app but someone put up an unofficial app and it works fine. I did have a Moto G but it failed on calls the person who I was talking to voice would become garbled if the signal dropped a bar.
Windows 10 Technical Preview is worth a shot. Stepping back to go forwards. Start menu is enhanced by taking some design tips from Windows ’98 and the charms seem to be sleeping with the fishes.
Still, if you want to save money on system maintenance and have a better user Apple is still the only way to go.
Interesting comment from MS recently where they described Windows 10 as a service. Some eagle eyed commentators picked up on that. A service could mean a subscription based service similar to the model that Adobe have moved to. I’m on Win 7 and even though the upgrade to 10 is free for a year, I won’t move until I know its definitely non subscription based.
Do yourself a favour and dual boot it with Ubuntu. Trust me, you’ll hardly ever use Windows again.
Yep…Linux Mint being the best flavour of the day for newbies. I’ve put at least 15 people on it last year in dual boot and none of them have used Windows since. They all remark that their mental health has improved.
One less year of private education for the kids after that dip in share price today..
I thought I’d want to stay on 7 until they “fixed” things after the windows 8 fiasco but having in tried it I now really like it. I have it on the surface pro 3 also and I think it’s very good on that form factor.
I have 10 running on a laptop at present and have tried it on the surface. It’s excellent. 7 looks and feels antiquated at this stage.
I don’t see the need to buy into this idea of updating the software every year. It’s only a moneyspinner. I have used Windows 95 on my home PC and it is still going strong.
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