Vowing "Revenge against Crusaders who attack the symbol of
Islam", dozens of Jordanian Islamists burned the Danish flag to
protest the reprinting of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad
in Danish newspapers.
The Islamic Action Front, Jordan's main licensed opposition party
and the political offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, demanded the
government expel the Danish envoy until his government offered an
official apology.
"Oh government, expel the Danish ambassador: Oh Dane...listen the
Prophet is the symbol of our Islam. We will die for his sake and
eradicate anyone who humiliates him," chanted angry protesters in
the noisy sit-in near the Danish consulate in the capital
Amman.
The Islamists also urged Jordanians to boycott Danish products,
saying reprinting the drawings was a deliberate insult and part of
"the crusade by the West against Islam".
Muslims consider depictions of the Prophet Mohammad
offensive.
Protests and riots erupted in many Muslim countries in 2006 when
the cartoons, one showing the Prophet wearing a turban resembling a
bomb, first appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in
September 2005.
At least 50 people were killed and three Danish embassies
attacked.
The cartoon controversy returned this month after Denmark's five
major daily newspapers republished one of 12 drawings of the
Prophet that angered Muslims around the world two years ago.
The newspapers said they did so to protest a plot to murder one of
the cartoonists who originally published the drawings.
Sheikh Hamza Mansour, a leading Islamist deputy in parliament,
warned the repeated republication of the cartoons on "such a scale
despite the past reaction would only stoke the fire of fanaticism,
deepen hatreds and showed lack of respect by the West towards
Muslims".
There have been protests or warnings to Denmark because of the new
drawings in several countries, including Egypt, Iran, and in the
Palestinian territories.
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