Friday, 14 September, 2012 | 21:32 WIB
President Yudhoyono Slams Anti-Islam Movie
TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned an anti-Islam film which depicts the character of Prophet Muhammad as one who is violent and talks about killing children. As angry protests hit the streets of Jakarta on Friday, presidential aide for international relations Teuku Faizasyah said that President Yudhoyono condemned any and all forms of blasphemy, including those depicted in the movie which has already triggered worldwide protests. In Benghazi, US and Libyan officials are reeling from Tuesday’s attack linked to anger over the movie. The attack claimed the lives of the US ambassador in Libya and three other US officials. Protests have also spread across the Middle East and further, including in Indonesia, Malaysia, Kashmir, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Gaza Strip. Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa hopes that the incident in Libya will not be repeated elsewhere in the world, including in Jakarta.
In Bandung, West Java, Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) and a number of student organizations held protests outside the Sate Building on Friday, with HTI spokesman Luthfi Asandi stating that the demonstrations were in condemnation of the anti-Islam movie. “This is a form of humiliation to the Prophet Muhammad that has happened for the millionth time,” he said. According to him, his group really appreciates the government’s measures and efforts to block the broadcast of this movie, which was uploaded on YouTube.
Separately, the Indonesian Ulema Council, or the MUI, has asked all Indonesian Muslims to show restraint and not overreact to the film. MUI chairman Amidhan has publicly condemned the movie, but has reminded all Indonesians not to display an overreaction of emotions through conducting violent protests.
He demanded the person behind the making of this movie should be punished because it inspired hatred towards Islam. “Anyone who made that has to be punished,” he said. The Innocence of Muslims is a two-hour movie. This film was released on YouTube.
In other parts of the world, thousands raged against the movie. In Cairo, Muslims emerged from mosques following the weekly Friday main prayers to voice their anger at the film, which shows the Prophet Mohammed sleeping with women, talking about killing children and referring to a donkey as "the first Muslim animal."
In Khartoum, around 5,000 protesters stormed the embassies of Britain and Germany, which was torched and badly damaged, an AFP reporter said.
Police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters as several of them scaled the roof of the German embassy and others attacked its facade and tore down the flag to replace it with a black Islamist one, the reporter said.
They blocked the road to prevent the arrival of firefighters, prompting the security forces to fire more tear gas. Eventually the firefighters were able to reach the building and began to extinguish the blaze, as the crowd grew to around 10,000 and began heading towards the American embassy despite more tear gas fired by police.
In the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, a crowd of 300 Islamists attacked and set fire to a KFC restaurant, sparking clashes with police in which one person died and 25 were injured, an AFP correspondent and a security source said.
The attack on the US fast-food chain's outlet came as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Lebanon for a three-day visit, calling for Christian-Muslim coexistence and attacking religious extremism.
In the Yemeni capital Sanaa, security forces fired warning shots and water cannon to disperse crowds of protesters trying to reach the US embassy, an AFP correspondent said.
Security forces blocked all roads leading to the mission, after similar confrontations left four people dead on Thursday.
With much of the anger directed at the United States, where the film was made reportedly by a Coptic Christian and promoted by a rightwing pastor, Washington had earlier ordered security boosted at its embassies worldwide.
Protests in the region have been taking place since Tuesday, when US diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt were attacked by crowds who had come to learn of the online video.
Protesters in Cairo clashed with police outside the US embassy again Friday for a fourth straight day, although calm returned later after the Muslim Brotherhood withdrew a call for nationwide demonstrations, saying it wanted to avoid loss of life and damage to property.
Instead of the tens of thousands who had been expected to take to the streets of the capital, a few hundred protesters carrying banners and Islamic flags walked around Tahrir Square, the epicentre of Egyptian protests.
The Brotherhood's about-turn came after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said during a visit to Rome on Friday that the film is an "aggression" on Islam that distracts from the real problems of the Middle East.
"We cannot accept this type of aggression and attempt to sow discord. These irresponsible actions yield no good and draw attention away from real problems like the conflict in Syria, the fate of the Palestinians and the lack of stability in the Middle East," Morsi said.
In Iran, meanwhile, thousands of people yelling "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" rallied in the centre of Tehran to protest the anti-Islam film.
State television showed the crowd streaming out after Friday prayers at Tehran University in which a hardline cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Janati, blamed the United States for the crude film, which pokes fun at the Prophet Mohammed.
"It is a wonder how those running a country claiming to be a superpower become so stupid in taking such actions," he said.
"In their recent lunacy, they have made a movie --whose finances are said to be paid by the Zionists -- to insult the prophet," he said.
The crowd responded by chanting "Death to America."
The self-proclaimed producer of the film is Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year-old Copt living in California. It was promoted on the websites of two other Americans, extremist Christian pastor Terry Jones and another Copt, Washington-based lawyer Morris Sadek.
Nakoula told American Arabic-language Radio Sawa that he had no regrets about making the film.
"No, I do not regret it. I am saddened by the killing of the ambassador but I do not regret making it," he said on Thursday.
Both the State Department and the White House say there is nothing they can do to stop individuals producing inflammatory material because of freedom of speech laws enshrined in the First Amendment of the US constitution. UN leader Ban Ki-moon condemned the "hateful" anti-Islam film as deliberately intended to incite bigotry. TEMPO, AFP, AP