Cartoon protests intensify as Syrians burn embassies

DAMASCUS, Syria – Thousands of Syrians enraged by caricatures of Islam’s revered prophet torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus on Saturday – the most violent in days of furious protests by Muslims in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

In Gaza, Palestinians marched through the streets, storming European buildings and burning German and Danish flags. Protesters smashed the windows of the German cultural center and threw stones at the European Commission building, police said.

Iraqis rallying by the hundreds demanded an apology from the European Union, and the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas called the cartoons “an unforgivable insult” that merited punishment by death.

Pakistan summoned the envoys of nine Western countries in protest, and even Europeans took to the streets in Denmark and Britain to voice their anger.

At the heart of the protest: 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad first published in Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten in September and reprinted in European media in the past week. One depicted the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship when it came to Muslim issues.

The drawings have touched a raw nerve in part because Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.

Aggravating the affront, Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said repeatedly he cannot apologize for his country’s free press. But other European leaders tried Saturday to calm the storm. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel said she understood Muslims were hurt – though that did not justify violence.

Denmark and Norway did not wait for more violence.

With their Damascus embassies up in flames, the foreign ministries advised their citizens to leave Syria without delay.

“It’s horrible and totally unacceptable,” Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said on Danish public television Saturday.

No diplomats were injured in the Syrian violence, officials said. But Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds – whose country, along with Chile, has an embassy in the same building – said she would lodge a formal protest over the lack of security.

The demonstrations in Damascus began peacefully with protesters gathering outside the building housing the Danish Embassy. But they began throwing stones and eventually broke through police barricades. Some scrambled up concrete barriers protecting the embassy, climbed into the building and set a fire.

Demonstrators moved on to the Norwegian Embassy about four miles away, also setting fire to it before being dispersed by police using tear gas and water cannons.