Thousands Of Muslim Protest Anti-Islam Film In Nigeria

Tens of thousands of
people on Saturday
protested on the streets
of Nigeria's second city of
Kano against an anti-
Islam film made in the US that has stirred outrage across the Muslim world.
An AFP reporter said the crowd of demonstrators stretched several
kilometres through the city, the largest in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, with
protesters shouting "death to America,
death to Israel and death to the enemies
of Islam".
The rally was organised by the Islamic
Movement of Nigeria, a pro-Iranian group
that adheres to the Shiite branch of Islam,
which has operated in Africa's most
populous country since the late 1970s.
"We are out today to express our rage and
disapproval over this blasphemous film,"
said Muhammed Turi, a protest leader and
member of the Islamic Movement that
organised a similar rally earlier this week
in the city of Zaria.
"This protest is also aimed at calling on
the US government to put a halt to further
blasphemy against Islam," he added.
Demonstrators carried pictures of US
President Barack Obama, as well as American and Israeli flags as they marched towards a palace owned by the
Emir of Kano, the top religious figure in
the city of roughly 4.5 million people.
Others were waving Iranian flags, the AFP
reporter witnessed. Police and military
personnel were deployed around the city.
"The prophet means everything to us. He
means more than our lives... Any
blasphemy against him is like an invitation
to war," said protester Husseini Ibrahim.
Turi also urged Nigeria's government to
publicly denounce the film and said all ties
with Israel should be severed.
The low-budget film "Innocence of
Muslims," was reportedly produced by an
Egyptian Coptic Christian, but rumours
that circulated shortly after its release
suggested an Israeli was involved.
The film incited a wave of bloody anti-
American violence in cities across the
Muslim world, with protests occurring in
more than 20 countries.
Thousands of Muslims protested in Zaria
on Thursday, burning US and Israeli flags.
The previous week in the religiously
divided central Nigerian city of Jos,
soldiers fired live rounds outside a
mosque to disperse a crowd of several
hundred that was seeking to demonstrate against the film.
Nigeria's 160 million people are roughly
divided between a predominantly Muslim
north and a largely Christian south, and
Muslim-Christian tensions have often led
to deadly confrontation.
An article in one of Nigeria's leading
newspapers in 2002 considered
blasphemous by Muslims helped spark
deadly riots in the northern city of Kaduna
in which 3,000 people were killed.