Lebanon Muslims protest film, cartoons amid death calls

Lebanese Muslims, Sunnis and Shiites, took to the streets on Friday to vent their anger over a US-made film and French cartoons mocking Islam. In the southern port city of Sidon, Sunni clerics called "a day of rage" against insults to the Prophet Mohammed but urged followers to contain their anger to inside their mosques. French schools were closed and the army was deployed at French institutions in Sidon, Beirut and the northern city of Tripoli, in anticipation of a backlash against the publication of obscene cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a French satirical magazine. Separately, thousands of supporters of the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah took to the streets after Friday prayers in the eastern city of Baalbek, an AFP correspondent said. The Sunni authority for Sidon and several clerics in Tripoli called for Saudi Arabia and Egypt's Al-Azhar -- the highest authorities in Sunni Islam -- to issue a fatwa condoning the murder of anyone associated with the film and for those who denigrate Islam or its prophet. "He who dares to insult Islam and the Prophet Mohammed shall not live. There are things that cannot be tolerated and insulting the Prophet Mohammed is one of them," Sheikh Maher Hammoud, imam of the Quds mosque, said during his sermon. "Every one of these should be killed." An AFP correspondent in Sidon said 300 people gathered at the mosque and that, after Friday's weekly Muslim prayers, protesters burned US and Israeli flags while chanting "Death to America, death to Israel!" In Tripoli, radical Islamist cleric Omar Bakri called on the "soldiers of Islam" to avenge the creators of the film and publishers of the cartoons, an AFP correspondent reported. Bakri asked fellow Muslims to support a fatwa that would make it "legitimate to kill those who have insulted the Prophet Mohammed." "I'm not in favour of the demonstrations that condemn, because they do more harm than good. They are not a solution to stop these continuous abuses against our religion; this can only happen with a strong response," Bakri said. Outside Tripoli, Sheikh Mustafa Malas decried the silence of Arab and Muslim officials toward their American and French counterparts. "Arab and Islamic countries must take a decisive stand against the United States and France after the insults to our Prophet, and boycott their goods," he said during his Friday sermon. "They have repeated these offensive behaviors ... Their actions amount to a war declared on Islam and they must not be surprised by reactions of reprisal." The correspondent reported seeing military vehicles and a large army and police presence outside the French high school and cultural mission in the northern city of Tripoli.The army has also stepped up security measures to protect the French ambassador's residence in Beirut with military vehicles. Protesters also burned American and Israeli flags outside a Beirut mosque, where troops were on guard nearby. A public demonstration called for by Sheikh Ahmad Assir, a controversial Sunni cleric, is set for 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) in downtown Beirut.