Cleric Offers Money To Kill Cartoonist

Friday, February 17, 2006

A so-called religious figure is offerring money to assasinate a cartoonist. This is Islam.

(CBS/AP) A Pakistani cleric offered a 1.5 million rupee reward and a car for anyone who kills the Danish cartoonist who drew Prophet Muhammad, while another Islamist leader was put under house detention, amid fears of more deadly demonstrations Friday, officials said.

Protests sparked by the Muhammad caricature continue in numerous cities around the globe. In Pakistan, thousands of security forces have been deployed to prevent unrest.

Police have arrested 125 protesters for violating a ban on rallies in eastern Pakistan and arrested 30 others after firing tear gas to disperse a protest in the southern city of Karachi.

Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi, prayer leader at the historic Mohabat Khan mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, announced at the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school that he leads would give a 1.5 million rupee reward and a car for killing the cartoonist of the Prophet pictures that appeared first in a Danish newspaper in September.