The mayor of Malmö has slammed an upcoming exhibition of work by controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, saying he hoped no one would visit the gallery to see artwork he said was "associated with xenophobes".
"Of course he has the right to display what he calls art anywhere he wants," Mayor Ilmar Reepalu told the TT news agency. "But as far as I can gather, this is pretty bad art and I think they want to use the gallery for political ends," he added. "Vilks is increasingly associated in people's minds with xenophobic groups at the far right of the political spectrum. I hope not a single person visits the gallery."
Vilks has faced numerous death threats since his drawing of the Muslim prophet with the body of a dog was first published by Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda in 2007. It was published to illustrate an editorial on free speech.
The new paintings of Mohammed would show the prophet – still with a dog's body – transplanted into famous works by artists including Claude Monet, Peter Paul Rubens and Anders Zorn, Vilks told the AFP news agency.
Vilks told TT that he was pleased that his art has been given the green light by curator Henrik Rönnquist. "It's a breakthrough that he dares to put these paintings on show now. I am not trying to kick up a stink, I'd sooner get rid of all the drama. People should be able to criticize Islam," Vilks said.
The show's curator said that he is prepared to tackle the safety concerns, in order to stand up for free speech, democracy, and religious freedom.
Vilks was last in the news in September when he was a star speaker at Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer's anti-Islam conference in New York. As a result a Swedish art gallery cancelled a planned exhibition of his work.
Vandals have targeted a French mosque in a graffiti attack, tagging the worship centre with swastikas and anti-Islam slogans, officials said Sunday.
The attack was discovered by worshippers arriving for morning prayer at the mosque in Ozoir-La-Ferrière, a small town 35 kilometres (20 miles) east of Paris.
Photographs of the mosque show at least two swastikas painted on the facade, as well as an explicit anti-Islam slogan and "Long Live Gaul," the ancient Roman-era name for France.
Police were investigating the incident.
In the eastern city of Besançon, two mosques were also vandalised, where the Star of David had been painted on the walls.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls condemned the attacks "with the utmost severity" and called them "foul and hateful."
According to statistics from an Islamic monitoring organisation, 201 anti-Islam attacks were recorded in France last year, up 28 percent on 2011.
Robert Spencer and friendsThe Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester rescinded an invitation Wednesday to Robert Spencer, a Catholic whose work depicts Islam as an inherently violent religion, to speak at its annual Catholic Men's Conference in March.
The invitation was withdrawn after Muslims in Massachusetts expressed concerns to the diocese about the appearance of Spencer, scheduled to be a featured speaker at the DCU Center on March 16.
Spencer is director of the blog Jihad Watch and a leader of the American Freedom Defense Initiative and Stop Islamization of America, both of which are seen as anti-Muslim groups by some organizations that monitor extremism.
His books include "Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs," "The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion," and "Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics." On his blog, he has argued that jihad is a central tenet of the faith.
After the Globe sought comment on his scheduled appearance from the diocese and from Muslim organizations Wednesday, the Islamic Council of New England sent an e-mail urging Catholic leaders to cancel Spencer's appearance. The diocese agreed to do so shortly after receiving the e-mail.
"Although the intention of the conference organizers was to have a presenter on Islam from a Catholic's perspective, we are asking Robert Spencer to not come to the Worcester Catholic Men's Conference, given that his presence is being seen as harmful to Catholic–Islamic relations both locally and nationally," Raymond Delisle, a spokesman for the diocese, said in a statement issued to the Globe.
The decline and break-up of the English Defence League has prompted a number of extremist groupings to try and establish a replacement anti-Islam street movement. While their stated aim is invariably to unite the far right, all they have succeeded in doing so far, thankfully, is contributing to its further fragmentation.
One of these groups is the English Volunteer Force, which was launched in July last year. It shares the EDL's rabid Islamophobia along with its lightminded attitude to the English language. As the EVF's mission statement explains: "We are convinced this country is currently being Islamified, This is apparant with recent immigration pattern's over the past 20 years, Also our food chain is being exploited & overran by the flood of cheap Halal meat being covertly sold in most supermarket's, In our opinion this need's to be governed much stronger."
Yesterday the EVF held its first public event, a demonstration in Birmingham "against the Islamification of Great Britain", which featured Tony Curtis, formerly a leading figure in the EDL, as a guest speaker. Reports by far-right sympathisers claimed an attendance of 150-200, although photographic evidence suggests that the actual figure was much smaller. The police estimate was 50.
Nor did the demonstration last very long. The Birmingham Mail reported: "The group continued their protest for 30 minutes until a cry of 'Let's all go to the Brasshouse' – a pub on Birmingham's Broad Street – was heard, and the demonstrators dispersed."
The British far right in its natural habitat – the English Volunteer Force in Birmingham
The decline and break-up of the English Defence League has prompted a number of extremist groupings to try and establish a replacement anti-Islam street movement. While their stated aim is invariably to unite the far right, all they have succeeded in doing so far, thankfully, is contributing to its further fragmentation.
One of these groups is the English Volunteer Force, which was launched in July last year. It shares the EDL's rabid Islamophobia along with its lightminded attitude to the English language. As the EVF's mission statement explains: "We are convinced this country is currently being Islamified, This is apparant with recent immigration pattern's over the past 20 years, Also our food chain is being exploited & overran by the flood of cheap Halal meat being covertly sold in most supermarket's, In our opinion this need's to be governed much stronger."
Yesterday the EVF held its first public event, a demonstration in Birmingham "against the Islamification of Great Britain", which featured Tony Curtis, formerly a leading figure in the EDL, as a guest speaker. Reports by far-right sympathisers claimed an attendance of 150-200, although photographic evidence suggests that the actual figure was much smaller. The police estimate was 50.
Nor did the demonstration last very long. The Birmingham Mail reported: "The group continued their protest for 30 minutes until a cry of 'Let's all go to the Brasshouse' – a pub on Birmingham's Broad Street – was heard, and the demonstrators dispersed."
The British far right in its natural habitat – the English Volunteer Force in Birmingham
A British university has established a dedicated centre to study the extremist far right, with a particular focus on the increase in violent anti-Islamic sentiment and the possibility of a lone, Anders Behring Breivik style attack.
The Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies at Teesside University will be formally launched later this month at an event marking National Holocaust Memorial Day. Beginning with two academics, Professor Nigel Copsey and Dr Matthew Feldman, the centre will specialise in both the history of far-right radicalism in this country, and current trends and dangers.
The two main UK public fronts for far-right sentiment, the British National party and the street-based, anti-Islam English Defence League, are both in apparent decline. The BNP has lost almost all its council seats, and last autumn one of its two MEPs, Andrew Brons, publicly quit, saying the party had shed 90% of its membership. The leader of the EDL, meanwhile, was jailed this month for travelling to the US using someone else's passport.
Feldman, a historian by background, said organisations such as the EDL, which began in Luton in response to anti-armed forces demonstrations by hardline Islamist groups, tended to fizzle out: "You can only mobilise people to come out on a Saturday and shout slogans for a couple of years. Then people will say, I've been to five of these demonstrations, they're getting smaller, my chance of getting arrested is getting bigger. Then you get fragmentation."
However, he argued, this should not obscure a more gradual shift from race-based far-right activism towards "cultural nationalism", notably against Islam. He said: "For the first time since, I believe, the National Front in the late 70s and early 80s, the far right is really going for popular support. It's moving out into the mainstream, with some success."
The Guardian reports that French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo will this week release a special edition illustrated biography of the prophet Muhammad.
Its editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, told Agence France-Presse that the Life of Muhammad would be "perfectly halal" because it was a compilation of all that had been written about the prophet in the past by Muslim writers and Charlie Hebdo had "simply put it into images".
As the Guardian points out: "Charlie Hebdo, which must sell 30,000 issues of its weekly magazine from news-stands to keep afloat, has routinely seen sales double or magazines sell out each time it has run controversial cartoons of Muhammad."
PVV leader Geert Wilders is to step up his campaign against Islam in 2013, the parliamentarian told Nos television in an interview.
The fight against Islam is a mission for life, Wilders told the broadcaster. Wilders said he would step up his fight against "the biggest sickness" the Netherlands has had at home and internationally, "from Australia to America, from Switzerland to wherever".
Wilders also again renewed his statement that the Netherlands has a "Moroccan problem". It is Moroccan racism that they rarely rob each other, Wilders said.
Last week, Muslims nationwide were urged to take action against HB 4769, better known as the Anti-Islam Legislation.
State Legislator Dave Agema, a Republican from Michigan, was the state representative behind this bill, and actively pushing for it to pass during Michigan's lame duck session.
CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, had their state-wide chapters calling on "all people of conscience" to urge their state governors "to veto the biased bill which is among those that seek to impose government-sanctioned discrimination on followers of a minority faith."
Bill HB 4769 was officially denied Monday. "We welcome the decision of the MI GOP House leadership for not bringing to the floor for vote the so-called 'anti-Sharia bill' against the wishes of one of its own influential party members," said CAIR-MI Executive Director Dawud Walid.
Rep. Agema, who has a history of making controversial comments relating to Muslims, recently stated, "We have the largest concentration of Muslims in the state in the Dearborn area. I know we have (sleeper) cells there. That is what I really want to get at."
Rep. Agema is known to not back down from such comments. In an interview with the Grand Rapids Press, in his explanation of why he feels the bill is important, he said, "They (Muslims) want specific laws applied to their specific groups … They do not want to be under our law."
Though Agema is term limited and will not be able to formally re-introduce this or any such legislation in the future, he was however voted this year to serve as the Republican National Committeeman for Michigan.
"We hope that the MI GOP will continue to eschew any anti-Islam and anti-immigrant views while Agema serves as National Committeeman for their party," said Walid.
About 40 people gathered for an anti-Islam demonstration in Oslo, and were met with jeers and chants of "no Nazis on our streets" from a larger group of counterdemonstrators.
The protest was staged by the Norwegian Defence League, a group inspired by the larger English Defence League, which has carried out rowdy anti-Islam protests in Britain. The defence leagues say they're not racists but "patriots" opposing a perceived Islamization of Europe.
Police spokesman Finn Belle said Saturday's demonstration was peaceful and police successfully kept the two sides apart. He said three counterdemonstrators were detained for disturbing the peace and were fined before being released.
The anti-racist website Vepsen reports that the NDL demonstration was addressed by Steve Simmons (Chris Redmond), head of the English Defence League's European operation. Vepsen counted 47 people at the rally. By contrast, the counter-protest drew several hundred participants.
The outspoken blogger and Executive Director of the American Freedom Defense Initiative has just purchased a slew of advertising space in several subway stations and on numerous Metro-North platforms in order to display her newest anti-Islam message.
Her latest ads, shared exclusively with The Observer, will feature a panorama of the sky the moment the World Trade Center burst into flames in 2001, accompanied by a quote from the Quran that reads "Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers."
However, an MTA disclaimer taking up 25% of the ad space will be presented in conjunction with Ms. Geller's message for the first time. "This is a paid advertisement sponsored by American Freedom Defense Initiative. The display of this advertisement does not imply MTA's endorsement of any views expressed," it reads.
The MTA's new disclaimer policy came in September of this year following an incident in which protestor Mona Eltahawy, 45, was filmed spray-painting another AFDI advertisement, which equated Muslims with savages.
Following the September incident, Ms. Geller has been busy crafting new advertisements for her campaign beginning December 17. The new ads will be plastered across at least 50 different locations, the MTA confirmed, the result of an ad buy worth more than $10,000.
"I refuse to abridge my free speech so as to appease savages," Ms. Geller told The Observer.
A coalition of 11 major American Muslim organizations today called on the Republican Party to reach out to Muslim voters by rejecting anti-Islam bias and discriminatory legislation.
At a noon news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., the coalition announced the publication of a full-page advertisement in the conservative Washington Times newspaper outlining recent examples of intolerant speech and actions by Republicans and offering recommendations to help improve GOP relations with the Muslim community.
That open letter to the GOP states in part:
"We are writing to offer an open invitation to reassess your party's current relationship with American Muslims. As with other demographics, American Muslim support for Republicans has dropped precipitously in recent years. This shift away from the GOP is not set in stone, but its future direction is dependent on choices your party makes."
Recommendations for GOP leaders outlined in the open letter include:
• The party establishment should speak out strongly against biased speech within its ranks.
• The party should make a concerted effort to engage Muslim voters.
• The party establishment should oppose efforts to pass discriminatory legislation.
• The party establishment should reject any member's effort to use official public forums to smear a minority.
• Party officials should end the persistent witch-hunt targeting legally operating Muslim institutions.
The coalition's letter concludes by stating:
"Let us all work together to maintain America's leadership in support of emerging democracies and the rule of law worldwide by promoting the humanitarian principles enshrined in our Constitution's Bill of Rights. May God Almighty bless the United States of America."
Signatories to the open letter include:
American Muslim Alliance (AMA), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), ICNA Council for Social Justice (CSJ), The Mosque Cares (Ministry of W. Deen Mohammed), Muslim American Society Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (MAS-PACE), Muslim Ummah of North America MUNA), Pakistan American Democratic Forum (PADF), United Voices
A similar statement of American Muslim concerns will be addressed to the Democratic Party in the near future.
Last month, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, released the results of an informal exit poll indicating that more than 85 percent of American Muslim voters picked President Obama in the November 6 election.
Some 6,000 members of the Sweden Democrats will be receiving an anti-Islam newspaper at the end of the month, courtesy of the party. "Dispatch International is a paper that plays an important role in the societal debate," MP and editor in chief for the Sweden Democrat paper SD–Kuriren, Richard Jomshof, told local paper Sydsvenskan.
The publication, which is connected to the Swedish anti-Islam group "Freedom of the Press Society" (Tryckfrihetssällskapet), recently featured an article where a professor argues that the Muslim call to prayer should not only be seen as that but also as a threat. The Freedom of the Press Society has previously also posted anti-Semitic comments on its Facebook page.
As the paper will be sent together with the existing Sweden Democrat publication, the party will pay for postage. "There are many connections between us and the Freedom of the Press Society, both personal and ideological. The paper will be sent as a supplement to our paper, so it won't cost a lot extra," said Jomshof to Sydsvenskan.
Jomshof told the paper that he doesn't think that sending the publication along with the Sweden Democrat paper is in any way in breach of the party's recent zero-tolerance policy against racism. "The newspaper can hardly be seen as racist. Not all Muslims are of the same race," Jomshof told the paper.
The International Free Press Society which publishes Dispatch International is headed by Lars Hedegaard, the notorious Danish Islamophobe who was convicted of inciting racial hatred as a result of an interview in which he described Muslims as morally depraved rapists. Last year a former member of the IFPS board, James Cohen, was appointed head of the English Defence League's Jewish Division.
For further background, see Torbjörn Jerlerup, "Dispatch International: CounterJihad publishes a paper", Loonwatch, 6 September 2012
A court in Moscow ruled Monday that an anti-Islam film that has sparked violent demonstrations around the world can no longer be shown in Russia.
Tverskoi court's ruling follows a similar local decision taken last week by a court in Grozny, the provincial capital of Russia's Muslim-dominated province of Chechnya.
In Moscow, Justice Ministry spokeswoman Marina Gridneva said the film was deemed extremist because it could incite ethnic and religious hatred.
Russia's communications minister had warned that authorities would bar access to YouTube if its owner, Google Inc., failed to abide by a court order to block access in this nation to the U.S.-produced film, which mocks Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad.
Google in Russia has said it could restrict access to the video, if it received a court order outlawing it, but the company declined to discuss that issue with The Associated Press on Monday evening.
The low-budget film, "Innocence of Muslims," was produced by a U.S. citizen and denigrated the Prophet Muhammad by portraying Islam's holiest figure as a fraud, womanizer and child molester.
The RIA-Novosti news agency quoted mufti Shafig Pshikhachev, head of the Coordination Center of Muslims in the North Caucasus, as welcoming Monday's court ruling in Moscow.
"This is a positive step in defense of believers," Pshikhachev said. "Unfortunately, we are witnessing such events regularly, so I think the adoption of a law is good. We need a legal method of protecting the faithful and our holy places."
The festival that has become a staple in the tight-knit Orange County Arabic community for nearly 20 years has become a place of protest outside the event gates but inside, the party goes on.
By day, families play games, take their children on rides and peruse aisles of Middle Eastern cuisine and hookah tents at the Arab American Day Festival in Garden Grove. When night falls, music will overwhelm the venue on Main Street, a dance party will ensue and, according to some, the protests will begin.
Friday night drew heated controversy outside the gates between festival-goers and a group carrying signs disparaging the prophet Muhammad and passing out Bibles. Police said no arrests were made Friday and about 30 officers were at the festival on Saturday, the night expected to draw the largest crowds.
Festival organizer and founder Ahmad Alam said the protesters stood with a microphone and signs yelling anti-Islamic sayings. One of the signs reportedly used a phrase from the anti-Muslim movie that has sparked riots at U.S. embassies across the world and resulted in the death of a U.S. ambassador and several others.
But Alam said this is nothing he hasn't seen before. Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Alam said the festival has seen its share of anti-Muslim groups outside their festival. "Our people are used to this," he said.
More than 1,000 rallied Friday night in Dearborn against the anti-Islam movie that has sparked protests around the world. Organized by Arab-American leaders, the rally was the third protest in metro Detroit over the movie, the biggest one yet.
"Say No to Hate-Mongering, Say No to Islamophobia," read a large banner at the rally in Dearborn's civic center, the Ford Performing Arts & Community Center. On the podium was a sign that read: "We (heart symbol) Prophet Muhammad."
Many came with their families to the rally, dressed in Islamic headscarves and robes. Speakers included Muslim leaders, Arab-American activists, a Unitarian minister, U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Detroit), Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Halloran, and civil rights leaders.
"United we stand, divided we fall," Donnell White, executive director of the Detroit branch of the NAACP, told the crowd. "We stand with you as our brothers and sisters."
Judge Halloran spoke about his Irish Catholic roots, noting that his ethnic group often suffered discrimination decades ago after they arrived in the U.S. They "were not looked at positively," he said. And now, Muslims are facing bias that needs to be challenged, Halloran said. "We need to speak out against discrimination against Islam," he said.
Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab-American News, told the crowd that the people who made the anti-Islam film "are not (true) Americans. They are against what America stands for."
Tarek Baydoun, an attorney from Dearborn, said "the growing tide of Islamophobia" is what prompted the rally. "It's relentless," Baydoun said of anti-Islam sentiment in the U.S.
For an example of the refusal among some Americans to address the issues intelligently and with some basic honesty, see Henry Payne, "Dearborn Muslims rally against the First Amendment", Detroit News blog, 28 September 2012
According to Payne, Osama Siblani's call for "deterrent legal measures against those individuals or groups that want to damage relations between people, spread hate and incite violence" amounts to a blasphemy law.
The cancellation of Saturday's planned rally in Melbourne against Islamophobia didn't prevent people turning up to denounce Islam. The small anti-Islam protest brought together atheists brandishing signs reading "(Like all religions) Islam is false" and fascist thugs wearing SS insignia. The latter included Nationalist Alternative, a neo-Nazi group who reject opportunist attempts to win popular support by targeting Islam alone and uphold the right of white Australians to abuse and insult Muslims and Jews equally.
Muslim around the world have been deeply hurt by the recent filming of anti-Islam film which depicted a false image of the beloved Prophet (peace and blessings upon him), the video circulated over the internet and got attention of the Muslims when its subtitles were poste din Arabic and were sent to Egyptian journalists. Such humiliation done by this American movie activity provoked Muslim world to stand up and united against this piece of non-sense., this hurt Muslims not emotionally but also aesthetically. The series of protests are on the verge in all Muslim countries lately.
Violent rage has been spreading all over the Muslim world, Afghanistan has now been in its folds, Muslims didn’t behaved cowardly and presented their courage and bravery to the world. Hundreds of the people came out on the streets, stormed the cars and vehicles, burnt the tyres and spoke up against the sprawling impact of the movie.
The movie is called “innocence of the Muslims” which has been blocked in all Muslim countries. “In Washington, the White House acknowledged that it had sought to discourage distribution of the video that sparked the protests but insisted that it had made no formal request to the video-sharing Web site YouTube, which is owned by Google. Tommy Vietor, the National Security Council spokesman, said the White House had asked YouTube “to review whether it violates their terms of use.’’ Google said this week that it had blocked access to the video in Egypt and Libya.”
The protests are not stopping in the Muslim world, it’s the fouth day in Afghanistan that protests continue to happen, earlier the intensity was quiet low but today it seemed to cover a larger space. “The people are going to raise their voice to show we are not silent. With the last breath in our body we will be against those who are insulting to our religion and prophet,” said Haji Samar Gul, an 80-year-old protester at the Kabul demonstration. “We shouted death to America, death to supporters of America, death to slaves of America.”
A few protesters carried guns, and eyewitnesses claimed they opened fire several times, but police said they resisted responding with their own weapons even though officers were injured by rocks.
“The police did not open fire at all, we used other techniques to control the protest,” said the city police chief, Ayub Salangi, who was among those hit by the protesters.
Muslims have presented a strong picture of unity around the world, they have stood up united and strong and left no stone unturned in condemning the ruthless gesture of the makers of the American film. Anti-U.S. protests spread to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Britain, East Jerusalem, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, the West Bank and Yemen, according to U.S. officials and news reports, with many protesters chanting religious slogans and railing against the denigration of Islam in the obscure low-budget video.”
There has not been any apology been received by U.S. and protests begin to happen in the Muslim world even today.
Many times we have seen that, Muslims have been living in the western world to avail different opportunities of earning livelihood, western world, modernity — but they have not merged well and not created peace with each other. To understand why violence keeps erupting and to seek to prevent it, we must discern what fuels this sense of grievance.
Arabs have a huge history associated with themselves as they had fought many battles with anti-Islam people. Whenever there is any claim made in US or anywhere in the westernworld, it instantly angers the Arab world and offends them at large.
As per some believers “In the narrative of history transmitted to schoolchildren throughout the Arab world and reinforced by the media, religious scholars and laymen alike, Arabs were favored by divine providence. They had come out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, carrying Islam from Morocco to faraway Indonesia. In the process, they overran the Byzantine and Persian empires, then crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Iberia, and there they fashioned a brilliant civilization that stood as a rebuke to the intolerance of the European states to the north. Cordoba and Granada were adorned and exalted in the Arab imagination. Andalusia brought together all that the Arabs favored — poetry, equality courts, philosophers who debated the great issues of the day.”
Islam has sprawled over the years and gained popularity, as Islam orders to maintain brotherly relations with all Muslim countries it also asks to maintain cordial terms with non-Muslims, therefore, Arabs and the Muslim world is always at peace with non-believers of the world. Never in the history has there been any move by the Muslims who would have done something to harm non-Muslims by pin pointing or hitting at them religiously or esthetically. But it is very sad to inquire that western world has hit Muslimworld very many times, from drawing of the cartoon to the making of an anti-Islam film, western world has offended Muslims over and over again. Not only Muslims live in the western countries but also many non-Believers reside into the premises of the Muslim countries.
After 9/11 incident, which remains still a mystery as no inquiry had been done to reach up to defined conclusion, it became easier for the western world to offend Muslims and blame them with anything. “The values and teachings of Islam come from two main sources…The Qur’an and Hadith. They provide complete direction in every aspect of life. Islam respects the values and teachings of other religions as well. It gives the followers of other religions the liberty and freedom to perform their religious duties. The Fiqh Council of North America and the members of FCNA (body of Islamic scholors) strongly believe that Legal, moral and social systems in West are fully compatible with Islamic rules and set of laws. This is the proof that following Islam and being loyal to America are two sides of a coin.”
Recent making of “innocence of Muslims” film has once again offended and deeply hurt the Muslim world for which a reaction by the Muslims in the shape of protests came up.
An anti-Islam far-right group wants to stage a Berlin screening of the provocative anti-Islamic film that sparked violent protests across the Muslim world, a report said.
"For us, it's a question of art and freedom of expression," Manfred Rouhs, head of the small Pro Deutschland group told Der Spiegel magazine.
Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said he would use every legal means at his disposal to stop them. "Such groups and organisations only want to provoke Germany's Muslims," he said, accusing them of recklessly pouring oil on the fire.
Pro Deutschland is known for its provocative demonstrations. Last month about 50 of its activists staged demonstrations outside three Berlin mosques, in action they said was aimed at Islamist extremists. This followed a previous demonstration in Cologne which successfully provoked extremist Salafist Muslims into violence against the police.
They brandished copies of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that sparked violent reactions across the world when they were first published in a Danish newspaper.
Indeed Der Spiegel said at least part of the reason the German embassy was targeted in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Friday was because of the Pro Deutschland demonstrations.
