Tens of thousands of people across Afghanistan, Pakistan and Muslim-majority Indian Kashmir have taken to the streets for southern Asia’s biggest protests yet against satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed.

Up to 20,000 demonstrators in the western Afghan city of Herat and 15,000 in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, burned French flags and chanted slogans calling for France’s downfall, while a smaller Pakistani protest saw an effigy of French president Francois Hollande set on fire.

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In Srinagar, the largest city on the Indian-controlled side of the disputed region of Kashmir, police clashed with a contingent of around 3,000 demonstrators after shops and businesses were ordered to close by a leading Muslim organisation and several separatist groups.

The clashes broke out when police fired smoke canisters and shot into the air to disperse a group of protestors who began chanting “Down with Charlie Hebdo” after emerging from mosques.

Islamist gunmen stormed the offices of French weekly Charlie Hebdo – which has published controversial cartoons of the prophet on several occasions – in Paris on January 7, killing 12 people.

In response, Charlie Hebdo last week published a “survivors” issue with an image of the Prophet Mohammed weeping on the cover, which has led to small, sporadic protests across Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Prophet depiction condemned as ‘hate speech’

The rally in Islamabad was led by the hardline Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, with demonstrators burning French, British and American flags, while urging Pakistan to cut ties with Paris and calling for a boycott of French products.

Carrying placards and banners, protesters in Islamabad chanted “death to France”, “our prophet, our honour” and “death to the blasphemers”.

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Siraj-ul-Haq called for a UN ban on blasphemy, while Khawaja Saad Rafique, a federal minister in the Pakistani cabinet, also condemned the depiction of the prophet by Charlie Hebdo as “hate speech, journalistic terrorism”.

So far public displays of anger against the magazine, which is not available in Pakistan either in print or online, have largely been limited to followers of religious parties.

About 4,000 people rallied in Karachi, while protests in Quetta – where effigy of Mr Hollande was burned – as well as the north-western city of Peshawar, the eastern city of Lahore and Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, each drew about 2,000 activists.

No violence was reported from any of the Pakistani rallies.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, protesters in the capital of Kabul held posters depicting a red heart and the name of the Prophet as they marched on the streets, while the provincial governor’s spokesman in Herat, Ehsanullah Hayat, said the crowd there was at least 20,000 strong.

“No Muslim can tolerate insults to our beloved prophet Mohammed, we demand the French government apologise to all Muslims and punish those who have insulted Islam,” one protester in Herat said.

A small number of demonstrators threw stones at the French embassy in Kabul, prompting guards to fire one or two warning shots.

Images of the prophet are considered blasphemous by many Muslims and the magazine’s publishing of the cartoon has trigged protests in Muslim countries around the world.

AFP