Kenyan police opened fire at hundreds demonstrating against cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad today, wounding at least one person, as protests across the Muslim world showed no sign of abating.
Police in Bangladesh beat back about 10,000 angry protesters marching on the Danish embassy in the capital Dhaka and demonstrators also took to the streets in Afghanistan, India, Jordan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, which has carried out several suicide bombings in Israel, threatened more violence and a leading Saudi Muslim cleric called for no mercy in punishing anyone mocking the Prophet. "So far we have demanded an apology from the governments.
But if they continue their assault on our dear Prophet Muhammad, we will burn the ground underneath their feet," Islamic Jihad leader Khader Habib told supporters after Friday prayers.
Kenyan riot police fired live rounds and tear gas to prevent hundreds of stone-throwing protesters from reaching the Danish embassy. One man was shot in the thigh, a witness said. In what appeared to be a freak accident, one person was killed when the car carrying the wounded man away crashed into another, said a passenger travelling with the injured man.
Tens of thousands of Muslims have demonstrated in the Middle East, Asia and Africa over the cartoons first published in Denmark, then other countries in Europe and elsewhere.
At least 11 people have been killed in the protests. One cartoon showed the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Muslims consider any portrayal of the Prophet blasphemous, let alone one showing him as a terrorist.
"We demand stiff penalties without leniency against those who deride the Prophet Muhammad," Abdel-Rahman al-Sudeis, a prominent Saudi Arabian cleric in Islam's holiest city of Mecca, told worshippers.
"With one voice, millions of Muslims around the world are defending the Prophet of God."
A far-right Swedish party's website showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad was shut down by its Internet hosts today after pressure from police and the foreign ministry.
The anti-immigrant Swedish Democrats had invited readers to send in cartoons for publishing on its website alongside the Danish cartoons.
After Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds warned of "grave consequences for Swedish people and Swedish interests" and said Muslim countries were already reacting, the web-hosting company Levonline pulled the plug, a company director said today.
"We have been in contact with the foreign ministry and SAPO (security police) and in consultation with them we decided this was best," its deputy director told Swedish Radio.