DHAKA, Bangladesh — Scores of people were injured Saturday in clashes in Bangladesh’s capital between police and hundreds of demonstrators, as protests continued in the Muslim world against a film produced in the United States that denigrates Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
In Pakistan, where more than 20 people died Friday in clashes in cities throughout the country, a Cabinet minister offered a $100,000 reward for the death of the filmmaker.
Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Balor said he would pay the reward out of his own pocket. He urged the Taliban and al-Qaida to perform the “sacred duty” of helping locate and kill the filmmaker.
The film has sparked violent protests throughout the Muslim world that resulted in the deaths of dozens, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
Balor’s comments offered fresh ammunition to critics of Pakistan’s coalition government.
“Pakistan was truly leaderless on Friday,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a former ambassador to the United States. “By ceding space to the mob, the government actually joined the mob. These statements only reinforce how playing to the gallery has very dangerous, long-term consequences for the country.”
Balor said he recognized that it was illegal to offer an incitement to murder, but said that if any court found him guilty, he was “ready to be hanged in the name of the Prophet Muhammad.”
The target of his bounty is widely presumed to be Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, who lives in the U.S. and has been linked to the 14-minute video.
Nakoula has not confirmed reports of his involvement, but he has been questioned by police in Cerritos, 20 miles south of Los Angeles. He was not arrested.
In Bangladesh, police fired tear gas and used batons Saturday to disperse the stone throwing protesters, who were from about a dozen Islamic groups.
The protesters burned several vehicles, including a police van, witnesses said.
Dozens of protesters were arrested at the demonstration and inside the nearby National Press Club, where participants took refuge, a Dhaka Metropolitan Police official said on condition of anonymity in line with police policy. Police and witnesses said scores of people were injured.
The clash broke out when authorities attempted to halt the demonstration, police said. Authorities have banned all protests near the city’s main Baitul Mokarram mosque since Friday, when more than 2,000 people marched and burned an effigy of President Barack Obama.
The protesters announced a nationwide general strike today to protest the police action.
In Pakistan, protests continued Saturday, with more than 1,500 people, including women and children, rallying in the capital. The crowd was peaceful but angry over the release of the video called Innocence of Muslims, which portrays Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester.
The protesters - from the Minhaj-ul-Quran religious group - marched through Islamabad’s streets and then gathered near Parliament, chanting slogans against the filmmaker and demanding stern punishment for him.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized the recent violent protests, but said Western nations need to prevent insults to Islam.
“No one claims freedom of expression when they restrict racism. The same restrictions that are imposed on racism must be displayed against Islamophobia,” Erdogan said Saturday. “Islamophobia is as dangerous as racism and is something that must not be tolerated.”
Thousands of people also protested Saturday in Nigeria’s largest city, Kano. The crowd marched from a mosque to the palace of the Emir of Kano, the region’s top spiritual leader for Muslims.
About 200 students in Srinagar, the main city in Indian controlled Kashmir, chanted “Down with America” and “Long live Islam” in a peaceful protest. Some carried a placard that read, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.”
FRENCH PROACTIVE
In other developments, a French court convicted a man for carrying a weapon at an illegal demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy protesting Innocence of Muslims.
The 24-year-old convert to Islam was sentenced to three months in prison. Saturday’s ruling came hours after police detained a man in the western city of La Rochelle suspected of threatening to decapitate the editor of a French satirical weekly that published lewd caricatures of the prophet Wednesday.
The swift action in both cases reflects concern in France, where Islam is the second biggest religion after Christianity, about potential fallout from the video and the caricatures. Protests planned for Saturday were banned, and police increased security around the U.S. Embassy, at the main Paris mosque and at other sensitive sites.
A week ago, police detained 151 protesters who suddenly gathered at the U.S. Embassy without authorization and eventually released all but the convicted man, Loic Guibet. Police found a retractable club bearing his fingerprints in a garbage can nearby. Guibet, who works for the French railway and is married, claimed he took the weapon “preventatively” should a Zionist group blamed for violence in the past show up.
The Sipa news agency quoted him as saying that he “didn’t come with the goal of picking a fight.”
Guibet was allowed to go free after the sentencing and it’s possible he will serve no time at all, which is not unusual in France for prison sentences of less than two years.
Information for this article was contributed by Julhas Alam, Munir Ahmed, Ashok Sharma and Chris Torchia of The Associated Press and by Declan Walsh, Julfikar Ali Manik and Eric Schmitt of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 11 on 09/23/2012