Muslims in central Nigeria protesting a film critical of the Prophet
Muhammad, witnesses and authorities said, as demonstrators elsewhere
in the county's Muslim north burned a U.S. flag.
The demonstrations in Jos, a city where hundreds have been killed in
religious and ethnic violence, began after Friday prayers, witnesses
said. Soldiers in the city, who have been on guard there since
violence in 2010, followed after the youths, witnesses said.
The youths, some wearing white shirts that read ''To Hell With
America, To Hell With Israel,'' chanted slogans and called for the
arrest of the makers of the film that has sparked protests across the
Middle East and North Africa.
As the youths grew angry, soldiers fired assault rifles into the air
to drive them away, said Capt. Mustapha Salisu, a spokesman for the
military command in Jos. The soldiers dispersed the youths as
demonstrations have been largely banned in the city since the
violence, said Salisu.
It was not clear whether anyone was injured in the gunfire or the melee.
Jos, in Nigeria's fertile middle belt, straddles the country's
predominantly Muslim north and Christian south. Jos and the
surrounding Plateau state have been torn apart in recent years by
violence pitting its different ethnic groups and major religions
against each other. While divided by religion, politics and economics
often fuel the fighting. In 2010, at least 1,000 people were killed in
violence in Jos and surrounding regions, Human Rights Watch has said.
Meanwhile, protesters also entered the streets in Sokoto, a city in
Nigeria's northwest that is nation's the spiritual home for Islam.
Several demonstrations saw hundreds on the street, as protesters
burned a U.S. flag.
''Time has come when the world should respect Islam as religion,
because Muslims respect other people's religion,'' protester Abubakar
Ahmed Rijia said.
Another protester, Nai'u Muhammed, said he believed people were
deliberately trying to instigate Muslims into violence through
criticizing the Prophet Muhammad.
''Islam is a religion of peace, but we cannot tolerate somebody
abusing it,'' Muhammed said.
The protests in Nigeria and elsewhere in the world focused on a movie,
called ''Innocence of Muslims,'' which ridicules the Prophet Muhammad
by portraying him as a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester.
Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any fashion, much less
in an insulting way.
In Nigeria, where the two faiths live and work together, as well as
intermarry, there wasn't immediate, overwhelming outrage like what
swept other nations. However, the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria's capital,
Abuja, and the U.S. Consulate in Lagos closed early Friday. Nigeria's
top police official also ordered increased security at foreign
embassies in the country.
Nigeria also faces ever-increasing violent attacks from a radical
Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, which is blamed for killing more
than 670 people this year alone, according to a count by The
Associated Press.
In Maiduguri, the sect's spiritual home, the streets were quiet
Friday. Abubakar Mustapha, an imam and head of the local university's
Islamic Studies department, called on Muslims to be restrained in
their actions, no matter how angry they may feel over the film.
''How can we earn the respect of others when we as Muslims kill
ourselves, when we do things that smear the name of our religion?''
Mustapha asked while holding prayers Friday. ''We have to go back to
the basic and hold firm unto our religion with love and true devotion
so that others will respect our religion and our prophet.''
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