Huge anti-France rally in Bangladesh as Macron backlash widens
DHAKA: Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the Bangladesh capital on Tuesday in the biggest anti-France rally since President Emmanuel Macron defended cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
Muslims across the world have reacted furiously to Macron’s robust defence of the right to mock religion following the murder of a French schoolteacher who had shown his pupils cartoons of the prophet.
In Syria, people burned pictures of France’s leader, tricolour flags were torched in the Libyan capital Tripoli, while French goods have been pulled from supermarket shelves in Qatar, Kuwait and other Gulf states.
Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan even compared the treatment of Muslims in Europe to that of Jews before World War II, joining calls for a boycott of French goods which Paris said had had minimal impact so far.
Erdogan found himself the target of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo which published an irreverent caricature of him on the front page of the magazine’s latest edition scheduled to hit the newsstands on Wednesday.
The crude drawing showed the Turkish leader in T-shirt and underpants, drinking a can of beer and lifting up the skirt of a woman wearing a hijab to reveal her naked bottom.
The title proclaims “Erdogan: in private, he’s very funny”.
In a sharp retort, Ankara accused the magazine of “cultural racism”.
In Dhaka, protesters set alight an effigy of Macron during the march on Tuesday, in which police said 40,000 people took part.
Hundreds of armed officers used a barbed wire barricade to stop the demonstrators, who dispersed without violence before they could get close to the French embassy.
The rally was called by Islami Andolon Bangladesh (IAB), one of the country’s largest Islamist parties, and started at the biggest mosque in the nation. Bangladesh is around 90-per cent Muslim.
“Boycott French products”, demonstrators chanted. — AFP