British Muslims protest against anti-Islam film

London, NU Online
Muslims have been protesting against the anti-Islam film made in the United States and released on youtube, owned by Google Inc., across the globe and thousands of Muslims in London also registered their severe anger on Wednesday by holding demonstrations and marching towards the offices of Google.<>

More than 3,500 British Muslims, some came from as far as Glasgow, waved banners and chanted slogans outside the search engine’s UK headquarters to demand the company removes the film from the internet.

The pathetic anti-Islam is a low-budget movie and was released on youtube that has sparked a wave of anti-American unrest and violent protests in the Muslims world.

But Google, owner of the video-sharing website, remained defiant till now claiming the film is “clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube.”

A spokesman for the company said, “We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions.”

“This can be a challenge because what’s OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere,” he added.

The protest has been staged as a herald to a million-strong march planned in Hyde Park in the coming weeks.

Organizer Masoud Alam said, “Our next protest will be at the offices of Google and YouTube across the world. We are looking to ban this film.”

“This is not freedom of expression; there is a limit for that. This insult of the Prophet will not be allowed,” he added firmly.

Muslims from all backgrounds chanted and waved placards bearing slogans such as “We love our prophet more than our lives” and “Prophet Muhammad is the founder of freedom of speech.”

They also listened to speeches from imams in English, Urdu and Arabic.

One of the speakers, Sheikh Faiz Al-Aqtab Siddiqui, stated, “Terrorism is not just people who kill human bodies, but who kill human feelings as well. The makers of this film have terrorized 1.6 billion people.”

The march was completely peaceful and no arrests were made. The protest was in plain contrast to the wave of violent protest that spread across the Muslim world against the disgusting anti-Islam a month ago.

It first erupted a day after a separate attack on US diplomatic facilities in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya on September 11.

The most violent protests came over four days of demonstrations across the Arab world, stretching from Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestinian territories, Israel, Sudan, Nigeria, Tunisia and Pakistan, and even Australia.

Youtube has already blocked access to the video in some countries such as Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and India. But anti-American sentiment fostered by the pathetic film release has shown no sign of reduction and Muslims are demanding complete ban of the anti-Islam from internet.

Editor : Sudarto Murtaufiq