Source: Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan has stepped up security at the Dutch consulate and Dutch businesses in Karachi, fearing protests over the Internet-release of an anti-Islam film by a far-right Dutch MP, officials said on Sunday.

The Foreign Ministry summoned the Dutch ambassador to Pakistan on Friday and lodged a “strong protest” with him against Geert Wilders’ film, which defames Islam.

“We have stepped up security at the Dutch consulate and businesses in Karachi,” Sindh Home Secretary Arif Ahmed Khan confirmed.

“We have advised the consulate staff to keep a low profile and avoid unnecessary travel,” he added. The officials said that telecommunications authorities have been asked to block all websites that carry the blasphemous film.

Meanwhile, at least three different protests were held outside the Karachi Press Club, where protesters burned an effigy of Wilders and a Dutch flag, witnesses said.

Wilders posted the 17-minute film entitled ‘Fitna’ (discord) on the Internet on Thursday. It features violent imagery of the terrorist attacks in New York and Madrid intertwined with Quranic texts.

Last month, Pakistan caused an accidental global blackout of YouTube when it blocked the website for carrying blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).

At least 17 Danish newspapers last month published the blasphemous sketch a day after Danish police said they had foiled a plot to murder Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist of the blasphemous caricature. The caricature was one of 12 cartoons published in September 2005 by daily Jyllands-Posten.

Five people died in Pakistan in February 2006 during violent protests against the cartoons, while a Pakistani cleric offered a reward of one million dollars and a new car for anyone who killed any of the cartoonists. afp

 E-mail this article to a friend

Tags: Anti-Islam, Cartooon, Dutch, Embassy