Cleric Announces $1M Bounty on Cartoonist
Feb 17 4:37 PM US/Eastern
By RIAZ KHAN
Associated Press Writer
PESHAWAR, Pakistan
A Pakistani cleric announced a $1 million bounty for killing a cartoonist who drew the Prophet Muhammad as thousands joined street protests after Friday prayers.
Denmark, which first published the cartoons, temporarily closed its embassy and advised its citizens to leave Pakistan.
Prayer leader Mohammed Yousaf Qureshi announced the bounty for killing a cartoonist to about 1,000 people outside the historic Mohabat Khan mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
He said the mosque and the Jamia Ashrafia religious school he leads would give a $25,000 reward and a car for killing the cartoonist who drew the prophet caricatures _ considered blasphemous by Muslims. He said a local jewelers' association would also give $1 million, but no representative of the association was available to confirm the offer.
"Whoever has done this despicable and shameful act, he has challenged the honor of Muslims. Whoever will kill this cursed man, he will get $1 million dollars from the association of the jewelers bazaar, one million rupees ($16,700) from Masjid Mohabat Khan and 500,000 rupees ($8,350) and a car from Jamia Ashrafia as a reward," Qureshi said.
"This is a unanimous decision of by all imams of Islam that whoever insults the prophets deserves to be killed and whoever will take this insulting man to his end, will get this prize," he said.
Qureshi did not name any cartoonist in his announcement and he did not appear aware that 12 different people had drawn the pictures.
A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, first printed the prophet pictures in September. The newspaper has since apologized to Muslims for the cartoons, one of which shows Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Other Western newspapers, mostly in Europe, have reprinted the pictures, asserting their news value and the right to freedom of expression.
In Denmark, a spokesman for the Jyllands-Posten said the newspaper did not want to comment on the bounty offer. But Mogens Blicher Bjerregaard, president of the Danish Journalist Union and spokesman for the cartoonists, condemned it.
"It is totally absurd what is happening. The cartoonists just did their job and they did nothing illegal," he said.
He said the cartoonists _ who have been living under police protection since last year _ are aware of the reward and are "feeling bad about the whole situation." He did not say whether their security had been stepped up.
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