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COPENHAGEN, Feb 11: Denmark decided to close its embassies in Iran and Indonasia on Saturday as protests eased in favour of official pressure to prevent a repeat of the furore over the anti-Islam cartoons.
Iran has called for an emergency meeting of the he Organisation of Islamic Council (OIC), which announced it would call on the European Union (EU) to pass laws to counter hostility to Muslims.
“The OIC member countries expect the EU to identify Islamophobia as a dangerous phenomenon to be scrutinised and combated as is the case with xenophobia and anti-semitism,” the council said in a statement on Saturday.
Europe had to create ‘appropriate mechanisms of surveillance and to look again at its legislation with the aim of preventing in the future repetition of recent unfortunate events’, the statement said.
The EU’s senior foreign policy official, Javier Solana, is due to meet OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu in Saudi Arabia on Monday in an attempt to defuse the crisis triggered by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of 12 drawings almost five months ago.
Considered by Muslims to be blasphemous, the cartoons were reprinted worldwide as the row exploded into an international incident pitting Western ideas of freedom of expression against Islamic beliefs.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid said his country as IOC head supported Iran’s demand for a special meeting of foreign ministers.
“I think many countries are worried. The idea is how do we contain these feelings and emotions,” he told reporters at an international conference.
DANISH DECISION: Denmark said it had closed its embassies in Iran and Indonesia and ordered its diplomats to leave following ‘concrete threats’ against its staff.
The closures follow that of its Syrian embassy on Friday and of its consulates in Lebanon and Tunisia.
Lars Thuesen, spokesman for the ministry’s crisis unit, said the ambassadors and their staff had gone to other countries that Denmark did not wish to identify.
PROTESTS IN EUROPE: Muslims marched peacefully in several European cities on Saturday as organisations sought to distance their outrage from violent protests in recent weeks that saw Danish and Norwegian diplomatic missions set on fire.
In Germany, about 2,000 people marched on the Danish consulate in Duesseldorf, while about 1,200 people protested in Berlin and about 130 in the northern city of Leer.
In London, where recent protests aroused controversy through some of the slogans used and the simulation of a suicide bomber’s vest, between 3,500 and 10,000 people marched, according to police and organisers’ estimates. The mayor of London Ken Livingstone backed the protest.
“I am supporting this event because, unlike much of the media coverage, it will allow the views of the mainstream Muslim community to be properly heard,” he said.—AFP
