KARACHI, 17 February 2006 — A massive rally was taken out here yesterday to protest against the publication of blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in some section of the Western media.

Thousands of Pakistanis wielding sticks and waving green flags rallied against the Prophet’s cartoons yesterday, the latest in a wave of protests in which five people have died.

The rally participants demanded that an emergency meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) be convened over the issue which has deeply hurt feelings of the Islamic community.

A crowd of over to 50,000 rallied in the main commercial district of the sprawling port city, and some torched effigies of US President George W. Bush and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Protesters wearing green headbands shouted slogans of “Death to blasphemers” as thousands of policemen and paramilitary troops looked on.

The crowd dispersed peacefully at the end, in contrast to the violence seen in Islamabad, Lahore and Peshawar earlier this week.

The rally, headed by Mufti Muneebur Rehman, professor Shah Faridul Huq and other scholars, started from Quaid-e-Azam mausoleum and ended at Tibet Center.

The rally remained peaceful throughout and dispersed after offering Duhr prayers at Tibet Center.

In many areas shops and markets were also kept closed. Yesterday, Sindh government had declared holiday for all educational institutions.

A branch of US-based Citibank, and an office of the German company Siemens, hung black flags to mask their logos, as did a Christian hospital and several cinemas on the rally’s route. Armed troops were stationed on the rooftops and roadsides of a city that has been consumed by religious, sectarian and ethnic violence over the past two decades.

Urging participants to stay peaceful, Mufti Muneeb called on Pakistan to sever ties with European countries where cartoons were published.

“The government should re-call its ambassadors and send back ambassadors of these countries,” Mufti Muneeb said.

Mohammed Atiq, a shopkeeper, said the government would risk violence if it tried to “suppress the emotions of the people”.

“If Western countries can support each other by reprinting such vulgar cartoons then the government of Pakistan should also support the cause of Muslims,” Atiq said as he stood with crowd.

Organizers repeatedly urged the crowd via a public address system not to use violence or burn effigies of Western leaders, saying it was against Islam.

“Burning properties, attacking buses, killing people is against the teaching of Islam and the Prophet,” Mufti Muneeb told the crowd.

On Wednesday 50,000 demonstrators rampaged through the northwestern city of Peshawar, torching a KFC outlet and 16 buses operated by a South Korean firm, and trashing some Telenor offices.

An eight-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet and a man was electrocuted by power lines that were toppled during the violence.

Riots also flared Wednesday for a second day in Lahore, where another person was shot dead, and in at least half a dozen other towns across the world’s second most populous Muslim nation.

Two people died in Lahore on Tuesday and protesters in Islamabad stormed a diplomatic enclave.

President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said “antisocial and criminal elements” were exploiting the demonstrations to destabilize Pakistan, which is already riven by political and religious tensions. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid was quoted in Dawn newspaper as saying that demonstrators in Lahore had carried out acts of violence at the behest of some “hidden hands.”

Meanwhile, two prominent imams from Norway were to travel to Pakistan yesterday in a bid to help calm the anger of Muslims whose protests over the cartoons have claimed five lives this week, the VG newspaper reported.

Both are among the Norwegian Muslim leaders who last week welcomed a new apology from Magazinet, a small Norwegian magazine that republished Danish cartoons of the Prophet.

Imam Mehboobur Rehman from Oslo’s Islamic Cultural Center and Imam Senaid Kobilica, vice president of the Norwegian Islamic Council, will try to explain that Magazinet does not represent the Norwegian government or Telenor, whose premises have been attacked in Pakistan, the paper said.