More than 10,000 Muslims protested outside the offices of Google in London in an attempt to force the company to remove an anti-Islamic film from YouTube in Britain, The Telegraph reported on Sunday.
The protests come ahead of a planned million-man march to be organized in Hyde Park within the coming weeks.
The trailer of ‘The Innocence of Muslims’, an American-produced film mocking the Prophet Mohammed, which was recently posted on YouTube, stirred anger across the Muslim world.
“Our next protest will be at the offices of Google and YouTube across the world. We are looking to ban this film,” Masoud Alam, the organizer of the London protests, was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.
“This is not freedom of expression, there is a limit for that. This insult of the Prophet will not be allowed,” he said, revealing the plan for a million-man march in Hyde Park “in the next few weeks.”
A protest outside the U.S. Embassy in London last month drew little attention as protests in Libya, Tunisia and Yemen dominated headlines, including the attack on the U.S. Embassy in the Libyan city of Benghazi, during which the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens was killed.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Barricades were erected in front of Google’s headquarters as the crowds carried placards saying: “We love our prophet more than our lives” and “Prophet Mohammed is the founder of freedom of speech.”
Dozens of imams delivered speeches in Arabic, Urdu and English and urged Muslims to honor the name of the Prophet.
Sheikh Fayez al-Aqtab Siddiqui, was quoted by The Daily Telegraph as saying that “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.”
“Organizations like Google are key players and have to take responsibility for civility. You can’t just say it doesn’t matter that it's freedom of speech. It’s anarchy,” he said.
Siddiqui urged the formation of a coalition with the Church of England, Catholics, Jewish groups, Trade Unions and even Conservatives to encourage their ranks to join his “campaign for civility.”
“We want everyone in society to recognize these people are wrecking our fragile global society. We want the Church, the Synod, Jewish groups and establishment figures involved,” he told the newspaper.
A YouTube spokesperson was quoted by The Telegraph as saying: “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. This video -- which is widely available on the Web -- is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube,” he said.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/10/15/243860.html
