PAKISTAN: Cartoon Protests Cripple Local Trade

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Feb 27 2006 (IPS) - Weeks of often violent protests against the caricaturing of Prophet Muhammad have affected the economy of this city on the Afghan border and the only smiles around are on the faces of people who make the banners that festoon every shop and business.

”Down with America,” and ”We are saddened by the Muhammad cartoons” and ”The Prophet is on Our Side” say the white on black banners that shopkeepers dare not be without, but afford scant protection against extortion and sporadic looting.

The once popular Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlet here, which was torched and looted on Feb. 15, during a massive rally joined by 75,000 protesters, now stands draped, incongruously, with banners carrying verses from the Quran. At least three persons were killed and hundreds injured when the rally turned riotous.

A special target was an outlet of Telenor, the Norwegian cellphone company, where mobs carefully took down the banners with Quranic verses before proceeding to smash furniture and equipment.

Anonymously printed handbills continue to be circulated in Peshawar urging people to avoid using Telenor connections.

For lack of sufficient Western targets, frustrated mobs vented their fury on Pakistani establishments, especially banks which now run with extra security complements and pull down shutters at the slightest sign of trouble.

”We have made some 500 banners so far. We want to make more because we believe that making banners would earn the pleasure of God and the Prophet,” said one banner-maker, Rahim Omar.

”We don’t go for profit, because it is a matter of honour. We just charge the amount we actually spend making these banners,” said another maker Shahid Ali, barely lifting his eyes off the bold calligraphy.

The mood in this city, capital to Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which is ruled by the fundamentalist, pro-Taliban, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (United Action Front), has been one in which people have been competing to display their anger at the cartoons.

For example, Mohammed Yousuf Qureshi, claiming to speak on behalf of other imams in the city, has offered reward money of one million dollars to anyone who would assassinate the man responsible for the cartoons which first appeared in the Danish newspaper ‘Jyllands-Posten’ in September.

A similar offer was announced by Ashraf Khan, president of the traders’ association in the tribal-dominated, Bajaur district where anti-West sentiments have been running high since a missile attack launched by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, last month, killed 18 people, including women and children.

The remnants of the former Taliban government, flushed out of Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. ‘war on terror’, are believed to be hiding out in the tribal areas of the NWFP along with top al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Most people have been satisfied displaying religious fervour by burning the Danish and Norwegian flags and participating in protest rallies, like the ones on Sunday which were taken out across the country.

”Firing gunshots and putting flags on fire will book us a place in paradise,” said Arshad Khan, a student who enthusiastically takes part in the rallies.

But, in the process, the business atmosphere of Peshawar has taken a beating. ”It seems as though the city has fallen to the enemy. Last week, we could not pull down our shutters fast enough and the protesters walked away with everything they could lay their hands on,” said Mohammed Rahim, who runs a stationery store in the central cantonment area.

The mobs took anything that could be carried away from open businesses – computers, signboards, office furniture and even telephones and electrical wires.

”We have become so jittery that we pull down the shutters every now and then just to be sure, and especially if there is a hint of a rally or protest,” said Mohammed Najib, a book-seller.

Police said several million dollars worth of private and public property have been lost during the violent protests, though official estimates are yet to be made.

”The rioters caused us losses worth at least Rs 200 million (34,000 US dollars),” said Imran Khan, an official at the South Korean-owned Sammi-Daewoo transport company where 16 buses, four vans and a petrol pump on the company’s premises were sent up in flames.

”We have curtailed our transport services to other cities of the country and will restart them after the situation improves,” Khan said.

While the clergy-led provincial government has announced that rioters arrested by the police would be dealt with strictly, no on takes the warnings seriously given that several senior ministers are known to be behind the trouble.

More than 400 people, including 50 juveniles were taken into police custody and are expected to be tried in anti-terrorism courts.

”With Norway and Denmark far away, the protesters have been damaging their own property,” observed school teacher Abdul Wajid whose biggest complaint is that educational activities have been disrupted by the anti-cartoon protests.

”Vice-chancellors of the local universities have been leading anti- cartoon demonstrations- which is beyond all comprehension,” said Gul Ghutai, a class nine school student.

Even doctors in this city have said they would boycott drugs manufactured by European companies, as their contribution to the cartoon protests.