3 killed in protests over anti-Islam film in Pakistan

RIAZ KHAN The Associated Press Published: Friday, September 21, 2012 at 9:00 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, September 21, 2012 at 9:16 a.m

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, in a bid to tamp down public rage over the film, is spending $70,000 to air an ad on Pakistani television that features President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton denouncing the video. Their comments, which are from previous public events in Washington, are in English but subtitled in Urdu, the main Pakistani language

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A Pakistani demonstrator throws a tear gas shell towards riot police during a protest against an anti-Islam film in Islamabad. Demonstrators set fire to two cinemas in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar, police and witnesses said. Photograph: Aamir I/AFP/Getty Images

Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf called on the international community Friday to pass laws to prevent people from insulting the Prophet Muhammad.

"If denying the Holocaust is a crime, then is it not fair and legitimate for a Muslim to demand that denigrating and demeaning Islam's holiest personality is no less than a crime?" Ashraf said during a speech to religious scholars and international diplomats in Islamabad.

Denying the Holocaust is a crime in Germany, but not in the U.S.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Friday summoned the U.S. charge d'affaires in Islamabad, Richard Hoagland, to protest the film. Pakistan has banned access to YouTube because the website refused to remove the video.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also lashed out at the West over the film and the caricatures in the French weekly, Charlie Hebdo.

"In return for (allowing) the ugliest insults to the divine messenger, they — the West — raise the slogan of respect for freedom of speech," said Ahmadinejad during a speech in the capital, Tehran.

He said this explanation was "clearly a deception."

In Germany, the Interior Ministry said it was postponing a poster campaign aimed at countering radical Islam among young people due to tensions caused by the online video insulting Islam. It said posters for the campaign — in German, Turkish and Arabic — were meant to go on display in German cities with large immigrant populations on Friday but are being withheld because of the changed security situation. Germany is home to an estimated 4 million Muslims.

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed, Zarar Khan and Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad; Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; and Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, contributed to this report.