Danes urged to leave Indonesia over cartoon protests

COPENHAGEN - Denmark has urged its citizens to leave Indonesia, warning of "clear and present danger" from Muslim extremists seeking revenge for Danish newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The foreign ministry said all Danes should leave the world's most populous Muslim country as soon as possible.

"Concrete information indicates than an extremist group wishes to actively seek out Danes in protest for the publication of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons," a ministry statement said.

Denmark has been the target of protests in Islamic countries since cartoons of the Prophet, first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September, were reprinted by other European newspapers in January.

They were also printed by some papers in New Zealand. The Herald has not published them.

The threat to Danes was concentrated in eastern Java "but it is feared that it can spread to the rest of the country, including Bali", the ministry statement said.

Bomb attacks on the holiday island of Bali killed 202 people in 2002. Last October suicide bombers killed 20 people. Indonesian officials have blamed militants from the Southeast Asian militant network Jemaah Islamiah, considered a regional arm of al Qaeda, for the attacks.

Denmark said it had withdrawn diplomats and staff from Indonesia and Iran because of security threats.

Their departure follows that of Danish embassy staff in Syria who left on Friday on the grounds that the security provided by Syrian authorities was inadequate.

At the Winter Olympics in Italy, plainclothes guards accompanied the Danish team at the opening ceremony on Friday.

Muslims held demonstrations in European cities over the cartoons. French police estimated that 7,200 people took part in a march through central Paris, waving banners and chanting, but the atmosphere was peaceful and many families took part.

France's Muslim Council had urged the country's 5 million Muslims to stay calm. The council had tried in vain to block the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo from reprinting the cartoons earlier this week.

In London, up to 4,000 demonstrators converged on Trafalgar Square on Saturday, joining the capital's Mayor Ken Livingstone in a protest against the publication of the cartoons.

In marked contrast to angry demonstrations outside the Danish embassy in the British capital last week, the protest was good-natured and there was no sign of the extreme anti-Western placards brandished at the embassy protest.

No British newspapers have printed the cartoons.

About 2,500 Muslims marched peacefully through the German city of Duesseldorf, past the Danish consulate, and in Berlin about 1,200 gathered outside the Danish embassy.

In the Swiss capital, Berne, about 1,000 people held a peaceful protest outside the parliament building.

Demonstrators carried signs saying "You stepped over the line" and "Have respect for Muslims' feelings." Several Swiss newspapers have published some of the cartoons in recent weeks.

Beyond Europe's borders, angry protesters in the Chadian capital N'Djamena set fire to two cars, including one belonging to an expatriate, and wrecked several bars.

In Indonesia, about 400 protesters from the radical Hizbut Tahrir group held a noisy but peaceful rally at a Jakarta intersection, demanding that Denmark apologise for what they said was an insult to Islam.

At least 11 people have been killed this year in protests over the cartoons, one of which showed the Prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Muslims consider any portrayal of the Prophet blasphemous, let alone one showing him as a terrorist.

- REUTERS