Here’s a look at events on Monday connected to an anti-Islam film produced in the United States and vulgar caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published in a French satirical weekly. More than 50 people, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, have been killed in violence linked to protests over the film.
PAKISTAN
The government distanced itself from an offer by one of its Cabinet ministers to pay $100,000 to anyone who kills the maker of the anti-Islam film. Pakistan’s Foreign Office said the offer by Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour does not represent official government policy. Bilour said Saturday that he would pay the bounty out of his own pocket and appealed to al-Qaida and Taliban militants to contribute to what he called the “noble cause” of eliminating the filmmaker.
IRAN
The head of Iran’s government-controlled cinema agency urged the Islamic Republic to boycott the 2013 Oscars until the organizers of the Academy Awards denounce the anti-Islam film, titled “Innocence of Muslims.” The agency’s director, Javad Shamaghdari, previously called for Iran to “deprive” Western film festivals of movies made by his country’s cinema industry. An Iranian director in February won the Oscar for best foreign film for “A Separation.”
LEBANON
A military prosecutor indicted 45 people in attacks on policemen and a KFC restaurant during Sept. 14 protests that killed one in Tripoli. Judiciary officials said a third of the accused have been detained and some face life in prison, if convicted.
SWEDEN
Citing a lack of evidence, an appeals court acquitted three men accused of plotting to murder a Swedish artist who had depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. Judges in Goteborg ruled that the three men of Iraqi and Somali origin may have been prepared to use violence against Lars Vilks in September 2011 but found no concrete proof that they planned to kill him.
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