More Mohammed cartoon violence in Bangladesh

Media: Crowds demand the death of an editor.

Street clashes broke out in Bangladesh Friday as Islamic activists defied emergency rule to protest over the publication in a major newspaper of a cartoon deemed offensive to Muslims. Thousands of protesters joined the rally in the centre of the capital Dhaka, an AFP photographer at the scene said, even though demonstrations are strictly prohibited under the country's eight-month-old state of emergency. Police baton-charged some of the activists as they tried to break through barricades put up to prevent them reaching the offices of Prothom Alo, the newspaper that published the cartoon and Bangladesh's biggest daily paper. Demonstrators chanted slogans demanding the execution of newspaper editor Matiur Rahman and burned effigies of him and copies of the Bengali-language daily. ....The cartoon appeared in Prothom Alo's weekly satirical magazine "Alpin." Its cartoonist, Arisur Rahman, 23, was detained earlier this week and later remanded in custody by a court. Matiur Rahman on Thursday apologised for the cartoon, which showed a small boy adding the name Mohammed to the name of a cat. International press freedom body Reporters Without Borders called for the immediate release of the cartoonist.