DHAKA: Bangladesh authorities yesterday said they fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of Islamist protesters who defied a ban on demonstrations against a US-made anti-Islam film and hurled stones at police.
The clash erupted after the protesters from an alliance of 12 Islamist parties tried to hold a rally in central Dhaka despite a 24-hour ban on gatherings in the area, police said.
Hundreds of protesters attacked policemen, torched a motorbike and damaged a police van, forcing police “to fire tear gas shells to disperse them”, Dhaka police spokesman Masudur Rahman told the reporters.
The online edition of the country’s top-circulated Daily Star said at least 30 people were injured in the clash and that police arrested 40 protesters.
Police could not be immediately reached to confirm the report.
Rahman added the alliance which staged the protest has called a nationwide strike today.
Hundreds in Tokyo rally against China
TOKYO: Hundreds of Japanese yesterday rallied against Beijing over an escalating island row, days after anti-Japanese protests saw shops and factories vandalised in China.
Some 800 demonstrators waved national flags as they marched through downtown Tokyo, denouncing Beijing as a “brute state” and “fascist”.
Protesters marched through the Roppongi entertainment district, near the Chinese embassy, shouting: “We will never give in to China’s military threat!”
They criticised the sometimes-violent anti-Japan demonstrations which saw tens of thousands march across China last week, forcing firms to close or scale back production. “We get excited sometimes, but we don’t loot shops like those in China, where the demonstrations deviated from their original intentions,” said Shuhei Takagi, 21, clad in a camouflage uniform.
AFP
