A protest by 10,000 Muslims outside the
offices of Google in London on Sunday is just
the first in an orchestrated attempt to force
the company to remove an anti-Islamic film
from website YouTube in Britain.
The scene outside the Google offices in
Buckingham Palace Road, London.
Thousands had travelled from as far afield as
Glasgow to take part in the demonstration,
ahead of a planned million-strong march in
Hyde Park in coming weeks.
Anger over ‘The Innocence of Muslims’, an
American-produced film which insults the
Prophet Mohammad and demeans Muslims,
according to protesters, remains available to
watch on the website YouTube, a subsidiary
of Google.
Organiser Masoud Alam said: “Our next
protest will be at the offices of Google and
YouTube across the world. We are looking to
ban this film.
“This is not freedom of expression, there is a
limit for that. This insult of the Prophet will
not be allowed.
The group’s next action was a march Mr
Alam hoped would be “a million strong”
would take place in Hyde Park “in the next
few weeks”, he said.
“Until it is banned we will keep protesting,”
he added.
Today’s demonstration was the third
organised in a month, and took place on the
central London street where the website
search giant has its UK headquarters. A
demonstration outside the American
Embassy in London last month drew little
attention as protests in Libya, Tunisia and
Yemen dominated headlines, including the
storming of embassy in Benghazi, Libya, that
led to the death of the US Ambassador to
Libya, Christopher Stevens.
Barricades were erected in front of Google’s
headquarters and a crowd bearing placards
with the words “We love our prophet more
than our lives” and “Prophet Muhammad is
the founder of freedom of speech” had
amassed by lunchtime.
Speeches by more than a dozen imams in a
mixture of Arabic, Urdu, and English urged
Muslims to honour the name of the Prophet
and not to back down in the face of Google’s
continuing reluctance to act, and were met
with passionate cries of “God is Great” and
“Mohammad is the Prophet of God” in
Arabic.
One of the speakers, Sheikh Faiz Al-Aqtab
Siddiqui, told The Daily Telegraph: “Terrorism
is not just people who kill human bodies, but
who kill human feelings as well. The makers of
this film have terrorised 1.6 billion people.
“Organisations like Google are key players and
have to take responsibility for civility. You can’t
just say it doesn’t matter that it’s freedom of
speech. It’s anarchy.”
Sheikh Siddiqui, a barrister from Nuneaton, said
he wanted to form a coalition with the Church of
England, Catholics, Jewish groups, Trade Unions
and even Conservatives to encourage their ranks
to join his “campaign for civility”.
“We want everyone in society to recognise these
people are wrecking our fragile global society. We
want the Church, the Synod, Jewish groups and
establishment figures involved,” he said.
As many as 800 imams in mosques across Britain
helped to organise today’s protest, which lasted
four hours and blocked roads almost up to the
Queen’s doorstep on Buckingham Palace Road.
Muslims from Blackburn, Birmingham, Glasgow,
Luton, Manchester and Peterborough were in
attendance. When asked where where the
women attending the protest were, one protester
replied: “Right at the back”.
Self-employed businessman Ahmed Nasar said he
was worried the video could lead to violence in
Britain in the same way as it had abroad. “If you
push people too far,” he said, “You will turn the
peaceful elements into violence.”
A YouTube spokesperson said: “We work hard to
create a community everyone can enjoy and
which also enables people to express different
opinions.
“This can be a challenge because what’s OK in
one country can be offensive elsewhere. This
video – which is widely available on the Web – is
clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on
YouTube.”