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Cartoon Violence Spreads to Nigeria

Mutual suspicions between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria have led to thousands of deaths in recent years, and recent tensions enflamed by 5 month old cartoons resulted in thousands of rioters running through the streets burning 15 churches in Maiduguri in a three-hour rampage before troops and police reinforcements restored order. Nigeria`s population of more than 130 million is roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a Christian south.

And so occurred the first major protest in Nigeria over cartoons portraying the Muslim prophet Muhammad erupted with Nigerian Muslims attacking Christians, burning churches and killing at least 15 people. Even though the cartoons first appeared in a Danish newspaper last September, Arab and Islamic governments have manipulated public sentiment since then in order to draw off attention from their own human rights abuses and intolerance.

Mobs of Muslim protesters swarmed through the Maiduguri city center with machetes, sticks and iron rods. One group threw a tire around a man, poured gas on him and set him ablaze...symbolic of the peaceful intentions of the protestors? Probably not. One would call that murder, but of course since Muslims see themselves as blameless they would call it freedom fighting. Nigerian police spokesman Haz Iwendi says security forces have arrested dozens of people in Maiduguri, which is located about 1,000 miles northeast of Lagos, the capital.