Kenyan Muslims demonstrate in Kenya over prophet drawings

Thousands of Kenyan Muslims shouted anti-Denmark slogans while demonstrating Friday to protest cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad first published in a Danish newspaper.

Photo: Kenyan Muslims demonstrate in Kenya over prophet drawings

Demonstrators, shouting "God is Great and Muhammad is his Prophet!" and "Down with Denmark!" marched from the largest mosque in downtown Nairobi to Kenya's foreign ministry, where they were expected to deliver a protest note.

Other demonstrators walked out of the Sar Ali Mosque, outside downtown Nairobi, and burned Danish flags and shouted anti-Denmark slogans there. About 300 protesters began a march to the city center.

Protests also erupted after Friday prayers in Mombasa, an Indian Ocean port city where Muslims are the majority.

"Our prophet has been insulted and we condemn this," Sheik Ibrahim Lethome said at Nairobi's Sar Ali Mosque. "We must do something ... We boycott anything from Denmark, their goods and traveling to their country, and have nothing to do with them."

"The freedom of expression in Denmark should not interfere with or insult our religion," Lethome said in his sermon.

In neighboring Uganda, Muslim leaders condemned the publication of the cartoons in Friday sermons, and said they may hold protest marches next week.

Protests have erupted around the world since the cartoons first appeared in the Danish newspaper the Jyllands-Posten, reports the AP.

I.L.