Moroccans Protest against Film Outside U.S. Consulate in Casablanca
Hundreds of Muslims protested on Wednesday outside the U.S. consulate in Morocco's largest city Casablanca to decry a film deemed insulting to Islam that already sparked deadly violence in Libya, an Agence France Presse photographer reported.
The protesters, numbering between 300 and 400 mostly young activists, gathered around 200 meters (yards) from the consulate amid a heavy police presence.
Some shouted anti-U.S. slogans, including "Death to Obama!", but without resorting to violence.
On Tuesday, U.S. ambassador to Tripoli Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Libyan city of Benghazi when an armed mob stormed the consulate, torching the building after looting it.
And in Cairo, several thousand people stormed the U.S. embassy in a similar protest against the American-made amateur video called "Innocence of Muslims."
The low-budget movie, in which actors have strong American accents, portrays Muslims as immoral and gratuitously violent. It also pokes fun at the Prophet Mohammed and touches on themes of pedophilia and homosexuality.
It was produced by Israeli-American Sam Bacile, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Casablanca protest appeared to have been called spontaneously, via social media networks, and without the involvement of any particular organiaation.
Similar protests against the film were held outside the U.S. embassies in Sudan and Tunisia on Wednesday.
Source: Agence France Presse
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