Hefazat gives ultimatum to end diplomatic ties with France
The protesters demanded scrapping diplomatic relations with France within 24-hour, boycotting the country's products and expelling the French Ambassador to Bangladesh Jean-Marin SCHUH
Being barred on way to siege French Embassy in Gulshan, the leaders and activists of Hefazat-e-Islam today staged a demonstration in capital's Shantinagar area protesting French President Emmanuel Macron's remarks criticising Islam and defending cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
They demanded scrapping diplomatic relations with France within 24-hour, boycotting the country's products and expelling the French Ambassador to Bangladesh Jean-Marin SCHUH.
The demonstration, starting from the national mosque Baitul Mokarram was marching towards the Embassy of France in Gulshan in order to lay siege to the embassy. However, the procession was barred by police in the Shantinagar area, said Sentu Mia, officer-in-charge (investigation) of Paltan Police Station.
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The protesters staged a brief demonstration there and placed their demands.
"We will announce our next steps after end of the 24 hours ultimatum," said, Junayed Babunagari, secretary general of Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh.
Additional law enforcers were deployed from Baitul Mokarram to Gulshan to avert any untoward situation.
Meanwhile, huge traffic jam has formed in some parts of the capital due to the protest procession.
Earlier, leaders and activists of Islami Andolan Bangladesh staged a demonstration and demanded scrapping diplomatic relations with France and boycotting the country's products.
In recent days, a call to boycott French products has grown in the Arab world and beyond, after the French president Emmanuel Macron criticised Islamists and made the comment of not giving up cartoons" depicting the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Macron's comment came in response to the beheading of a teacher, Samuel Paty, outside his school in a suburb outside Paris earlier this month, after he had shown cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) during a class he was leading on free speech.
The teacher became the target of an online hate campaign over his choice of lesson material -- the same images that unleashed a bloody assault by Islamist gunmen on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the original publisher, in January 2015.
France on 25 October urged Middle Eastern countries to stop retail companies from boycotting French products.
On 1 November, French President Emmanuel Macron said he respected Muslims who were shocked by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) but that was no excuse for violence, as his officials ramped up security after a knife attack in a French church that killed three people this week.
