Islami Andolan demands ending diplomatic relations with France

Leaders and activists of Islami Andolan Bangladesh Tuesday 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).

The demonstration, led by Islami Andolan Ameer Mufti Syed Rezaul Karim, started from the national mosque Baitul Mokarram was marching towards the Embassy of France in Gulshan.

However, the procession was blocked by police in the Shantinagar area. The protestors staged a brief demonstration there. They demanded scrapping diplomatic relations with France and boycotting the country's products.  

"Additional law enforcers were deployed from Baitul Mokarram to Gulshan to avert any untoward situation," said Abul Hassan, officer-in-charge of Gulshan Police Station.

Earlier in the morning, many leaders and activists of different Islamist political parties gathered in front of the French Embassy to stage protest. However, police have dispersed the protesters. No one is there now.

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 Mohammed.  

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 Mohammed 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.