"There is no god but God, and Mohammed is the messenger of God!" the protesters said.
Demonstrators attacked police with stones and torched fire engines, witnesses said. Black smoke billowed from the area.
EVACUATED
A security official said staff had been evacuated two days ago. The Danish Foreign Ministry urged Danes to leave Lebanon as soon as possible.
"It is a critical situation and it is very serious," Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said on Danish public radio yesterday.
The trouble threatened to rile sectarian tensions when protesters began stoning St. Maroun Church, one of the city's main Maronite Catholic churches, and property in Ashrafieh, a Christian area. Sectarian tension is a sensitive issue in Lebanon, where Muslims and Christians fought a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.
Austria, which holds the rotating EU presidency, condemned the attacks on European embassies: "Such acts can by no means be legitimized and are utterly unacceptable."
Meanwhile, editors of two Jordanian tabloid weeklies faced punishment on Saturday for reprinting Danish cartoons deemed blasphemous to Mohammed.
The state prosecutor ordered detention for questioning of Jihad Momani, editor of Shihan weekly, and Hashem Khaledi, editor of al-Mehwar weekly, according to government spokesman Nasser Judeh.
Iran said yesterday that it had recalled its ambassador to Denmark over the publication of the cartoons.
also see story:
Cartoon row may kill NZ trade: PM
RSS