Islamic leader pushes cartoon protests in Pakistan

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Radical Islamic leaders called for more rallies against the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in Pakistan as lawmakers disrupted a session of Parliament, protesting sweeping arrests before a banned demonstration over the weekend. The rowdy opposition legislators forced the lower house of Parliament, or National Assembly, to adjourn indefinitely after they stood up Monday and chanted anti-government slogans. They also demanded a debate about the roundup of hundreds of Islamic hard-liners before Sunday's protest in the capital, Islamabad. One of those detained was Qazi Hussain Ahmed, a leader of a six-party coalition of radical Islamic parties called Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), or United Action Forum. The MMA sympathizes with the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and is fiercely anti-US.