About 10,000 Bangladeshis took to the streets of Dhaka yesterday to demonstrate against an anti-Islam film made in the US and cartoons in a French satirical magazine caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad. The protesters, many carrying banners from half a dozen Islamist groups, burnt an effigy of Barack Obama outside the national Baitul Mokarram Mosque, the country’s largest, after Friday prayers. They also set fire to a French flag as they carried placards and banners reading “Obama, you are a cheater”, “Protest the disgrace of Prophet Muhammad!” Security was tightened around the protest area with the deployment of hundreds of police and elite Rapid Action Battalion, armoured personnel carriers and water cannon. French authorities in Bangladesh also shut down three cultural centres and the French embassy in the capital, police said. About 90% of Bangladesh’s 153mn people are Muslims. The government has condemned the film and blocked the video-sharing website YouTube, where the film was uploaded. Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) yesterday imposed a ban on holding of all sorts of demonstrations, processions, and rallies in the city’s Paltan and its adjacent areas until the further instruction.“There is a possibility of protesters creating chaos in the area that can disrupt law and order situation as some Islamic organisations announced to hold a rally near the North gate of the National Mosque today. That is why the ban was imposed,” said DMP commissioner Benzir Ahmed said in a statement.Sammiloto Ulama Mashayek Parishad and like-minded 12 other Islamist parties announced to hold a rally this morning in the city’s Paltan area, protesting anti-Islamic movie and cartoons insulting Prophet Muhammad. AFP