B'desh editors ask forgiveness on magazine cartoon

DHAKA (Reuters) - Editors of eight leading Bangladesh newspapers in a joint statement on Thursday urged people to forgive a cartoon published in a magazine this week.

The statement was issued after Islamists and Imams of different mosques called for a street protest against the cartoon, which some said hurt the sentiment of most devout Muslims.

A hardline Muslim group, Hizbut Tahrir, urged Muslims to gather outside Dhaka's Baitul Mokarram mosque after Friday noon prayers and march towards the office of the daily Prothom Alo.

Its weekly magazine Alpin published the cartoon on Monday, triggering immediate protests, and led to the arrest of the cartoonist, Arifur Rahman, on the grounds he had deliberately insulted Islam and tried to disrupt peace in the country.

The cartoon showed a small boy calling his cat "Mohammad Biral (cat)".

Islam's prophet Mohammad is highly revered by Muslims, and the protesters objected to use of his name for a cat.

Angry Muslims said the cartoonist deliberately printed it to hurt their feelings, while a government adviser, Mainul Husein, said it was part of a design to provoke violence in the country.

On Wednesday police broke up a street march by hundreds of Islamists in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka, demanding "death to the Prothom Alo editor" and "hang the cartoonist".

Bangladesh bans all protests under a state of emergency the army-backed interim government imposed in January, following months of political violence.