Thai Muslims today joined the chorus of worldwide anger at an American-made anti-Islam film by protesting today at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.
The driving monsoon rains did little to stifle the enthusiasm of the roughly 500 demonstrators as they marched from Lumphini Park toward the Embassy, where fiery speeches were delivered from a speaker festooned truck.
The message, although clear in its anger and desire for the demise of the U.S., was peaceful, with speakers – in both English language and Thai – stating that they were there to “stop the hate”.
One speaker denounced the film – a low-budget disaster turned worse depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad as an imbecilic sex pest – by saying: “We are here to peacefully protest this film… [which] you have the nerve to call freedom of speech?” he said, before chanting “We hate hate” and “You are war criminals”.
There was roughly equal representation with two separate contingents of male and female protesters hoisting placards that read, “We love Muhammad,” “Down with America,” and “We respect all religions,” and “Down with Israel”, among a variety of others depicting scenes of war in the Middle East.
The crowd rallied in front of battalions of riot police at the Embassy for about an hour and a half before dispersing peacefully, unlike protests seen over the past week in places like Egypt, Tunisia, Australia and Libya – where the U.S. Embassy was ransacked and the Ambassador, Chris Stevens, was murdered.
Protests against the film, made by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, began after a trailer was released on the Internet, outraging muslims around the world.
Nakoula, whose name was originally given as Sam Bacile, is on probation after being convicted of bank fraud in 2010 and is believed to have commonly used aliases.
Since protests began, actors in the film have come forward saying they were mislead by Nakoula, who gave them scripts piecemeal and dubbed in dialogue after filming.
After wrapping up the demonstration, protesters gave themselves a round of applause, thanked the Embassy for cooperating with the protest and made their ways home in the rain, in true Thai spirit.
