Photo Gallery A Battle over Muhammad in Bonn
German Salafists clashed on Saturday with members of the right-wing populist party Pro-NRW in Bonn. Twenty-nine police officers were hurt, two seriously after they were stabbed. Here, counter-demonstrators pray at the site where Pro-NRW was displaying anti-Islam caricatures.
The violence occurred as Pro-NRW attempted to display Muhammad and anti-Islam caricatures in front of a Muslim facility in the city. Displaying the caricatures in front of mosques is a key part of Pro-NRW's attempt to attract attention prior to Sunday elections in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. This poster is a campaign poster used by Pro-NRW in 2010.
There were hundreds of counter-demonstrators on hand, many of them Salafists from across Germany. Most of the 109 people arrested on Saturday were Salafists. Police confiscated several weapons, including this knife, slingshot and bag of steel balls bearings.
Several hundred police were on hand to keep the two groups away from each other. But they were unprepared, a police spokesman told SPIEGEL ONLINE, for the rapid escalation.
Muslims in Bonn protest against the provocative rally held by the right-wing populist Pro-NRW party on Saturday.
Muslims in Bonn pray on Saturday in front of the König-Fahd academy, a Saudi Arabian-financed school for Muslim children living temporarily in Germany, during the rally.
Here, a Muslim demonstator armed with a stick as the counter-demonstration begins to get out of hand. Two police were taken to hospital with stab wounds and a 25-year-old Salafist was charged with attempted murder on Monday.
The Pro-NRW caricature "contest" intentionally recalls the publishing of several Muhammad caricatures in 2005 in a Danish newspaper that ultimately led to at times violent protests across the Muslim world.
