Bangladeshis protest Sweden far-right unrest, Al-Aqsa clash

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Thousands of members of an Islamist group have rallied in Bangladesh’s capital to protest recent violence in Sweden involving an anti-Muslim far-right group and fresh clashes at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. Protesters from the conservative Islami Andolon Bangladesh group, which supports the introduction of Islamic law in the Muslim-majority secular country, carried banners denouncing the Swedish police and what they called Israel’s brutality in Jerusalem. The group’s leader urged the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to denounce acts such as the burning of the Quran. The conservative group has in the past organized similar protests against France’s president and his support for freedom of speech laws that protected caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad.