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A supporter of the Tehreek-e-Labiak Pakistan party in Lahore in front of police officers
Photo: KM Chaudary / dpa
Several people have been killed in clashes between police and a banned radical Islamic party in Pakistan.
The Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party announced on Saturday that at least five of its members died in Lahore, eastern Pakistan.
The police initially did not want to comment on the deaths, but reported two police officers killed on Friday evening.
On Friday, more than a thousand TLP supporters gathered after the prayer and demanded the release of the imprisoned party leader.
They blocked streets and fired projectiles.
According to the police, the protests continued on Saturday.
Thousands of people joined the demonstration and marched in the evening towards the Pakistani capital Islamabad without any resistance from the police.
The Pakistani government has classified the TLP as a "terrorist" organization and has had it banned.
As part of the party ban, the TLP chairman Saad Rizvi was arrested in April.
The party is at the forefront of massive anti-French demonstrations.
The protests were triggered by statements by French President Emmanuel Macron last year.
Macron had, among other things, made a clear commitment to freedom of expression and defended the publication of Mohammed cartoons.
Mohammed cartoons had already triggered violent protests in the Islamic world on several occasions.
Many Muslims find the cartoons blasphemous.
Because of the sometimes violent protests, the French embassy called on its citizens to leave Pakistan at the beginning of the year.
In early 2006, more than 150 people were killed in violent protests against Mohammed cartoons.
The trigger at the time were caricatures in the Danish newspaper »Jyllands-Posten«.
In 2015, twelve people died in an attack on the French satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo", which also showed caricatures of the prophet.
skr / AFP / dpa