1 dead, 180 arrested as KFC hit by anti-Israel protests in Pakistan

American fast food giant KFC targeted in Pakistan as a proxy for US support of Israel.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Pakistani authorities arrested nearly 180 people after one person was killed in riots against an American chain of fast food restaurants in recent weeks in protest of US support for Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas.

With around 130 branches throughout the country, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) was a convenient symbol of the United States to target in cities across the Muslim nation, including the capital, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

On Monday, a kitchen worker in a KFC eatery in Sheikhupura, outside Lahore, was shot and killed during one of the protests.

The police told the UK’s BBC broadcast corporation that 45-year-old Asif Nawaz was hit from over 100 feet away by a bullet from a handgun and that there was still doubt whether he was the intended target and whether the shot was meant to be fatal, considering the distance from the victim.

There are 27 KFC outlets in Lahore, and the authorities said they were escalating their protection around all of the premises.

They said that they had prevented five attacks from taking place and had arrested 11 people in connection with the riots in the city.

One of them was a member of the Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), which had called for demonstrations against both the US and Israel and a boycott of Israeli products due to their pro-Palestinian stance.

However, they denied giving any instructions to protest against KFC.

“If any other person claiming to be a TLP leader or activist has indulged in such activity, it should be taken as his personal act which has nothing to do with the party’s policy,” said TLP spokesman Rehan Mohsin Khan.

Videos uploaded to social media showed mobs storming into several stores with iron bars in hand, vandalizing them and threatening to set them alight.

The protestors carried out their threats in Karachi, where two stores were set on fire.

On one video, a man could be heard screaming, “They are buying bullets with the money you make.”

Twenty riots in all have been recorded, Pakistani Minister of State for Interior Talal Chaudhry said in a press conference on Saturday.

“These franchises invest over $100 million in Pakistan, employ more than 25,000 people, pay 100% taxes and buy from local vendors,” he said. “The entire profit stays in Pakistan. What excuse is there for such attacks?”

Angered by the unsubstantiated Hamas claims of tens of thousands of civilian deaths, several religious leaders in the Muslim world have called for boycotts against both Israeli and American products over the course of the 18-month-long Israel-Hamas war.

The foremost Pakistani Sunni religious leader, Mufti Taqi Usmani, spoke out at a National Palestine Conference on Thursday, urging a boycott but specifying that Islam “is not a religion that encourages harming others” and said it is forbidden to “throw stones or put anyone’s life at risk.”

“So, continue your protest and boycott, but do so in a peaceful manner. There should not be any element of violence or non-peaceful behavior,” he said.