الإثنين 09
جمادى
الثانية 1433هـ - 30
أبريل 2012م
Iran condemns U.S. pastor's burning of Quran as `provocative' and `insulting'
AFP, Tehran
Iran on Monday slammed a U.S. pastor's burning of a Quran, calling it
provocative and demanding U.S. authorities take action to prevent any
recurrence. Iran's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the official
IRNA news agency that it "strongly condemns this ridiculous, insulting and
provoking act by a so-called American priest in overt contempt of the holy
Quran." The condemnation was in reaction to a Saturday ceremony in which
Florida pastor Terry Jones set fire to the Muslim holy book and a depiction of
the prophet Mohammed to protest Iran's imprisonment of an Iranian Christian
clergyman, Yousef Nadarkhani.
The act was broadcast online in a YouTube video that climaxed with Jones and a
handful of followers repeating the U.S. oath of allegiance as the Quran burned.
Jones, who rebuffed a U.S. Defense Department request to desist out of fear for
U.S. troops' safety abroad, was behind a March 2011 burning of the Quran by his
assistant that triggered violence in northern Afghanistan in which at least 12
people were killed.
Iran's foreign ministry said the latest burning was the result of
"Islamophobia" in the West.
It said the world was "awaiting a quick, serious and frank response by the U.S.
government to this act so it is never repeated."
The ministry said the Quran burning "undoubtedly creates religious hatred and
will provoke Muslim anger worldwide."
The act by Jones came as U.S. and Iranian officials prepared for important
talks on Tehran's nuclear program that are to be held in Baghdad on May 23.
While Iran is expressing optimism over those talks, any failure could stoke
tensions between the Islamic republic and the West and strengthen the
possibility of military action by the United States or Israel.
Nadarkhani, the Christian evangelical pastor in prison in Iran, was arrested in
2009 and condemned to death for converting to Christianity when he was 19.
Iran's supreme court overturned the death sentence in July 2011 and a retrial
took place in September 2011, but no verdict was made public.
Nadarkhani's lawyer, Mohammed Ali Dadkhah, who himself risks incarceration for
defending the pastor and a dissident in another case, told AFP that his client
"must be released," based on religious edicts from prominent Iranian clerics.
The lawyer declined to comment on the Quran burning protest for Nadarkhani in
the United States.
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