Quran burning threat fuels protests
One person reported killed near Afghan Nato base amid global
demonstrations against US pastors' threat to burn Qurans.
Last Modified: 10 Sep 2010 16
Thousands of Muslims around the world have taken to the streets to protest
against threats by an obscure pastor in the United States to burn copies
of the Quran on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the US.
Demonstrations have erupted in countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan,
India, Indonesia and the Palestinian territories, despite the church in
question saying it would not go ahead with the plan.
In Afghanistan, at least one person was reported to have been killed in
clashes with security forces as an angry crowd attacked a Nato base in the
northern province of Badakshan.
Al Jazeera's Sue Turton, reporting from Kabul, said: "They started
throwing rocks at the Nato compound [in Badakshan].
"The governor has told us that one person has been killed and several
others injured.
"It's not just in the northeast. We've also heard reports from Farah in the
West, that several people were injured there, and that in the east of the
country in Nangahar, there were demonstrations there.
"I hear that 'Death to America' was chanted, an effigy of Barack Obama [the
US president] was burned, and that people there were chanting 'long-live
the Taliban, long live Osama bin Laden'."
But Turton said that the situation appeared to be under control.
"I don't want to give the picture here that the whole of Afghanistan is
under some sort of unrest and that momentum is gathering," she said.
"I think this is a day, at the end of Ramadan and the beginning of the Eid
celebrations, that people wanted to vent their anger at what they've been
hearing, and hopefully it will be calm after that."
Protests spread
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, used his Eid message to the nation to
condemn the plan by the Dove World Outreach Centre.
He called on Jones to "not even think" about burning Qurans because "it was
an insult to [Muslim] nations".
On Thursday, the United Nations' top diplomat in Afghanistan told the
Reuters news agency that protests over the plan could force the delay of
parliamentary elections set for September 18.
The poll is seen as a key test of stability in Afghanistan before Obama
conducts a war strategy review in December.
The backlash against the event appeared to be spreading around the world
on Friday.
In Pakistan, protesters marched in the cities of Peshawar and Karachi over
the proposed burning of Qurans, shouting anti-US slogans.
Demonstrators also gathered in India, Indonesia, Gaza and Jerusalem.
The US state department has issued a warning to US citizens abroad that
they face an increased risk of being attacked as a result of the controversy.
"The potential for further protests and demonstrations, some of which may
turn violent, remains high," the department said in a special note, urging
Americans to avoid areas where protests might occur.
A state department spokesman said that US embassies around the world have
convened emergency meetings to assess the potential threat, while US
embassies in Jordan, Algeria, Syria and Indonesia had issued special messages
to
resident American citizens to be particularly alert.
Plan 'halted'
The threat by Terry Jones, the pastor of a small fringe church in
Gainesville, Florida, to burn the Qurans had drawn international condemnation
and a
warning from Obama that it could provoke al-Qaeda suicide bombings and
incite violence around the world.
"Right now we have no plans to go ahead with the event," Jones confirmed to
the US television programme Good Morning America on Friday.
Jones, the head of the Dove World Outreach Centre, first announced the
event's suspension on Thursday, but then indicated he might reconsider,
accusing Imam Muhammad Musri, a Muslim leader, of lying to him about moving a
planned Islamic centre in New York.
Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of central Florida, said Jones
had "stretched and exaggerated" his statements, while the sponsors of the
New York mosque denied any agreement had been reached.
Jones has said he will fly with Musri to New York on Saturday to meet with
Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam who plans to build the New York centre.
"We believe that the imam is going to keep his word, what he promised us
yesterday ... We believe that we are, as he said, and promised, going to meet
with the imam in New York tomorrow," Jones told Good Morning America.
The proposed location of the New York centre - near the "ground zero" site
of the September 11 attacks - has drawn opposition from many Americans who
say it is insensitive to families of victims of the nearly 3,000 people
killed that day.
'Profound damage'
Speaking on Friday, Barack Obama said that the Quran-burning event could
cause "profound damage" to US interests abroad.
"The idea that we would burn the sacred text of someone else's religion is
contrary to what this country stands for," the US president told a news
conference in Washington.
Other world leaders and international bodies have also denounced Jones'
plan to burn copies of Islam's holy book on Saturday.
Interpol, the international police agency, warned governments worldwide of
an increased risk of "terrorist attacks" if the burning went ahead.
The US has legal protections for the right to free expression and there
was little that law enforcement authorities could do to stop Jones from going
ahead, other than citing him under local by-laws against public burning.
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