More fallout from the Koran burning plan

[Twoller]

Well, of course it didn't matter that the preacher chickened out of the Koran burning. They were foaming at the mouth in Muslim countries anyway.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...lled-quran-row

Kashmir riots over Qur'an 'burning' leave 13 dead

American ambassador appeals for calm after police fire into angry crowds protesting amid Qur'an-burning controversy in US

Associated Press guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 September 2010 14.41 BST

image: Indian paramilitary forces on guard in Srinagar, the Kashmir capital, after riots across the territory Photograph: Yawar Nazir/Getty Images

Indian forces killed 13 protesters and wounded scores of others today in confrontations across Kashmir fueled in part by a report that a Qur'an was desecrated in the United States, a police official said.

The violence, the worst since separatist protests erupted in June, came as Indian officials debated whether to relax harsh security regulations to try to ease tensions in the disputed territory.

Despite a rigid curfew across the region, tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets, throwing rocks, torching government buildings and chanting, "Go India, go back. We want freedom."

Security forces fired live ammunition at some of the crowds, killing people in at least five villages, said a police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak with media.

The protests were inflamed by reports on the Iranian state-run channel Press TV that the Qur'an was desecrated over the weekend in the United States.

US ambassador Timothy Roemer said his government was "dismayed" by the rioting and appealed for calm.

He also condemned any Qur'an desecration as "disrespectful, intolerant, divisive and unrepresentative of American values. The deliberate destruction of any holy book is an abhorrent act."

Kashmir is another place like Kosovo in the Balkans where baby-spewing Muslims from a neighboring Muslim country, Pakistan in this case, have taken over this Indian territory and demanded "independence". In Kosovo, which is a part of Serbia, the neighboring country is Albania. Kashmir is holy to India, just like Kosovo is holy to Serbia.

And of course death is too good for anyone who dares defile the Koran.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...-1225921563750

Iranian clerics call for slaying of Koran burners
From: NewsCore September 14, 2010 12:06AM

Two top Iranian clerics said anyone desecrating the Koran must be killed as hundreds of people protested on yesterady outside the Swiss embassy in Tehran.

"From the point of view of Islamic jurisprudence, strong objection to such thoughts is mandatory and necessary and killing the people who have committed this act is compulsory," Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.

His view was echoed by Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi who added that such a response must be taken after consulting a "religious judge."

"The blood of the person who burns the Koran can undoubtedly be shed. But in this issue, no action should be taken without the permission of a religious judge," Makarem Shirazi said.

American evangelical pastor Terry Jones had threatened in the run up to the 9th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States to burn the Koran at his tiny Florida church. He later relented.

But a group of conservative Christians tore up pages of the Koran in a protest on Saturday outside the White House.

Top Iranian officials, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have issued harsh criticism over the issue, with the hardliner even saying that a bid to burn the Muslim holy book was a "Zionist plot" that would lead to the speedy "annihilation" of Israel.

Meanwhile up to 500 people demonstrated outside the Swiss embassy in northern Tehran in protest against the United States over the Koran-burning issue.

An AFP photographer said the crowd, chanting anti-US and anti-Israel slogans, pelted stones at the embassy and tried to get into the building, but the guards prevented them from entering the premises.

Several protesters, carrying copies of the Koran on their heads, set US and Israel flags on fire as they chanted "Death to America! Death to Israel!", the photographer reported.

The Swiss embassy manages US interests in Iran since Washington and Tehran have had no diplomatic ties since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The Koran is a book that expresses the importance of violence against non-believers. The violence that is excited by people damaging the Koran, is commanded by the Koran itself. The Koran is the source of the violence, not people abusing its pages.

Nobody who really respects something like "tolerance" can defend respect for such a work, no matter how old it is. For our own self protection, we need to stand up against it.