Three killed as protests over Quran abuse spread

LOGAR, Afghanistan: Demonstrations spread in Afghanistan yesterday over a report that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Quran, and officials said three protesters were killed.
Several hundred students shouting “Death to America” held a peaceful protest in the capital, Kabul, but elsewhere demonstrations turned violent, a day after four people were killed and 70 wounded in riots in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
 Angry villagers in a district southwest of Jalalabad, some of them armed, tried to march to the city but were blocked by police, officials and witnesses said.
Protesters threw stones at police and eventually gunfire broke out and two protesters were killed, said district chief Muhammad Omar.
“The protesters were armed but they didn’t fire at police,” said villager Shair Ali.
Newsweek magazine said in a recent edition that investigators probing abuses at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had found interrogators “had placed Qurans on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet”.
Protests over the report began in Jalalabad on Tuesday. The following day police fired on crowds after government offices were set on fire, shops looted and UN buildings and diplomatic missions attacked.
Elsewhere yesterday, protesters attacked police and government offices in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul.
An ammunition store was torched and exploded, killing one protester and wounding four, said Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal.
Hundreds of protesters in Logar province, 50km south of Kabul, blocked the main road and chanted “Death to Bush” and “Long live Islam”.
Armed with clubs and stones, they damaged police vehicles, a government office, just opened by President Hamid Karzai last week, and an office of the CARE aid group, witnesses said.
Police on rooftops ducked behind walls to avoid stones, firing into the air to scatter the protesters, who regrouped and hurled stones again. Several police were hurt.
US and other foreign troops have not been involved in policing the protests, leaving that to Afghan authorities.
The United States has sought to defuse the anger over the Quran report by emphasising its outrage and promising that the allegation would be investigated.
“A desecration of religious texts and objects is repugnant to common values and anathema to the American people,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.
n PESHAWAR, Pakistan: More than 200 supporters of a radical Islamic group chanted “Death to America!” at a rally in northwestern Pakistan yesterday to protest the reported desecration of the Quran at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Many who rallied in the town of Peshawar were students from an Islamic school and supporters of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party. They demanded that the United States offer an apology.
“This insulting of the Quran is a shameful act. It has torn to bits America’s claims of being an enlightened country,” said Abdul Jalil Jan, a leader of the rally in the conservative city of Peshawar.           – Agencies
Last update on: 13-5-2005

Article from: Bahrain Tribune Newspaper- www.BahrainTribune.com