Newsday.com: More protests over Quran abuse
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More protests over Quran abuse

BY JAMES RUPERT
STAFF CORRESPONDENT

May 14, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Muslims from the Mediterranean to the Pacific protested Friday over the reported desecration of the Quran by a U.S. soldier at Guantanamo Bay. In Afghanistan, where anti-American riots began three days ago, at least seven people were reported killed, doubling the death toll from the violence.

The upheaval kept the Bush administration on the defensive, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appealing for calm and repeating assurances that the U.S. military is carefully investigating the Guantanamo incident.

While the protests have not been massive, analysts fear the issue is damaging U.S. diplomatic efforts in the region. Violence in Afghanistan has disrupted what has been a virtual national consensus in support of the U.S. presence, raising the profile of America's militant opponents. Protests in Pakistan forced at least two U.S. consulates to close as a precaution.

To varying degrees, officials of the Pakistani, Indonesian and Saudi Arabian governments -- all seen as essential to the U.S. war on terror -- prodded Washington for action. Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri called for severe punishment for any soldiers found to have desecrated the Quran -- a crime that in Pakistan is punishable by death.

The uproar was ignited by a recent report in Newsweek magazine that U.S. troops had thrown a copy of the Quran into a toilet as part of their interrogation of Muslim prisoners. Prisoners released from Guantanamo and other U.S. military prisons also say soldiers abused the Quran to horrify or humiliate prisoners.

In one mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, prominent cleric and politician Sibghatullah Mojaddedi told worshippers at Friday prayers that "we respect the Quran and support those who demonstrate," Reuters news agency reported on its Web site. "But we want peaceful demonstrations -- not attacking offices and aid agencies who have come here to help us," he said.

In four provincial towns, though, violence broke out as men filled the streets after the midday prayer. In Baharak, in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, a crowd of 1,000 attacked a Canadian aid agency office and three people died in a clash with police, a provincial official told the French news agency AFP.

At least four policemen were reported killed in Ghazni province and another person in the city of Gardez, both southwest of Kabul, and a protester was reported shot to death in Qalay-I-Nau, in the northwest as the violence spread from southern to northern Afghanistan for the first time.

Peaceful but angry Muslims also protested in the Palestinian territories and Indonesia, according to news reports. The biggest march appeared to be in the northern Gaza Strip, where 1,000 Palestinians, including many activists of the Islamic militant movement, Hamas, marched to chants of "protect our holy book."

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.