Qur’an Desecrators Must Be Punished: IAMS

Additional Reporting by Ayman Al-Masri, IOL Correspondent

CAIRO, May 14, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS) has demanded the Bush administration severely punish American soldiers responsible for desecrating the Noble Qur’an at the notorious prison in Guantanamo Bay.

“The enemies of Islam do not refrain from fighting the Muslim faith, insulting its holy scripture and shrines, and provoking Muslim outrage worldwide,” the Dublin-based Muslim body said in a strongly-worded statement obtained by IslamOnline.net.

Branding the American act as a “deep insult” to Islam’s holy book, it stressed that the US administration must immediately apologize for the “heinous crime.”

The body further said that Washington must not drag its feet on a promised inquiry into the incident.

The IAMS, which brings together 200 Muslim scholars from around the world, further called on the Muslim nation to rise to the daunting challenges facing their religion.

NEWSWEEK magazine said in its May 9 edition that investigators probing abuses at the US military prison in Cuba found that interrogators “had placed Korans (sic) on toilets, and in at least one case flushed a holy book down the toilet.”

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the administration takes the issue “very seriously” and reaffirmed that the Defense Department has launched an investigation.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday, May 12, described as “abhorrent” any desecration of the Qur’an, promising to place a severe punishment on the offenders.

“Disrespect for the holy Qur’an is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States,” she told a Senate committee.

The US is holding more than 500 prisoners incommunicado at Guantanamo.

UN human rights officials have repeatedly raised concerns about detainees held there and in different US prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Continuing Demos

Meanwhile, protests spread across the Muslim world on Friday with thousands taking to the streets mainly in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Palestinian territories.

In Afghanistan, the worst anti-US demonstrations since the fall of Taliban in 2001 entered a fourth day and spread to new cities.

Afghan troops shot dead three people Friday as protesters tried to storm the governor's house in southern Ghazni province, bringing the number of people killed since Tuesday, May 10, to 16, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Thousands have shouted anti-US slogans and pledged to avenge the desecration of the Qur’an in key cities like Kabul, Faizabad and Gardez.

The protesters torched the offices of three foreign aid agencies in Faizabad, Afghan officials told AFP.

The army also opened fire on some 300 protesters in Gardez, killing one and injuring at least three, doctors and officials said.

About 6,000 Afghan refugees also staged a demonstration in a camp near the northwestern city of Peshawar, before dispersing peacefully.

In neighboring Pakistan, hundreds of people burned US flags and effigies of President George W. Bush, witnesses said.

Demonstrators in several cities, including the capital Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore, chanted “Death to America” while speakers at rallies called by the main Islamic alliance in Pakistan, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, demanded Washington to punish the “criminals.”

Jakarta, capital of the world's most populous Muslim nation Indonesia, saw a rally at a mosque by hundreds of people protesting against the sacrilege.

Students in the Indonesian city of Makassar on Sulawesi island also took to the streets and searched hotels and the airport for any Americans, AFP said.

At the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, around 2,000 Palestinian demonstrators held aloft copies of the Qur’an as they marched through the streets.

American and Israeli flags were burnt during the demonstration following the Friday prayers, while 400 mounted a similar protest in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil.

Muslims in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iraq also expressed anger, both with Washington and their own leaders for their impotence in the face of the desecration.