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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (234811)	5/27/2005 12:25:10 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572892

Muslims Rally Across World Against Koran Abuse ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Burning U.S. flags and throwing tomatoes at a likeness of President Bush, Muslims from Dhaka to Jakarta rallied today to protest the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book by military prison interrogators in Guantanamo, Bay, Cuba. More than 15,000 people took to the streets of Pakistan's largest cities. Thousands more rallied in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and Kashmir, where police fired teargas and used batons to disperse a crowd of several hundred. Indonesian Muslim students shout slogans during a protest outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta May 27, 2005. A group of Muslim students rallied in reaction to a Newsweek magazine report of the desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, which was later retracted. The U.S. military has identified five incidents of 'mishandling of a Koran' by U.S. personnel at Guantanamo Bay, the commander of the prison said May 26, 2005. Photo by Beawiharta/Reuters The protests came one day after U.S. investigators admitted there was mishandling of Islam's holy book, the Koran. But they claimed it was for the most part inadvertent and denied one had been put in a toilet, as Newsweek magazine had claimed in a now-retracted report. The protest in this city, Pakistan's capital, began in a tense atmosphere just hours after a bomb blast at a Muslim shrine killed at least 20 people at an annual celebration. The motive for the suspected suicide bombing was not immediately clear. "It's time for Muslims to unite," Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of a religious alliance that organized many of the rallies, told a crowd of more than 5,000. "We have been given a challenge." He said more rallies were planned today in London, Washington D.C., New York, Chicago, Iraq, Palestine and Syria. The gathering in Islamabad, held under heavy security, was emotional but peaceful. In the southwestern city of Quetta, 5,000 demonstrators chanted slogans against the United States and Britain. Another 5,000 gathered in the southern city of Karachi, demanding the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador. Protests were also held in Lahore, near the Indian border. Several hundred Muslims rallied in Malaysia, waving placards reading "Long Live Islam" and burning U.S. and Israeli national flags outside the U.S. Embassy. A smaller rally was held in Srinagar, the Indian-held capital of Kashmir. In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, a small crowd of protesters in the capital of Jakarta tossed tomatoes at a portrait of Bush. "No one has the right to debase our holy book. We are prepared to die to protect the honor of our religion," Fazlul Huq Amini, a lawmaker from Islamic Oikya Jote, told a crowd of several thousand at a rally in Dhaka, Bangladesh. No violence was reported at any of the protests, which were organized before the officials' comments in Washington D.C. on Thursday. Muslims around the world were outraged earlier this month when Newsweek reported interrogators at the U.S. prison placed copies of the Koran in washrooms and flushed one in the toilet to get inmates to talk. The story stirred worldwide controversy and sparked deadly riots in Afghanistan, where 15 people died and scores were injured. There were no demonstrations in Afghanistan today, however. In Washington on Thursday, investigators confirmed five cases in which military personnel mishandled the Korans of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. But they said they found no "credible evidence" that a holy book was flushed in a toilet. © Copyright 2005 Associated Press