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Hurin_Rules
05-13-2005, 18:41
8 more Afghans killed in anti-U.S. protests
Alleged desecration of Quran at center of anger
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:19 p.m. ET May 13, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan - Security forces opened fire and protesters stoned government and relief agency buildings as clashes in four Afghan cities left at least eight people dead Friday amid growing anti-American sentiment over the alleged desecration of Islam’s holy book at Guantanamo Bay.

The deaths brought to 15 the number of people killed in the biggest outpouring of anti-American sentiment since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 — a deepening worry for the government of U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia — both U.S. allies — registered dismay over the allegations of Quran desecration, as did the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference and the outlawed Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

The unrest spread to the Palestinian territories Friday as hundreds of activists from the Islamic militant group Hamas staged a rare anti-U.S. protest in the Gaza Strip, with hundreds shouting “protect our holy book.”

No protests in Pakistan
A call for mass street protests from a coalition of hard-line religious parties in Pakistan fell flat, but firebrand Muslim clerics lashed out at the United States.

“By insulting the Quran, they have challenged our belief. We are hurt ... If we don’t rise against Americans, if we don’t give them a strong message today, they will do it again,” cleric Hafiz Hussain Ahmad told worshippers at a mosque in the Pakistani capital.

The Afghan protests broke out Tuesday after Newsweek magazine reported in its May 9 edition that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and in one case “flushed a holy book down the toilet.”

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims arrested during the U.S.-led war against terror in Afghanistan. In both Afghanistan and Pakistan, insults to the Quran and Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, are regarded as blasphemy and punishable by death.

Afghan officials said some of the protesters who took to the streets chanting anti-American slogans and stoning the offices of international relief organizations ignored the urgings of mullahs during Friday prayers to remain calm.

'Enemies of Afghanistan'
“This is organized by particular groups who are the enemies of Afghanistan,” Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal told The Associated Press. “They are trying to show that the situation, that security is not good.”

Shooting broke out in the southeastern city of Ghazni after protesters swarmed toward a police station and the governor’s residence after Friday prayers chanting “Death to America” and pelting the buildings with rocks, witnesses said.

Shafiqullah Shafaq, a doctor at the city hospital, told AP that two civilians and a police officer were fatally shot and 21 people wounded, including the provincial police chief.

In northeastern Badakhshan, three men were killed when police fired to control hundreds of protesters in Baharak district, Gov. Abdul Majid told AP. Another 22 people were reported hurt, including three police officers.

The mob also set fire to the office of Focus, a reconstruction agency funded by the Aga Khan Foundation of the spiritual leader of the world’s 20 million Ismaili Muslims, and a British aid group, Majib said.

Another man was killed in the northwest when police opened fire during a demonstration after prayers in Qala-e-Naw, capital of Badghis province, provincial police chief Amir Shah Naibzada told AP.

Four demonstrators suffered bullet wounds in a clash with police and government troops in Gardez, near the Pakistani border, and one died later in hospital, provincial police chief Hay Gul Suleyman Khel said.

A protest in Kabul ended peacefully.

The crackdown on the first major protest in Jalalabad on Tuesday that left four people dead has enflamed passions further, and demonstrations — many of them violent — have taken place in at least 10 towns and cities.

Rice vows to investigate
U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have promised to investigate the allegations, saying disrespect for the Quran would never be tolerated.

“Respect for religious freedom for all individuals is one of the founding principles of the United States,” Rice said Thursday in Washington.

At the Pentagon, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. commanders in Afghanistan believe that local political factions — and not the alleged desecration — are driving the violence.

In neighboring Pakistan, the powerful opposition Islamic coalition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal appealed for Muslims to protest after Friday prayers.

But in the main cities of Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Karachi no more than a few hundred turned out, despite fiery rhetoric from some preachers. No violence was reported, although in Quetta, protesters burned an effigy of President Bush.

Sadique Bajrani, a cleric in Karachi, urged people to remain peaceful. “Americans did a bad thing, but you should not hurt anyone while protesting against America,” he said.
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7810656/

Leet Eriksson
05-13-2005, 18:51
What a pointless protest.

KukriKhan
05-13-2005, 18:58
What a pointless protest.

Nevertheless, authorities are investigating. Oddly, I can't find the article in question on newsweek.com.

BDC
05-13-2005, 19:25
These people need to pull themselves out of the middle ages.

Hurin_Rules
05-13-2005, 20:22
These people need to pull themselves out of the middle ages.

I totally agree: Guantanamo needs to be shut down.

t1master
05-13-2005, 21:54
so the afganis snitch on each other after the u.s. invades, and turns over folks they don't like, or whom they are engaged in a blood fued with to the u.s. and collects a reward, (as many critics of gitmo will tell you). now they are mad that the detanees which they handed over, for profit, are being mistreated? interesting... ~;)

Crazed Rabbit
05-13-2005, 22:05
Huh- the article doesn't seem to mention the fact that the allegations of Koran destruction at Gitmo are unsubstantiated, and the only instance of a Koran getting ripped up was by a detainee trying to stop up a toilet with it.

So now 15 are dead because the biased press rushed to publish a story without checking the facts.

Crazed Rabbit

Adrian II
05-13-2005, 22:09
So now 15 are dead because the biased press rushed to publish a story without checking the facts.You really think that's all there is to it?

Templar Knight
05-13-2005, 22:43
What are they alleged to have done to the Qu'ran?

Crazed Rabbit
05-13-2005, 23:03
Maybe there's more, maybe not. But so far, that's what it seems to be. Heaven knows the liberal press can forget to check sources when they can blame Bush for something.

Crazed Rabbit

Adrian II
05-13-2005, 23:08
Maybe there's more, maybe not. But so far, that's what it seems to be.I mean: is that all there is to the protests? It is all about one American newspaper report about Guantanamo guards flushing a Quran down a toilet?

Templar Knight
05-13-2005, 23:15
Think of the outrage overhere if a Bible or a copy of FHM was flushed down the pan, It might block the loo however.

Crazed Rabbit
05-13-2005, 23:16
I think so, judging from this:


The Afghan protests broke out Tuesday after Newsweek magazine reported in its May 9 edition that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and in one case “flushed a holy book down the toilet.”

I don't doubt that terrorists siezed on that story and inflamed the opinion of people who went to protest.

Crazed Rabbit

Devastatin Dave
05-13-2005, 23:21
I think so, judging from this:



I don't doubt that terrorists siezed on that story and inflamed the opinion of people who went to protest.

Crazed Rabbit

Exactly... There is nothing more the liberal press love than to print unchecked "facts" in order to incite violence to sell more papers. The more death, the bigger the boner of the liberal newspaper editor. Just ask Dan Rather about putting out unsubstantiated "news" stories in order to cause a negative reaction towards the United States. There is nothing that makes a liberal, particurally a media liberal than printing something bad about the US. The 15 dead is just the cherry on the top.

Adrian II
05-13-2005, 23:33
I don't doubt that terrorists siezed on that story and inflamed the opinion of people who went to protest.Those terrorists seem to have a lot of clout, judging by the worldwide wave of protests they are able to unleash, including the Pakistani and Saudi governments:


KABUL, Afghanistan, May 13 - Thousands of Muslims, from Gaza to Pakistan to Indonesia, emerged from prayers today to join Afghans in rapidly spreading protests over reports that the Koran had been desecrated by American interrogators in Cuba.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia expressed dismay over reports of the religious violations, and political leaders throughout the Muslim world called on the United States to investigate the allegations. American officials have pledged a full investigation, and asserted that such conduct, if it occurred, was outside the bounds of official policy.

Gawain of Orkeny
05-14-2005, 02:13
This was posted here yesterday in another thread. Im pretty sure the neesweek article was there. I know I found it and read it.So Islam isnt a contributing cause of terrorism huh. To kill people because someone ALLEGEDLY flushed a Koran down the toilet or if they flushed 100 Korans down the toilet is idiotic. Its only a book. I dont care if they flush a thousand bibles down the toilet christains arent going to go on a killing spree. Weve seen pictures of the Virgin Mary covered in dung and the crusifix in a jar of urine in museums and its called art for heavens sake.

t1master
05-14-2005, 02:43
not to mention the movie the exorcist... remember the scene with the crucifix and the !@#$ me jesus... not to mention another thousand other sicko type movies and pieces of dung artwork out there... some factions in islam, like some in xtianity need to learn some tolerance and when to let things go ~;)

Papewaio
05-14-2005, 07:28
IMDHO

The summary of the article would be:

"Bad plumbing kills 15."

Crazed Rabbit
05-14-2005, 07:32
Or:

"15 Die From Media Hype"

Crazed Rabbit

PanzerJaeger
05-14-2005, 17:56
Thanks newsweek for undermining America yet again..

Hurin_Rules
05-14-2005, 18:15
Don't you think you're jumping the gun a bit? What if it turns out to be true?

Crazed Rabbit
05-14-2005, 18:53
Don't you think Newsweek jumped the gun a bit? Somehow, I feel this will turn out erily similar to the Dan Rather nat'l guard thing.

Crazed Rabbit

Hurin_Rules
05-14-2005, 21:10
Don't you think Newsweek jumped the gun a bit? Somehow, I feel this will turn out erily similar to the Dan Rather nat'l guard thing.

Crazed Rabbit


No, I honestly don't. I'm not trying to be contrary or antagonistic here, CR, but everything we've heard and learned about Guantanamo Bay suggests that the gloves are off there. International human rights activists, the Red Cross, even the FBI itself, for Pete's sake, has criticized the abuses here. Given all this, is it that incomprehensible that someone might have flushed a Koran down the toilet?

Adrian II
05-14-2005, 21:32
Or: "15 Die From Media Hype"Or: "Newsweek report last straw for already angry Afghans"?

Hurin_Rules
05-14-2005, 22:28
You know what? I think this might finally be the event that forces the Bush administration to launch and independent investigation over abuses at Guantanamo.

Consider:


Anger growing over reported Quran desecration
Yemen, Arab League, Pakistan call for investigation, apology
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:20 p.m. ET May 14, 2005

SAN‘A, Yemen - Yemen’s government and thousands of university students on Saturday added their voices to the Muslim world’s anger over alleged desecration of Islam’s holy book, the Quran, by U.S. troops at the Guantanamo detention facility.

The Arab League, based in Cairo, Egypt, also issued a statement saying if the allegations panned out, Washington should apologize to Muslims.

In Afghanistan, where recent protests against the reported desecration left 15 people dead, President Hamid Karzai blamed the violence on opponents trying to tarnish the country’s image. Another U.S. ally, Pakistan’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, called for a thorough investigation.

The denunciations follow protests elsewhere in the Middle East and Asia after Newsweek magazine reported that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, placed Qurans in washrooms to unsettle suspects, and “flushed a holy book down the toilet.”

Many of the 520 inmates at Guantanamo are Muslims.

Campus anger
In the Yemeni capital, thousands of San‘a University students demonstrated on campus, chanting “Death to America!”

The students, surrounded by security forces, carried banners reading, “We will not falter, we will not tolerate insulting the Quran.”

Seven students were arrested, said Radwan Massoud, a student union member.

Yemen’s official news agency, Saba, quoted an unidentified government official as describing the alleged abuse by U.S. soldiers as “dangerous” and “inhumane.”

“Such practices lead to more reactions that harm U.S. interests and obstruct efforts exerted to build bridges of understanding and dialogue between religions and cultures,” Saba quoted the official as saying.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh met Saturday with American Ambassador Thomas C. Krajeski, who denounced the reported desecration and assured the president that an investigation was under way.

'Appropriate action' promised
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised “appropriate action” would be taken if the allegations are proven true. The U.S. government has said the desecration charge was being investigated by the Pentagon.

The 22-nation Arab League also criticized the alleged desecration of Islam’s holy book.

“The Arab League asks — if this news is correct — that the U.S. administration deals with these accusations with the required seriousness and punish with the harshest possible penalty all those proven to have played a role in, or planned, such a crime,” it said in a statement.

In Syria, an Islamic research center condemned the alleged desecrations as “sinful practices.”

“We, in the Islamic Ahmed Kiftaro Compound, condemn every abuse that targets the sanctities of any nation and stress on respecting the right of any person to faith,” the center said in a faxed statement Saturday. It urged the United States “to try and punish those who dared (to desecrate) the Quran and apologize to the 1 billion Muslims” in the world.

Fairly calm in Middle East
The Qatari newspaper Al-Watan described the act as “an unusual crime” and said the purported disrespect to the Quran reflects “the depth of hatred inside some Americans toward Islam.” It added that “the U.S. administration’s record about tolerance and dialogue between cultures is a delusion.”

The newspaper went as far as saying such an act merited recalling Arab and Muslim ambassadors from Washington.

The Middle East reaction was calm compared to deadly protests in the past three days in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in which 15 people died. Protesters threw rocks, and police shot back in four Afghan cities.

In Pakistan, which had small protests across the country a day earlier, Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz demanded a thorough U.S. investigation and the punishment of anyone responsible, according to the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency.

In the Gaza Strip on Friday, hundreds of activists from the Islamic militant group Hamas staged an anti-U.S. protest.
© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7848799/

Gawain of Orkeny
05-15-2005, 00:48
Newsweek should be ashamed of itself.


Koran flushing not confirmed


By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Senior Defense Department officials yesterday said there is no evidence corroborating a news report that interrogators flushed a Koran down a toilet to intimidate Muslim prisoners held at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that in an unconfirmed incident, a Guantanamo prisoner flushed pages from a Koran down a toilet in an attempt to clog it.
Newsweek magazine reported May 9 that U.S. interrogators at the prison had desecrated the Muslim holy book. The report was blamed for prompting a series of violent demonstrations this week in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the homelands of many of the more than 500 men held at Guantanamo.
Gen. Myers told reporters in Washington that Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the head of U.S. Southern Command, has ?been in Guantanamo for the last couple of days digging into this issue to see if there was a time when the Koran was not respected.?
?They have looked through the logs, the interrogation logs, and they cannot confirm yet that there was ever the case of the toilet incident,? Gen. Myers said.
He did note ?a log entry, which they still have to confirm, where a detainee was reported by a guard to be ripping pages out of a Koran and putting them in a toilet to stop it up as a protest,? he said. ?But not where the U.S. did it.?
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, testifying before a panel of lawmakers, urged Muslims to resist calls for violence over the Newsweek report.
?We have heard from our Muslim friends around the world about their concerns on this matter. We understand and we share their concerns,? Miss Rice said. ?Sadly, some people have lost their lives in violent demonstrations.?
Afghans engaged in a third day of violent demonstrations yesterday. Earlier this week, stones were hurled at a U.S. military convoy in Kabul and police opened fire on demonstrators, killing four and injuring dozens.
The Newsweek article cited ?internal FBI e-mails? as saying Guantanamo interrogators, ?in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur'an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog leash.?
The Associated Press reported yesterday that demonstrations over the Newsweek article were spreading in Afghanistan, as police clashed with anti-U.S. protesters and Afghan students burned an American flag in Kabul.
But Gen. Myers said senior U.S. military officials in Afghanistan reported that the violence was ?not necessarily the result of the allegations about disrespect for the Koran but more tied up in the political process? involving actions by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Army Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, thought one of the demonstrations, which occurred in Jalalabad about 80 miles east of Kabul, ?was not at all tied to the article in the magazine,? Gen. Myers said.
Miss Rice yesterday said: ?I want to speak directly to Muslims in America and throughout the world: Disrespect for the Holy Koran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be tolerated by the United States.?

Im also sick of this PC crap. If I want to flush a Koran or a bible down the toilet its my buissness. Again you free to burn the flag or make any kind of offensive thing to christain artifacts but the very thought that someone MIGHT HAVE flushed a Koran down the toilet being responsible for all these deaths is sheeer lunacy and shows just how sick these peop;e reallly are. There is no excuse for killing people over something like this even if it was true.

Hurin_Rules
05-15-2005, 20:44
More information is coming to light today. It seems Newsweek is pulling back a bit from the article:


Newsweek Says Koran Report Might Have Been Wrong

By REUTERS
Published: May 15, 2005

WASHINGTON, May 15 - Newsweek magazine on Sunday said it may have erred in a May 9 report that said U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to victims of deadly violence sparked by the article.

The weekly news magazine said in its May 23 edition that the original source of the allegation was not sure where he saw the assertion that at least one copy of the Koran was flushed down a toilet in an attempt to get detainees to talk.

"We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence and to the U.S. soldiers caught in its midst," Editor Mark Whitaker wrote in the magazine's latest issue, due to appear on U.S. newsstands on Monday.

The report has sparked angry and violent protests across the Muslim world from Afghanistan, where 16 were killed and more than 100 injured, to Pakistan to Indonesia to Gaza.

On Sunday, Afghan Muslim clerics threatened to call for a holy war against the United States in three days unless it handed over the interrogators in question.

The May 9 report quoted unnamed sources as saying that military investigators probing abuse at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, found that interrogators had placed copies of the Koran on toilets and "in at least one case, flushed a holy book down the toilet."

Newsweek said a Pentagon spokesman told the magazine late last week that the story was wrong and that the military has found no credible evidence to support separate allegations of Koran desecration made by released detainees.

The U.S. military opened an investigation into the charges while top U.S. officials urged Muslims to resist calls for violence, stating disrespect for the holy book would not be tolerated.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/international/asia/15cnd-afghan.html?hp&ex=1116216000&en=c35729128bc1194e&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Devastatin Dave
05-16-2005, 02:41
http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050516/ap_on_re_as/mideast_us_protests&printer=1

Bad reporting leading to the deaths of people. Shameful no matter which side of the political spectrum you reside, agreed?

Hurin_Rules
05-16-2005, 02:49
http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050516/ap_on_re_as/mideast_us_protests&printer=1

Bad reporting leading to the deaths of people. Shameful no matter which side of the political spectrum you reside, agreed?

Yep.

If they didn't vet the source, then that is just bad reporting, plain and simple. If the story proves to be false, then the deaths of those people are surely at least partly on the shoulders of Newsweek's editorial staff.

Productivity
05-16-2005, 04:35
http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050516/ap_on_re_as/mideast_us_protests&printer=1

Bad reporting leading to the deaths of people. Shameful no matter which side of the political spectrum you reside, agreed?

Yes. Could this be classed as criminal negligence? I suppose because the deaths aren't in America nothing can be done (not trying to take a shote here, just my guess at the legal system). People writing and allowing potentially explosive news out without any real vetting or checking of facts is close to criminal in my view.

Don Corleone
05-16-2005, 05:29
It's not negligence, dgb. Newsweek knew exactly what they were doing and they knew the story couldn't be corroborated. Now when it appears that they got caught with their drawers down, they claim "well, how could we have known..." They couldn't, and that's why they shouldn't have printed such incediery propaganda, knowing it probably wasn't accurate. The editor should be jailed for 2nd degree homicide. He knew the affect the article going to print would have.