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Iran Slams U.S. Pastor's Burning of Quran
[An Nahar] Iran on Monday slammed a U.S. pastor's burning of a Koran, calling it provocative and demanding U.S. authorities take action to prevent any recurrence.Iran's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency that it "strongly condemns this ridiculous, insulting and provoking act by a so-called American priest in overt contempt of the holy Koran." The condemnation was in reaction to a Saturday ceremony in which Florida Pastor Terry Jones ...a Florida preacher of no particular distinction other than his willingness to occasionally set fire to a koran. This results in his getting his name in the papers and in attacks of the vapors in Teheran and places like that... set fire to the Moslem holy book and a depiction of the prophet Mohammed to protest Iran's imprisonment of an Iranian Christian clergyman, Yusef Nadarkhani. The act was broadcast online in a YouTube video that climaxed with Jones and a handful of followers repeating the U.S. oath of allegiance as the Koran burned. Jones, who rebuffed a U.S. Defence Department request to desist out of fear for U.S. troops' safety abroad, was behind a March 2011 burning of the Koran by his assistant that triggered violence in northern Afghanistan in which at least 12 people were killed. Iran's foreign ministry said the latest burning was the result of "Islamophobia" ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... in the West. It said the world was "awaiting a quick, serious and frank response by the U.S. government to this act so it is never repeated." Posted by: Fred 2012-05-01 |
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