Anti-U.S. rallies erupt over handling of Quran

< Prev | 1 | 2

Most popular

• Most viewed

• Top rated

• Most e-mailed

'Last lecture' professor dies of cancer

After 3 days on street, Miley fan gets makeover

Boy, 11, bites pit bull to fend off attack

Struggling college students turn to food banks

Chrysler plans to stop leasing cars

Most viewed on msnbc.com

'Go to hell, America!'
In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, protesters shouted “Go to hell, America!” and waved placards reading “Long Live Islam,” as they burned U.S. and Israeli flags outside the U.S. Embassy. Riot police guarded the compound, and the crowd dispersed peacefully nearly an hour later after handing a note to embassy officials. The protest was the second of its kind in as many weeks.

About 50 people chanted anti-American slogans and threw tomatoes at a portrait of President Bush in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. The protesters were outnumbered 4-1 by police officers in riot gear and left after about an hour.

In Bangladesh’s capital of Dhaka, about 5,000 people rallied after Friday prayers, spitting on U.S. flags, kicking them and then burning them. They shouted “Death to America!” and “Destroy America!” Many carried copies of the Quran, held over their heads.

Story continues below ↓

The protesters used shoes to beat a Bush dummy and burned an effigy of the president, chanting “Bush — the killer!” Riot police watched the demonstrators, who dispersed peacefully.

“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 the rally.

The groups included Islamic Oikya Jote or Islamic Unity Council, a member of the coalition government led by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia.

U.S. confirms mishandling
Anti-U.S. sentiment has been running high in Muslim countries since the Newsweek report. The Bush administration blamed it for demonstrations this month in Afghanistan, where more than a dozen people died and scores were injured.

In Washington on Thursday, investigators confirmed five cases in which military personnel mishandled the Qurans 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.

Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the Guantanamo Bay prison commander who led the investigation, said five of 15 alleged incidents were substantiated. Four were by guards and one was by an interrogator.

Hood said the five cases “could be broadly defined as mishandling” of the holy book. He refused to discuss details but said two of the cases apparently were accidental.

Hood emphasized that his investigation was not complete.

< Prev | 1 | 2