World leaders step into Quran burning controversy

Turkmenistan News.Net
Wednesday 8th September, 2010

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday that no religion in the world can condone the burning of the Quran.

Ban said he was deeply disturbed by reports that a religious group plans to burn copies of the Quran Saturday, on the ninth anniversary of the Sep 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks against the US.

He said burning the Quran "contradicts the efforts of the UN and many people around the world to promote tolerance, intercultural understanding and mutual respect between cultures and religions."

Terry Jones, the pastor of an evangelical congregation of just 50 people at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has rejected strong demands to cancel his planned "International Burn a Quran Day" on Saturday.

Jones, who believes that Islam is the work of the devil, has vowed to go ahead with the burning of 200 copies of the Quran in the face of expressions of anger from across America and the rest of the world.

Jones has promised special guests for the book-burning event, including John Bolton, a former key member of George Bush’s cabinet, and Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right leader who has called for Muslims to be barred from immigration to Europe.

At the White House in Washington, Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, described the proposed burning as “outrageous” and “aberrational” and said it did not represent America or American values of religious tolerance and inclusiveness.

She said: "It is regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, with a church of no more than 50 people, can make this outrageous and distrustful, disgraceful plan and get the world’s attention; but that’s the world we live in right now."

General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, warned that images of the book burning could incite violence and put his troops in danger.

In Berlin, German Jews have also condemned the planned Florida event, saying it will evoke the mass killings of Jews in the Holocaust that followed Nazi book burnings.

A statement from Germany’s Central Council of Jews, said: "Where people burn books, in the end they burn people."

The Vatican office responsible for relations with Islam also issued a statement of warning, to say: "Every religion has the right to respect and protect its sacred books, places of worship and symbols."

Saturday heralds both the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and Eid, the end of Ramadam.

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