MORE INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATIONS FOR PLANNED QURAN BURNING

08/09/2010 The pastor of a tiny, fringe evangelical church in Florida rebuffed a plea for restraint Tuesday from U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, who warned that a plan to burn 200 Muslim holy books could provoke violence against American troops and citizens overseas.

Rev. Terry Jones said he was still praying about whether to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, regardless of pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call the action off.

He said he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-caliber pistol strapped to his hip but still did not back off his plan Tuesday to burn the book Muslims consider the word of God and insist be treated with the utmost respect. The 58-year-old minister said the death threats started not long after he proclaimed in July that he would stage "International Burn-a-Quran Day."

Supporters, though, have been mailing copies of the holy text to his church of about 50 followers to be incinerated in a bonfire on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Petraeus took the rare step of a military leader taking a position on a domestic matter when he warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that "images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence."

Jones responded that he is also concerned but is "wondering, 'When do we stop?'" He refused to cancel the protest at his Dove World Outreach Center but said he was still praying about it.

A coalition of Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders held a news conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to condemn Jones' statements and other slurs aimed at Muslims nationwide.

Following their meeting, the clergy summit participants denounced categorically the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry being directed against America's Muslim community. “The threatened burning of copies of the Holy Quran this Saturday is a particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest possible condemnation by all who value civility in public life and seek to honor the sacred memory of those who lost their lives on September 11,” the religious leaders said in a statement.

US Attorney General Eric Holder called the Florida church's threat idiotic and dangerous.

Others in the Obama administration weighed in against the proposed burning, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who on Tuesday called the planned burning a disrespectful, disgraceful act. "I am heartened by the clear, unequivocal condemnation of this disrespectful, disgraceful act that has come from American religious leaders of all faiths," Clinton said during her remarks at a State Department dinner she hosted in observance of Iftar.

A State Department spokesman branded the planned protest un-American while other officials warned that it could threaten U.S. troops, diplomats and travelers overseas.

At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs echoed concerns raised by Petraeus about the plans. "Any type of activity like that that puts our troops in harm's way would be a concern to this administration," Gibbs told reporters.

Holder met Tuesday with religious leaders to discuss recent attacks on Muslims and mosques around the United States. The meeting was closed to reporters, but a Justice Department official who was present confirmed that Holder said the plan to burn the holy book was idiotic.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the administration hoped that more Americans would stand up and condemn the church's plan.

"We think that these are provocative acts," Crowley said. "We would like to see more Americans stand up and say that this is inconsistent with our American values; in fact, these actions themselves are un-American."

MORE INTERNATIONAL CONDEMNATIONS FOR PLANNED QURAN BURNING

Lebanese President Michel Sleiman on Wednesday denounced plans to burn copies of the Quran, saying it contradicted Christian teachings. "The president condemns the announcement of a religious group in the United States of its intention to openly burn copies of the Quran," said a statement released by the office of the Christian president.

Arab League chief Amr Mussa dubbed Florida pastor a "fanatic" and urged Americans to oppose his plans. Mussa, who heads the 22-member pan-Arab body based in Cairo, said: "There is an increasing majority in the United States against this fanatic. We want to see the reaction of the educated in the United States against this fanatic's destructive approach," he told AFP.

Moreover, a top official of the Middle East's leading Islamic group, the Muslim Brotherhood, said that a Florida church's plan to burn Qurans would fan Muslim hatred of the United States.

Essam al-Erian, a member of the Brotherhood's politburo, said the outdoor ceremony planned by the Dove World Outreach Centre would be a "barbaric act, reminiscent of the Inquisition."

A top official of Cairo's Al-Azhar university warned Wednesday that the planned burning risks destroying ties. "If the government fails to stop this, this will be the latest manifestation of religious terrorism, and it would ruin America's relations with the Muslim world," said Sheikh Abdel Muti al-Bayyumi, who sits on the Sunni Muslim seat of learning's highest council, the Islamic Research Academy.

Talking to AFP, Malaysia's conservative Islamic party PAS youth Chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi said his party would urge Muslims to protest outside the US embassy if the evangelical church goes ahead with a Quran-burning ceremony calling the Quran-burning a "desecration and an insult to Islam which cannot go unchallenged."

For its part, an umbrella group representing aid groups in Afghanistan, Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), said civilians and its members in the war-wracked country could be killed if US evangelists go ahead with a plan to burn the Quran.

A spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs Chief Catherine Ashton said on that the European Union roundly "condemns" the plans for a mass burning of the Quran in Florida. "The High Representative respects all kinds of religious beliefs and this is not the right way to go," the spokeswoman told reporters.

The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue also said in a statement that the planned burning would be "an outrageous and grave gesture."

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he too was concerned about the effect the planned Quran burning may have. Of course there is a risk it will also have a negative impact on the security for our troops, Rasmussen told reporters in Washington, ahead of a meeting with Obama at the White House.

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