Protests in Somalia over plan to burn Koran
A journalist looks at the website of the Dove World Outreach Center featuring a photo of its pastor Terry Jones September 8, 2010 in Washington, DC. Jones has vowed to burn Korans on Saturday at the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida to mark the ninth anniversary of the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. AFP PHOTO
MOGADISHU, Thursday
Hundreds of protestors from across the society have today staged a massive demonstrations in Galkayo town, 740 km north of Mogadishu, expressing grief against the threat of burning the Koran (Muslim’s Holy Book) in the United States of America.
The participants, who marched along the town’s main roads, chanted anti-American and anti-Christian slogans.
“We are grieved by the news that an (American pastor) wants to burn our Quran,” said Mohamed Abdullahi, one of the organisers who spoke when the protestors gathered at the town’s Shukri Kutaab square.
“We are going to retaliate, if the threat materialises,” he added without elaborating the measures. “This is yet another proof of an anti-Islam sentiment in the western world.”
The demonstration in Galkayo, one of the main towns in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland, is the first of its kind in Somalia since the news that followers of a church in the US were planning to burn copies of the Quran on the 9th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Meanwhile, three Somali pirates sustained injuries when two pirate groups exchanged fire at the outskirts of Hobyo town, a pirate haven, and 660 km northeast of Mogadishu.
According to news from Mudug region in Central Somalia, the sea gangs disputed over the handling of a Korean ship kept by the pirates.
