Updated on
Summary Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets in different cities of Pakistan including Islamabad.
Hundreds of Pakistani religious and religio-political activists took to the streets on Friday to demonstrate against the burning of the Qurans at a US airbase in neighbouring Afghanistan.Demonstrators shouted death to America and called on Pakistani leaders, US allies in the Afghan war, to resign with rallies organised in Islamabad, Karachi and the central shrine city of Multan.In Islamabad, the general secretary of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) demanded that the Islamic world should review its relations with the United States.We will not allow Americans to ridicule our religion and our Holy Quran, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri told the crowd,asking the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to convene a special session to condemn the incident.The foreign ministry strongly condemned the burning, stressing that utterly irresponsible and reprehensible things do not happen again.On behalf of the government and the people of Pakistan, we condemn in strongest possible terms the desecration of Holy Quran in Afghanistan, spokesman Abdul Basit told reporters.In Karachi, hundreds of activists of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, chanted Death to America.There is just one remedy for America -- jihad and only jihad, the crowd shouted. Death to America, death to Americas friends, echoed slogans.The demonstrators were carrying flags with black and white stripes and inscribed with Quranic verses.They also held up banners, one of which said: The defeated Americans are bound to bite dust in their war against Allah and His Book.President Barack Obama was Thursday forced to apologise for the incident, which the Afghan presidency blamed on a US officer at the Bagram airbase.We dont accept Obamas apology. The Muslims dont accept his apology, as it is nothing but a farce, said Naveed Qamar, the head of JuD in Karachi. The Americans are deliberately provoking us through shameless sins, he added.It is now up to our rulers whether they continue to be slaves of America or become slaves of our beloved prophet.In Afghanistan, at least 15 people, including two American soldiers, have been killed in three days of furious anti-US protests.Pakistans relationship with the United States drastically deteriorated last year over the covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden and US air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghan border.
