Kunduz: Protests erupted across Afghanistan yesterday as Afghans took to the streets to voice anger over a threat by a US evangelical preacher to burn Qurans to mark the 9/11 anniversary.
In far northeastern Badakhshan province, thousands of people gathered outside a small Nato base in the capital Fayzabad, where they threw rocks at the gate and burned an American flag, police said.
Eight people were injured in what was the third and biggest demonstration in Afghanistan since the book-burning plan — which yesterday was put on hold by the Florida-based evangelist at the centre of the storm — became public, police said.
"They numbered in their thousands, it is a big crowd," provincial deputy police chief Sayed Hassan Jafary said.
Injuries
Aqa Mohammad Kintoz, provincial police chief, said a total of eight people, four demonstrators and four police officers, had been injured in the melee.
Referring to reports that one protester had been shot dead, he said: "Initially it was thought that one person was killed but later it was found that no one has been killed."
Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in an e-mail: "ISAF forces have not fired any shots at the protesters."
The crowd, who began their protest after morning prayers for Eid, the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, torched a US flag and chanted anti-US slogans before dispersing, Jafary said.
President Hamid Karzai used his Eid message to the nation, delivered at his presidential palace to a select audience of government ministers and officials, to condemn the plan by the Dove World Outreach Centre in Florida.
He called on Pastor Terry Jones, leader of the tiny church, to "not even think" about burning Qurans because "it was an insult to [Muslim] nations." Jones said yesterday he would not proceed with the Quran-burning event.
In Kabul, clerics voiced their disgust at the plans, with imam Noor Zaman of the Hazrat Mustafah mosque telling worshippers: "Those who threaten to burn the Quran must know that they will set their own nations alight."
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, worshippers spilled out of mosques and onto the streets to register their anger at the very notion of Quran burning.
Outside Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province, witnesses said that up to 3,000 people gathered on the main highway.
One demonstrator, who gave his name only as Waliullah, said: "There are 2,000 to 3,000 people here and we have burned an effigy of [US President Barack] Obama.
"We won't end our demonstration until Afghan authorities have assured us that they will talk to the American government about stopping this action," he said, implying they were unaware that the plan had been put on hold.
