Larijani, in a statement released on Saturday, said that occupying forces in Afghanistan in yet another outrageous act desecrated the Qur’an at Bagram Airbase, located 11 kilometers (7 miles) southeast of Charikar in Parwan Province, and killed scores of Afghans in anti-US demonstrations staged over the sacrilegious move.
“This is not the first time that the so-called advocates of freedom and human rights hurt the religious sentiments of millions of Muslims throughout the world, and exhibit their barbarity and savagery in this modern age [by means of Qur’an desecration],” Larijani pointed out.
The senior Iranian legislator added that the international community still remembers the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were packaged by the Bush administration as crusades, and the sacrilege of Holy Qur'an by Terry Jones, the head of Dove World Outreach Center, who had planned to burn Holy Qur'an on the anniversary of September 11, 2001 attacks.
Occupiers should know that the Qur’an is a unique treasure for mankind and Muslims will never consent to the burning of this holy book and will give a full force response to desecrators, Larijani stated.
The United Nations has joined Afghan President Hamid Karzai in calling for disciplinary action against the US soldiers who burned copies of the Holy Qur’an in Afghanistan.
“After the first step of a profound apology, there must be a second step ... of disciplinary action,” Jan Kubis, special representative for the UN secretary-general in Afghanistan, told a news conference in the Afghan capital Kabul on March 1.
“Only after this, after such a disciplinary action, can the international forces say 'yes, we're sincere in our apology',” Kubis added.
More than 30 people have been killed in anti-US demonstrations across Afghanistan since they began on February 21.
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Iran's Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani has condemned the burning of copies of the Holy Qur’an and other Islamic reading material at a US military base in northern Afghanistan.
News ID 181560
