WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US religious leaders joined yesterday to condemn an “anti-Muslim frenzy” in the United States, and the head of US forces in Afghanistan warned that a Florida church’s plan for a Koran-burning could endanger American troops abroad.
Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders denounced the “misinformation and outright bigotry” against US Muslims resulting from plans to build a Muslim community centre and mosque not far from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks in New York by the Islamist militant group al Qaeda that killed 2,752 people.
Tensions have risen with the approach of both the Sept. 11 anniversary and the Muslim Eid-ul-Fitr festival that marks the close of the fasting month of Ramadan, which is expected to end around Friday.
Passions have been further inflamed by Terry Jones, the pastor of a 30-person church in Gainesville, Florida, who has announced plans for a Koran-burning on Saturday to coincide with the Sept. 11 anniversary. Jones says he wants to “expose Islam” as a “violent and oppressive religion.”
Religious leaders, including Washington Roman Catholic Archbishop emeritus Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Dr Michael Kinnamon of the National Council of Churches, released a statement saying they were “alarmed by the anti-Muslim frenzy” and “appalled by such disrespect for a sacred text.”
“To attack any religion in the United States is to do violence to the religious freedom of all Americans,” said the religious leaders, including Rabbi David Saperstein, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, and Rabbi Julie Schonfeld of the Association of Conservative Rabbis.
“The threatened burning of copies of the Holy Qu’ran 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 Sept. 11,” they said.
The planned Koran-burning by the Dove World Outreach Center has already prompted protests in Kabul. Several hundred Afghans — mostly students from religious schools — gathered outside the Milad ul-Nabi mosque and chanted “Death to America” in anger over the plans.
General David Petraeus, the head of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement the Koran burning could “endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort” to stabilize the Afghan situation.
“It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems, not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community,” Petraeus said.
Attorney General Eric Holder, the top US law enforcement official, called the planned Florida event “idiotic” during a closed-door meeting with a small group of religious leaders, said Saperstein and a Justice Department official.
Holder also told the group no one should have to live and pray in fear and that he planned to address the issue publicly soon, the meeting participants said. He also reiterated a commitment to aggressively prosecute hate crimes, they said. The White House and State Department weighed in with statements making clear President Barack Obama’s administration deplored the planned event.
“We think that these are provocative acts, they are disrespectful, they are intolerant, they are divisive,” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said in Washington.
“We would like to see more Americans stand up and say this is inconsistent with our American values. In fact, these actions themselves are un-American,” he added.
Dr Ingrid Mattson, the Islamic Society of North America president who helped organize yesterday’s statement by religious leaders, said ordinary US Muslims were feeling increasingly worried and harassed as they went about their daily lives.
“I have heard many Muslim-Americans say that they have never felt this anxious or this insecure in America since directly after September 11,” she said.
