Israeli troops burn Qur'an: Report

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JNN 25.101.10 Israeli soldiers have reportedly burnt the Muslim holy book of Qur’an during an overnight attack on a Palestinian family in the occupied West Bank.

Sahar Beida said on Monday that she and her daughter had been confined in different rooms by Israeli soldiers who were there to arrest her husband Ismail.

“When I came out I was shocked to find our Qur’ans were on the front step and had been burned,” she told AFP.

“They took the Qur’ans from the house and burned them in the alley,” the 40-year-old mother added.

Charred pages from the holy book were shown to an AFP photographer who visited the Palestinian family’s home.

The Israeli military has not commented on the report so far.

Earlier this month, vandals in southern West Bank spray-painted graffiti on a mosque and set it ablaze along with several Qur’ans and prayer rugs.

This is while in September, the plan by US pastor Terry Jones to burn a pile of Qur’ans sparked international outrage and was condemned across the Muslim world.

Iran: US behind Wikileaks revelations

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JNN 25.10.10 A senior Iranian diplomat says recent revelations by whistleblower website Wikileaks are Washington’s ploy to cover up human rights violations by the US.

In the largest-ever revelation of secret US military documents, Wikileaks released nearly 400,000 classified reports about the US-led war in Iraq.

The leaked documents, which cover the period between January 1, 2004, and January 1, 2010, have shed light on a myriad of crimes and offences committed in Iraq over the past few years, including assassinations, murders, torture and rape.

“It seems that these [revelations] are made upon the order of the US,” Secretary-General of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Mohammad-Javad Larijani said on Monday at the summit for reviewing the human rights situation in the US.

“The message of Wikileaks documents is that the Iraqi people have been tortured by Iraq’s security forces, and the only wrongdoing of Americans is that they witnessed the incidents and remained silent,” IRNA quoted Larijani as saying.

“This is while the US had the main role in these incidents and is the defendant,” the Iranian diplomat added.

Larijani said unfortunately the Internet, which was supposed to provide all people with vast information, is being used for publishing anti-information in the world.

Head of Iran’s human rights council stressed that the US and certain Western countries take advantage of human rights violations and “it is necessary to prevent and resist these political abuses.”

The new Wikileaks documents comprise the second such release from the controversial website, which accused the United States of “war crimes” after earlier releasing some 92,000 similar secret military files detailing operations in Afghanistan.

These documents charge the United States Defense Department with instructing American troops to ignore reports recounting torture; they also suggest “hundreds” of civilians have been killed at US military checkpoints since the beginning of the war.

Refusing to discus the Wikikeaks disclosures, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton merely condemned the leak of any document “putting Americans at risk.”

“We should condemn in the most clear terms the disclosure of any information by individuals and or organizations which puts the lives of United States and its partners’ service members and civilians at risk,” she said.