Posted on 11/20/2003 7:27:27 AM PST by Alouette
LAGOS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Islamic militants burned to the ground thirteen churches and several houses in a remote northern Nigerian town after a Christian student was accused of blasphemy, police said on Thursday.
Irate youths torched churches, houses and shops late on Tuesday in Kazaure, some 80 km (50 miles) north of Kano, a northern provincial capital where hundreds have died in religious clashes in the past three years.
The dispute began when a Christian student was accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammad and a group of Muslims were not satisfied with the response of school authorities.
Abubakar Sale, police commissioner in the northern Jigawa state, told Reuters that the rioters attempted to invade the school but were repelled by police.
"The hoodlums then mobilised and went into town where they started looting and burning people's property," Sale said by phone from Dutse, the state capital.
"Thirteen churches were burnt, several houses and shops were torched, but there were no deaths," said Keirian Dudari, assistant inspector general of police in Kano.
Police said the town was calm on Thursday after reinforcements were deployed to quell the riots.
The violence came after three students were killed and more than 30 injured in fighting between Muslims and Christians at a university in northeastern city of Maiduguri earlier this month.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in religious violence in northern Nigeria in the past four years since the introduction of Islamic sharia law in 12 states.
- a non-endorsing endorsement.
Stop getting your news from National Enquirer.
I'll have you know that NE is a cutting edge journalistic powerhouse. Remember, they broke the Rush Limbaugh pill story. Their integrity is every bit as reliable as any of the major media outlets, like CNN.
However, if you can't tell the difference between a vision that tells someone to kill her kids and one that unifies communities and families and strengthens morality, you need help.
How true! The proof of pudding , etc. And the unification of families and strengthening of morality is certainly a laudable goal. But the means to that end are also important; the subjugation of women, slavery, terrorizing people of other religions, and use of barbaric practices like beheadings, stonings and severing of limbs, honor killings and the like, are not justified by claim to morality achieved. Coerced acts are not moral acts, and coercion to this degree, is itself immoral.
It would be very commendable if you had included a few phrases of insults to the “idiots” who committed such “crimes”. This way the world would know that there are "few" Moslems who care, or who are not happy to see violence inflected on the infidels. When violence is committed against African American people, for example, the majority of WHITE people are outraged! They NEVER excuse or “justify” the violence.
In general, since 9/11, ALL Moslems comments on Islamic terrorism were very tempered with look warm phrases. Non was out right full of indignation that "the so called " Moslems should behave like barbarians in the name of Islam.
Say Church burners are stupid idiots too! LOL :-)
The American mind is incapable of grasping anything about Buddhism. So this shouldn't be a problem for either the students or Buddhists.
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