Posted on 09/01/2004 7:48:14 AM PDT by Alouette
KATHMANDU (AFP) - Thousands of people rampaged through Kathmandu, setting fire to a mosque and Arab targets and ransacking employment agencies after 12 Nepalese hostages were murdered in Iraq.
Two men were shot and slightly wounded by security guards when they tried to storm the Egyptian embassy, which represents Iraqi interests in the Himalayan kingdom, police and a doctor said.
The streets returned to normal after the government clamped an indefinite curfew and declared a national day of mourning Thursday for the victims of the worst hostage massacre in Iraq since the US-led invasion.
Demonstrators, some chanting "Punish the Muslims!", swept through Kathmandu early Wednesday, throwing stones and ransacking any targets with Arabic-language script.
Protesters climbed on top of and set fire to the Jama Masjid mosque, the largest shrine of the city's small Muslim minority, after pulling out its furniture and electrical equipment for a sidewalk bonfire.
Riot police used batons to push the crowd of some 5,000 people out of a sensitive central area which includes King Gyanendra's Narayanhity Palace, a police officer said.
The mosque suffered only minor damage but many of its contents were destroyed.
The protests erupted late Tuesday after news that the 12, who left the impoverished nation in search of jobs, were murdered by militants who abducted them about 10 days ago.
The kidnappers accused them of cooperating with US forces.
A mob made up mainly of youths broke windows of more than a dozen employment agencies blamed for sending Nepalese to Iraq and set fire to their vehicles, furniture and computers, police said.
An employee at Qatar Airways, one of the main airlines used by Nepalese seeking jobs in the Middle East, said dozens of angry people stormed into their premises and smashed furniture before setting the building on fire.
The employee estimated damage in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Many protesters also demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, saying he should take responsibility for the failure to free the hostages.
The government had repeatedly stressed that Nepal, which is fighting a bloody Maoist rebellion, was not part of the US-led coalition in Iraq.
Deuba appealed for calm in an address to the nation Wednesday.
"The terrorists who committed this gruesome act don't have any religion or principles. I call upon all citizens of Nepal to have patience," he said.
"We made honest efforts to save them but the militants never spelt out their conditions," Deuba said. "We are now trying our best to bring back the bodies of the victims."
His government announced compensation of one million rupees (14,400 dollars) for the families of each of the 12 slain hostages, a major sum in the one of the world's poorest countries.
The Himalayan capital's skies were patrolled by army helicopters, which were last called out last week when Maoist rebels fighting to overthrow the monarchy ordered a halt to traffic to and from the city of 1.5 million people.
Hindus make up more than 86 percent of the population in Nepal, the world's only officially Hindu state. But the kingdom has experienced little of the inter-religious violence that has scarred neighbouring India.
Muslims account for 3.8 percent of the 27 million population. Some 7.8 percent adhere to Buddhism in Nepal, which is the birthplace of the Buddha, with smaller religions comprising 2.2 percent.
Spontaneous protest strikes were called in the towns of Pokhara, Gorkha and Biratnagar with youths taking to the streets to stop vehicles.
A statement announcing the killings was posted on an Islamist website by an Al-Qaeda-linked group called the Army of Ansar al-Sunna.
It was accompanied by pictures of the grisly beheading of a blindfolded hostage, including one where his bloodied head was held up like a trophy by a hooded captor. A video showed the other Nepalese being shot.
You are a jihadist apologist. Where was your outrage over 9/11, or the atrocities committed by an Arab Muslim mob in Fallujah? Why not just leave for some jihadistan whose philosophy you would be happier with?
Perhaps if Dr. Goldstein did not see Jewish children butchered by jihadist Arab Muslims on a constant basis, he would not have done what he did. You know, when the whole Golstein thing happened, I was initially sickened, but now after 9/11, the clintifada, and other constant Arab Muslim atrocities, I no longer give a rat's patootie about it. The jihadists have sown the wind. The whirlwind will soon consume them! Mekhtoub!(it is written)
They are in need of another El Cid.
Smells more like shi'ite..
Bullshit.
I bet el Cid is spinning in his grave.
Oh Jesus, you can't be serious (John McEnroe voice over), you just can't be serious! Every damn muslim in India and Pakistan is a forcably converted Muslim. Pakistan started off with 15% Hindus, now they are down to 2% - where did they all go?
"Islam as Totalitarianism
The religion of Muslims reeks of undemocratic fascism; indeed, every country run by Muslim theocrats is a totalitarian state. Islamic law regulates every aspect of public and private life: it does not differentiate between rituals, legal codes, ethics, and good manners. Islam legislates everything, such as the proper use of toothpicks, the hand with which you wipe yourself after a bowel movement, the sexual habits of married couples, the treatment of slaves, and wedding invitations. Religious duties, such as prayer and pilgrimage, are made into national law; affairs of state such as taxes and warfare are written into the Koran. From the beginning, Mohammed was a religious leader as well as a political force. His breathtaking victories in battle convinced the Muslims that Allah was truly on their side. Early Muslims never suffered the amount of persecution that ancient Christians and Jews underwent, and so Muslims as a whole were never at the receiving end of the corruption and cruelty inherent in a church-state alliance. Come to think of it, many Christians have yet to learn that lesson, despite the brutal repression of Christians at the hands of other religious authorities."
"The very concept of free individuals with the right to make their own decisions is entirely absent from Islamic theocracies. There is no deciding between right and wrong but rather a robotic following of orders. Ibn Warraq quotes one Muslim thinker:
The Western liberal emphasis upon freedom from restraint is alien to Islam. ... Personal freedom lies in surrendering to the Divine Will. ... It cannot be realized through liberation from external sources of restraint ... individual freedom ends where the freedom of the [Islamic] community begins. ... Human rights exist only in relation to [Islamic] obligations. ... Those individuals who do not accept these obligations have no rights. ... Much of Muslim theology tends toward a totalitarian voluntarism."
http://members.aye.net/~abrupt/house/islam.html
The muslim cult you so fervently defend is an abomination before God.
yeah I bet they are gathering money in those mosques for their palestinian terrorist friends. One less fundraising center for terrorists=good.
"Most Muslims, however, just want to be left alone, and they're not really interested in fighting a world war. For example, if you look at Iraq or Afghanistan, you find that the vast, vast majority of the population in those places is not involved in the fighting, nor apparently are they particularly interested in supporting the salamikazes who are fighting"
They are not interested in OPPOSING their more more inflammatory kin as well. You see Muslims in the end want everyone else to be Muslim...whether they are militant about it or not.
None of which are in the New Testament, which proclaimed a new philosophy. Which is not to say that I (an agnostic) personally adhere to any philosophy of peace. I go by a more pragmatic philosophy: people who are committed to living in peace get left alone, and people who show themselves to be a threat to me and my family and friends get removed from existance if possible.
I know this is a radical concept to many people full of hate and bile but it would be more productive and useful to promote American values of religious tolerance, justice and equality to find common ground where all people can live together in peace.
There are two kinds of peace. There is the peace which stems from nobody seeking to impose their will on others, and there is the peace that comes from submitting to the will of the aggressor. I decline to live under the second kind of peace, and the second kind of peace seems the only one the Islamofascists want to impose on me
I had three of their albums years ago..
And growing like kudzu...
Feh!
CAIR
http://www.cair-net.org/convention2004camp.asp
http://www.cair-net.org/ireport/
ANTI CAIR
http://www.anti-cair-net.org/
bookmark
tsk tsk tsk...
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