Posted on 02/21/2006 9:56:28 AM PST by siunevada
Tue Feb 21, 9:49 AM ET
Christian mobs rampaged through a southern Nigerian city Tuesday, burning mosques and killing several people in an outbreak of anti-Muslim violence that followed deadly protests against caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad over the weekend.
Residents and witnesses in the southern, predominantly Christian city of Onitsha said several Muslims with origins in the north were beaten to death by mobs which also burned two mosques there.
"The mosque at the main market has been burnt and I've counted at least six dead bodies on the streets," Izzy Uzor, an Onitsha resident and businessman, told The Associated Press by telephone. "The whole town is in a frenzy and people are running in all directions."
The violence appeared to be in reprisal for anti-Christian violence Saturday in the mostly Muslim northern city of Maiduguri in which thousands of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches, killing at least 18 people.
Another Onitsha resident, Isotonu Achor, said one badly beaten Muslim man ran into his office from the streets to escape the violence.
"There is blood all over him and I'm scared they'll come for him here. If he doesn't get urgent treatment he will die," Achor said.
Police and government officials were not immediately available for comment.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous country of more than 130 million people, is roughly divided between a predominantly Muslim north and a mainly Christian south. Thousands of people have died in religious violence in Nigeria since 2000.
Saturday's protest over the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in Maiduguri marked the first violent demonstrations over the issue in Nigeria. Police say at least 18 people, most of them Christians, died, and 30 churches were burned down. The Christian Association of Nigeria said at least 50 people were killed in the violence.
The cartoons, which first appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, have set off sometimes violent protests around the world. One caricature shows Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with an ignited fuse.
Islam widely holds that representations of Muhammad are banned for fear they could lead to idolatry.
A Danish newspaper first printed the caricatures in September. Other newspapers, mostly in Europe, have reprinted the pictures, asserting their news value and the right to freedom of expression.
You can only push some people so far and the Nigerian Christians have been getting shoved for a long time.
BUTTMONKEY!
...BUT, this is in response to the killing of Christians and the burning of their churches. As opposed to a cartoon.
It's kind of funny to see Islamofascists riotting over drawings, and yet they have rarely had this response to the "murders" of their people by the US in Iraq. (Not MY take, but they are the ones saying that.) The perceived killing of fellow Muslims doesn't get them pissed off. But this and the Koran-D-Bowl incident do.
At least they're consistent: They think the dead are in a better place, I guess.
BTW--I think the MSM will finally begin focusing more on this story, now that the Christians are fighting back. I just wonder how they will angle that, since they didn't much care when it was the other way around.
The didn't see able to work up any outrage over Tom Tancredo's supposed threat to nuke Mecca either.
This is not a good thing, for a couple of reasons.
First of all, it's not a good thing in and of itself.
The other reason is that Muslims traditionally seek to provoke when they want to really attack another group - and when the victim is provoked enough to strike back, then they really unleash everything they have. So this is not going to be good for the poor Nigerian Christians.
I just hope we don't come in on the side of the Muslims, as we always seem to do.
Which "they", the press or the Islamofascists? Oh, what difference does it make, really... :)
Those Christians just be glad that Bill Clinton isn't around to start dropping bombs on them so that he can show the Muhammedans how much he really cares about them.
Christians rioting against Mohammedans? NOT politically correct.
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