PARIS, Sept 8, (Agencies): The planned mass burning of copies of the Holy Quran in the US state of Florida drew worldwide condemnation Wednes-day, with the Vatican saying it would be “an outrageous and grave gesture”.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the most senior US official to speak out against the burning scheduled for the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, branded the plan by a little known evangelical church as “disgraceful”.
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton roundly condemned the planned act, while Arab League chief Amr Mussa dubbed the church leader Pastor Terry Jones a “fanatic” and told AFP he was urging Americans to oppose the “destructive approach”.
Jones’s Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, has vowed to mark Saturday’s ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks by burning Qurans as they remember almost 3,000 people killed by Al-Qaeda hijackers.
The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue said in a statement, “Each religion, with its respective sacred books, places of worship and symbols, has the right to respect and protection”.
The Vatican council said “deplorable acts of violence” like those in New York and Washington could not be counteracted by such acts.

“Each religious leader and believer is also called to renew the firm condemnation of all forms of violence, in particular those committed in the name of religion.”
The White House added its voice to warnings that the move could trigger outrage around the Islamic world and endanger the lives of US soldiers.
“It puts our troops in harm’s way. And obviously any type of activity like that puts our troops in harm’s way would be a concern to this administration,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.
He was reiterating comments by top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, who warned burning the holy book of Islam would provide propaganda for insurgents.
The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group representing aid groups in Afghanistan, said civilians and its members in the war-wracked country could be killed if Jones goes ahead with his “irresponsible” plan.
The United Nations’ top envoy for Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, said it would harm his staff if “such an abhorrent act were to be implemented, it would only contribute to fuelling the arguments of those who are indeed against peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan”.
“It could also put in jeopardy the efforts of so many Afghans and foreigners who are trying to assist Afghanistan to find its own way to peace and stability within the framework of its own culture, traditions and indeed religion.”

Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, who met with Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday said the top US law enforcement official described as “idiotic and dangerous” the Florida church’s plan.
Police reportedly cannot intervene until Jones’s followers actually light the 200 Qurans.
A senior Muslim Brotherhood official, Essam al-Erian, said in Cairo that the Florida ceremony would be a “barbaric act reminiscent of the Inquisition” and would “increase hatred towards the United States in the Muslim world”.
A top official of Cairo’s Al-Azhar university, which US President Barack Obama referred to as a “beacon of learning” in an appeal for reconciliation with Muslims, warned that the plan risked destroying ties.
“If the government fails to stop this, this will be the latest manifestation of religious terrorism, and it would ruin America’s relations with the Muslim world,” said Sheikh Abdel Muti al-Bayyumi, who sits on the Sunni Muslim seat of learning’s highest council, the Islamic Research Academy.
“This will give an opportunity to terrorism. Are they trying to fight terrorism or encourage it?” Bayyumi asked.
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said the burning of the Quran contradicted Christian teachings.
In Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the Islamist Hamas movement, called on the US administration in a statement “to stop this crime before it takes place”.
Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani, a senior religious expert from Iran’s holy city of Qom, said in a statement carried by Iranian media: “The decision to insult this sacred book, is an insult to all (religious) sanctities especially prophets Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Virgin Mary.
The German church founded by Jones denounced the plans as “shocking.”
“We want to distance ourselves fully from this plan and from Jones,” said Stephan Baar from the “Christian Community of Cologne” in western Germany.

Kuwait
In Kuwait, head of the Christian churches association in Kuwait Pastor Emmanuel Ghareeb condemned on Wednesday the call of a church in Florida, USA to burn copies of the holy Quran.
Ghareeb said in a press release that the extremist act of the Dove World Outreach Center violated the teachings of Jesus which called for love and the acceptance of others.
He stressed that the Islamic teachings were respected.
The “stupid behavior” will lead to more extremism, division, and violence, and would hurt the feelings of hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world, he warned.
The church was supposed to call for unity and peace, not tension, he said.
Ghareeb called Muslims in Kuwait and other countries to ignore such “irrational behaviors.” He extended greetings to Muslims on the occasion of Eid, praying that God would protect Kuwait and its people.
“We are still determined to do it, yes,” the Rev. Terry Jones told the CBS Early Show.
Jones says he has received more than 100 death threats and has started wearing a .40-caliber pistol strapped to his hip since announcing his plan to burn the book Muslims consider the word of God and insist be treated with the utmost respect. The 58-year-old minister proclaimed in July that he would stage “International Burn-a-Quran Day.”

Supporters have been mailing copies of the holy text to his Gainesville church of about 50 followers to be incinerated in a bonfire on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top US and NATO commander in Kabul, took the rare step of a military leader taking a position on a domestic matter when he warned in an e-mail to The Associated Press that “images of the burning of a Quran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence.”
Petraeus spoke Wednesday with Afghan President Karzai about the matter, according to a military spokesman Col. Erik Gunhus.
“They both agreed that burning of a Quran would undermine our effort in Afghanistan, jeopardize the safety of coalition troopers and civilians,” Gunhus said, and would “create problems for our Afghan partners ... as it likely would be Afghan police and soldiers who would have to deal with any large demonstrations.”

Clinton said that the pastor’s plans were outrageous and urged Jones to cancel the event.
“It is regrettable that a pastor in Gainesville, Florida, with a church of no more than 50 people can make this outrageous and distrustful, disgraceful plan and get the world’s attention, but that’s the world we live in right now,” Clinton said in remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations. “It is unfortunate, it is not who we are,” she said.
Jones has responded to critics by saying that he is also concerned but is “wondering, ‘When do we stop?”’ He refused to cancel the protest at his Dove World Outreach Center but said he was still praying about it.
“How much do we back down? How many times do we back down?” Jones told the AP. “Instead of us backing down, maybe it’s time to stand up. Maybe it’s time to send a message to radical Islam that we will not tolerate their behavior.”
David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Barack Obama told CNN Wednesday morning: “The reverend may have the right to do what he’s doing but it’s not right. It’s not consistent with our values ... I hope that his conscience and his good sense will take hold.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that planned burnings of the Quran by a pastor in the United States were “abhorrent” and “simply wrong.”
“If a fundamentalist, envangelical pastor in America wants to burn the Quran on September 11, then I find this simply disrespectful, even abhorrent and simply wrong,” Merkel said in a speech in Potsdam near Berlin.

“Europe... is a place where freedom of belief, of religion, where respect for beliefs and religions, are valuable commodities,” Merkel said at an event honouring a Danish cartoonist whose 2005 drawing of the Prophet Mohammed offended many Muslims and sparked protests around the world.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is deeply disturbed by plans by a small US church to burn copies of the Islamic holy book and believes such a gesture cannot be tolerated by any religion, a UN spokesman said Wednesday.
“The secretary general is deeply disturbed by reports of a small religious group which plans to burn copies of the Quran,” the spokesman, Farhan Haq, said in a statement.
“Such actions cannot be condoned by any religion. They contradict the efforts of the United Nations and many people around the world to promote tolerance, intercultural understanding and mutual respect between cultures and religions.”
US religious leaders on Tuesday condemned an “anti-Muslim frenzy” in the United States.
Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders denounced the “misinformation and outright bigotry” against US Muslims resulting from plans to build a Muslim community center 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.

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.