Brownsville Represent! (Or, maybe we should, you know, take it easy, I mean it's not so bad...)

(what's worse: pissing on a flag, or pissing on a dude?)

(unless you're into that sort of thing.)

(no r. kelly sex-jokes.)

(please, we were ruled by the British.)

(...)

(okay, this isn't cool. i agree.)

(but...)

(should everyone stop protesting?)

(will that make everything better?)

(...)

(okay...)

(i'll make a deal with you...)

(we all know what's going on...)

(we've seen pictures...)

(if you stop torturing...)

(we'll stop protesting...)

(cool?)

(...)

Indian Muslims Protest Alleged Quran Abuse

By SUDIPTO DAS, Associated Press Writer
Fri May 20,12:16 PM ET

CALCUTTA, India - Muslim protesters burned, spit and urinated on a U.S. flag Friday in eastern India, accusing Americans of desecrating Islam's holy book as anger persisted despite the retraction of a magazine report that a Quran was flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo Bay.

(ew.)

U.S. officials have said they found nothing to substantiate the Newsweek report that interrogators at the prison camp in Cuba flushed a copy of the Quran down the toilet to unnerve an inmate.

(of course they didn't.)

(they didn't "find" pictures of prisoners being abused either.)

But given frequent reports of mistreatment at the camp from released detainees, some Muslims remained convinced the desecration happened and U.S. officials pressured the magazine to deny the story.

(maybe. maybe not.)

(who has the benefit of the doubt?)

(has the U.S. military ever lied before?)

In London, a former prisoner at Guantanamo told a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy that guards at the camp had mistreated his Quran.

"This was one of the methods they used, throwing the Quran, my Quran, on the floor in my cell. This was in the first month at Camp Delta but it is not something that stopped, rather continued and increased," said Martin Mubanga, who was released from the prison in January.

(i can't believe it.)

(dogs biting genitals?)

(okay, sure.)

(but mistreating a book?)

(nope.)

(i just can't believe it.)

"It's a shame we have had to wait for a magazine to publish and then retract a story concerning the treatment of the Quran," Mubanga said.

(publish and retract eh?)

(well i guess everybody makes a mistake once in a while...)

(especially the mistake of having the balls to criticize torture...)

(what were you thinking?)

(crazy.)

He spoke as about 200 protesters gathered outside the embassy, chanting "kill, kill George Bush" and other anti-American slogans. Many in the crowd covered their faces with scarves. A man with a megaphone led chants including "USA watch your back, Osama is coming back" and "bomb, bomb New York."

(psst!)

(they're "disappearing" people around the world!)

(masks?)

(yeah, good idea! :)

Thousands also took to the streets in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu and the Palestinian territories, but the demonstrations were nothing on the scale of rioting in Afghanistan last week in which 15 people died and protesters threw rocks at police.

(what the--?)

(afghanistan???)

(i thought "freedom" marched over there already!)

Riot police watched but did not stop some 500 protesters who shouted slogans against the United States and forced a traffic shutdown in the heart of the eastern Indian city of Calcutta.

(see?)

(you can just take in the show!)

(passionate people yelling for a cause?)

(it's just like a rock concert!)

The protest began at a mosque after Friday afternoon prayers conducted by the "imam" or chief priest, who then led demonstrators to the road.

"Death to America!" they cried as men spat on the flag.

(now wait, why would they go say that?)

(oh right.)

(100,000+ killed in iraq.)

(plus-plus-plus...)

(my bad.)

(i still think they hate the government and not the people though...)

(although...)

(if the people are cool with the government torturing people...)

(well...)

(i guess that's a gray area...)

(and maybe crappy gray matter...)

They asked a boy in the crowd to urinate on it, and hit the flag with shoes and leather slippers. The 20-minute protest ended with the burning of two American flags.

(shoes and leather slippers?)

(gangsta.)

Muslims are the largest minority in predominantly Hindu India, forming more than 12 percent of the 1 billion-plus population.

(and yet...)

(they usually live peacefully alongside majority hindu's and others.)

(even the worst riots across the country result in no more than a few hundred total deaths.)

(compare that to ethnic tensions in yugoslavia...)

(i mean...)

(whatever they call it now...)

(wow.)

(you know, 120 million muslims could really mess stuff up if they wanted to.)

(but they don't.)

(see?)

In the West Bank city of Nablus, some 2,500 Palestinian Hamas militants streamed out of mosques Friday chanting, "Death to America, death to Israel."

Muslim preacher Maher Haraz demanded that "America apologize to all Muslims worldwide, and punish those that trampled on the Quran and stuffed it in the toilet."

"There will be a Muslim uprising in the world, an uprising of the Quran," Haraz declared.

(what the--?)

(a "muslim uprising"???)

(oh crap!!!)

(why???)

(oh, right...)

Mubanga, 32, was arrested in Zambia in early 2002 and handed over to U.S. officials, who accused him of being an al-Qaida operative. He denied the accusation.

(i wonder if zambia at least got a couple of pairs of new blue-jeans out of it.)

He said prisoners had asked for notices to be posted warning U.S. soldiers that copies of the Quran should not be thrown on the floor.

(good advice...)

(but if they're ignoring the ten commandments...)

(i mean, really...)

"We were not asking to have a gymnasium, we weren't asking to have swimming pools, only that they did not touch the Quran," he said. "But time and time again new units, new soldiers would come and they would use the excuse that these new soldiers did not know how to handle issues around the Quran."

(ahhh, the "new guy" approach.)

(classic.)

The international Red Cross said Thursday that it had told U.S. authorities about allegations of abuse to the Quran and that action was taken to stop it.

("red cross - shmed cross!")

("that's what i say!")

("you can't trust a bunch of no-good do-gooders i tell ya!")

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the ICRC's concerns about the handling of the Quran at Guantanamo were consistent with those the Pentagon has acknowledged, such as a Quran inadvertently dropping to the floor.

(okay...)

(they know there's a problem...)

(and...)

(even g.i. joe said "knowing is half the battle...)

(now...)

(do they have the cojones to fight the other half?)

The Bush administration has called on Newsweek to explain how it got the story wrong and to report on U.S. military practices intended to ensure the Quran is handled with respect. The State Department told its embassies to spread the word abroad that America respects all religious faiths.

(press = scared.)

(people = scared.)

(bushworld = fun-fun-fun! :)

(...)

SOURCE - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050520/ap_on_re_as/quran_protests