International Burn a Quran Day likely to cause religious war
A church in Gainesville, Florida, plans to organize an “International Burn a Quran Day” on the anniversary of the 11th of September tragic events which happened 9 years ago, in 2001, and protests against the Islamic religion, which they call “the religion of the devil”.
The Dove World Outreach Center wants to organize the event in the memory of the 9/11 victims and they even advertised it on their website and on the Facebook, inviting the Christians to burn the Muslim holy book at the church headquarters between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center says that they believe Islam to be the religion of the devil and a violent religion that is causing people to go to hell. Pastor Jones wrote a book named “Islam is of the Devil” and the church sells coffee mugs and shirts featuring the phrase. This event is fought against by many other Christians and Muslims, but the church has launched a YouTube channel advertising it and trying to convince believers to attend. The Islamic advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations reacted to the pastor’s plan by organizing “Share the Quran” dinners meant to educate the public about the Islamic religion during the fast of Ramadan which is lasting one month from August on. They are also going to organize a book give away campaign, in which more than 100,000 copies of the Quran will be given away to the public.
Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says that they are trying this way to prevent the spread of Islamophobia. They are being helped by the National Association of Evangelicals which have been publicly banned Pastor Terry Jones’ event and has asked the church to cancel it because this may cause worldwide tension between the two religions. The National Association of Evangelicals encourages its members to trust and respect their neighbors with other faiths then theirs, including Islamic. But the Dove World Outreach Center’s page already has 1,600 fans and it is believed that more would add to this number until September. There is another Facebook group, having 3,100 fans, which protests against the Dove calling it disrespectful and intolerant to the Muslim people and encourages people to report Dove’s page to Facebook. The Dove is also protesting against Gainesville Mayor Craig Lowe who has declared that he is gay, and they have unsuccessfully fought to undermine his electoral campaign.
