TURKEY: Protests outside Ankara mosque after Pope's comments on Muslims

Demonstrators gathered at Ankara's Kocatepe Mosque on Friday (September 15) to protest against Pope Benedict's statement on Islam. Muslims worldwide deplored remarks on Islam by Pope Benedict and many of them said the Catholic leader should apologise in person to dispel the impression that he had joined a campaign against their religion. "The statement of Pope Benedict is not appropriate for a religious man. Because we believe that a person full of religious beliefs shows necessary respect to others. Unfortunately we could not see that respect from the Pope Benedict XVI," said one protester in Ankara. In a speech in Germany on Tuesday, the Pope appeared to endorse a Christian view, contested by most Muslims, that the early Muslims spread their religion by violence. The Pope on Tuesday (September 12) repeated criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by the 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The Pope, who used the terms "jihad" and "holy war" in his lecture, added "violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul". The Muslim Brotherhood, the Arab world's largest group of political Islamists, demanded an apology from the Pope and called on the governments of Islamic countries to break relations with the Vatican if he does not make one. The Vatican defended the Pope's lecture and said he did not mean to offend Muslims. As the Pope's historical reference showed, the dispute between Muslim and Christian religious leaders over the conditions for the use of violence is an ancient one. The Koran endorses the concept of jihad, often translated as holy war, but Muslims differ on conditions for it, with some saying it applies only for self-defence against external attack.

ITN Source | September 17, 2006

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