Indian Muslims want alleged Koran abuse apology

More than 200 Muslim members of India’s main opposition party marched in New Delhi today, demanding that Washington apologise for US interrogators’ alleged desecration of Islam’s holy book at Guantanamo Bay prison.

The protesters, from the Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, chanted “Down With the US!”

They demanded the death penalty for US soldiers who allegedly defiled the Koran at the US detention camp in Cuba.

Many Muslims were outraged when Newsweek magazine reported in May that interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay prison flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet to get Muslim inmates to talk.

The story – which was later retracted - sparked deadly riots in Afghanistan and rallies across much of the Muslim world.

US investigators later admitted the Koran was mishandled at Guantanamo, but contend it was mostly inadvertent. They denied that a copy of the book had been put in a toilet.

Police in New Delhi stopped the protesters from marching to the US Embassy but allowed their leaders to give US officials a letter.

It said the feelings of Muslims, and everyone who respects the equality of all religions, had been hurt by the US interrogators’ behaviour.