Press Trust of India/Agence France-Presse Posted online: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 at 1653 hours IST
Islamabad, May 11: Cricket hero-turned politician Imran Khan joined Pakistan's Parliament in denouncing the alleged desecration of Islam's holy book, the Koran, by US soldiers at Guantanamo Bay, a report said today.
Khan also condemned a US newspaper for publishing what politicians here say is a humiliating cartoon about Pakistan's hunt for al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
"If the United States does not apologise on these incidents then they must be asked to wrap up and vacate our bases under their use," Khan was quoted as saying. Khan was joining the escalating outrage in majority Muslim Pakistan at a report in US-based Newsweek magazine that said interrogators at Guantanamo placed copies of the Koran in toilets to irritate prisoners.
Pakistan was also angered by the cartoon in the Washington Times newspaper, published after last week's catch of al-Qaeda's alleged number three Abu Faraj Al-Libbi, that showed Pakistan as a dog being patted by a US soldier. Dogs are considered unclean by Muslims.
Lawmakers from Pakistan's ruling and Opposition parties both urged the government to lodge a "strong protest" with the United States after the Lower House of Parliament suspended business Monday to take up the matter.
"We are fighting for them as a frontline state in the war on terrorism and they are desecrating our holy book. This is too humiliating," said the leader of the Opposition, Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Jalil Abbas Jilani said Sunday the government of Pakistan was "deeply dismayed" by the reported Koran desecration.
