CNN news 2012-02-25 加文本

cnn news 2012-02-25

NATISHA LANCE, HOST, cnn STUDENT NEWS: Some plans take longer to grow than others, but 30,000 years, don`t worry. We`ll explain, coming up on cnn Student News.

Hi, everyone, I`m Natisha Lance, in for Carl Azuz today.

Dozens of people are reportedly killed every day by violence in Syria, and yesterday that included two journalists. They lost their lives trying to raise awareness about the crisis over there. French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to them, saying if reporters were not over there, we would not know what is going on.

LANCE (voice-over): Now these two were killed in the city of Homs by artillery fire. One of the journalists was Remi Ochlik, a prizewinning photographer, and the other, Marie Colvin. Now she was interviewed on Anderson Cooper`s cnn program the night before she died. She compared the violence in Syria to some of the other conflicts she`d reported on.

MARIE COLVIN, JOURNALIST, "LONDON SUNDAY TIMES": This is the worst, Anderson, for many reasons. I think the last one -- I mean, I think it`s the last time we talked, when I was in Misrata. It`s partly personal safety, I guess.

There`s nowhere to run. There`s just a lot of snipers on the high buildings surrounding the (inaudible) neighborhood. You can sort of figure out where snipers, but you can`t figure out where -- you know, where a shell is going to land. And just the terror of the people, and, you know, the helplessness.

LANCE: In Afghanistan, violent demonstrations have left at least five people dead. These protesters are angry about coalition troops burning Qurans or Islam`s holy book. Military officials say the Qurans were burned by mistake, and not because of any decision about Islam. Brian Todd has more on the protests and explains how experts say Qurans should be handled.

BRIAN TODD, cnn REPORTER (voice-over): Fires, angry chants, fist waving, a response to what military officials say was the inadvertent burning of Qurans at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.

One official says some of the material was removed from a detainee center at the American base because of inscriptions, indicating, the official says, that the documents may have used to facilitate extremist messages.

U.S. military officials apologize for what they call an error, but experts say even an accidental mishandling of the Quran is dangerous.

PROF. AKBAR AHMED, ISLAMIC STUDIES CHAIR, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: We don`t want this to happen, this sequence of events, because this is going to start affecting our own troop withdrawal over the next couple of months.

TODD (voice-over): Akbar Ahmed is chair of Islamic Studies at American University. He says an understanding of these protests and other violence associated with reports of the Quran being desecrated has to involve an understanding of how the book is viewed in the Muslim world.

TODD: Akbar Ahmed says the Quran is so revered, that the only time Muslims really pick it up is around the time of prayer, and before that, hands should be washed from hands to elbow, face three times, and the feet.

And when it`s time to place the Quran down, it should always be placed, he says, at the highest point in the room. And when you`re in the same room with the Quran, you should not even point your feet toward the book.

TODD (voice-over): That`s to keep physical purity, Ahmed says, on par with the spiritual purity of the Quran. He says Qurans are passed between generations in families. One Muslim scholar says if a Quran is damaged, burning, burying or shredding it is acceptable, otherwise --

TODD: You`re never supposed to dispose of them in any way. Is that right?

AHMED: Not Muslims. Not Muslims. Muslims, technically can`t tear it up throw it away or throw it into the dustbin.

TODD: What about non-Muslims?

AHMED: Non-Muslims, again, it`s entirely in the United States, it`s a free country, free speech, free actions. And no one can stop anyone doing anything.

I would say that if we have -- if an American who is not a Muslim, has copies of the Quran, he wants to dispose of them, ring up a Muslim friend or ring up an Islamic center or a mosque and say, look, I`ve got a couple of these copies, you know, I don`t know what to do with them. I don`t want to insult your faith by throwing them into the dustbin. Would you come and collect them?

TODD (voice-over): But Ahmed emphasized he doesn`t excuse the violent reactions to incidents involving the Quran, like what happened last year after a Florida pastor ceremoniously burned a copy of the book and crowds attacked a U.N. facility in Afghanistan, killing 12 people.

Ahmed says Muslim scholars have to talk to their followers about appropriate responses that don`t involve violence -- Brian Todd, cnn, Washington.