Turk Workers Urge For Pope's Arrest
Shaveta Bansal - All Headline News Staff Writer Vatican City (AHN) - Many Muslims worldwide continued to outpour their anger over the Pope's recent quotation of a medieval text, despite an apology by the Vatican. Workers at Turkey's Directorate General for Religious Affairs, or Diyanet, have even petitioned for the arrest of Pope Benedict XVI when he makes a scheduled visit to Turkey in November. The protests and violence stirred up a week ago when Pope during a speech in Germany quoted a 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet Mohammed brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The leader of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics said on Sunday he was "deeply sorry" for the reaction caused over his remarks, but stopped short of apologizing for his words or retracting them. The Muslim community all around the world, however, rejected pontiff's attempt to explain himself and demanded an unequivocal apology. Employees at Diyanet protested against Vatican's November visit with banners saying, "Either apologize or don't come." In Iraq, where an effigy of the pope was burned Monday, parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani called his apology "inadequate and not commensurate with the moral damage caused to Muslims' feelings." However, in Italy politicians and churchmen defended the pope and said his words were taken out of c |
