{"id":3709,"date":"2014-03-04T09:02:38","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T09:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=3709"},"modified":"2014-03-04T09:02:38","modified_gmt":"2014-03-04T09:02:38","slug":"protests-in-mauritania-over-quran-desecration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=3709","title":{"rendered":"Protests in Mauritania over Quran desecration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/201132118114982427_20.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-3710\" alt=\"201132118114982427_20\" src=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/201132118114982427_20-300x198.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/201132118114982427_20-300x198.jpg 300w, https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/201132118114982427_20.jpg 680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Hundreds of protesters threw stones and chanted anti-government slogans in Mauritania&#8217;s capital after local media reported that Qurans were desecrated in a mosque.<\/p>\n<p>A young man was killed during the protests after apparently\u00a0being hit by an exploding tear-gas canister, a hospital source said.<\/p>\n<p>A local government source confirmed the death but said the circumstances and cause were yet to be clarified, according to AFP news agency.<\/p>\n<p>The violence began after four people dressed in turbans were reported to have driven to a mosque in the north of Nouakchott and taken copies of the Quran to destroy.<\/p>\n<p>Local media reported that on Sunday night four people entered a mosque in the Teyaret neighbourhood and tore up Qurans and threw them on the floor. It was not immediately clear who was behind that attack or what their motive was.<\/p>\n<p>One of them &#8220;took four copies of the Quran which he shredded before throwing them in the toilet,&#8221; the local imam said.<\/p>\n<p>Police fended off a large crowd bound for the presidential palace shortly after midnight,according to Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n<p>Communications Minister Sidi Mohamed Ould Maham called for protesters to return home at a news conference on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The country operates Islamic law courts but the death penalty has not been applied for blasphemy since the 1980s.<\/p>\n<p>A young Muslim is facing a possible death sentence after being convicted in January of apostasy and jailed for having written an article criticising the Prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n<p>In February a man was arrested and sent for psychiatric evaluation after urinating on a Quran in northern Mauritania.<\/p>\n<p>President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who has been an ally of the west in its battle against al-Qaeda in the poor and unstable Sahel region, is up for re-election in June.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: Aljazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hundreds of protesters threw stones and chanted anti-government slogans in Mauritania&#8217;s capital after local media reported that Qurans were desecrated in a mosque. A young man was killed during the protests after apparently\u00a0being hit by an exploding tear-gas canister, a hospital source said. A local government source confirmed the death but said the circumstances and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-3709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}