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Created: October 12, 2002
Latest Update: October 12, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Fallwell's Speech and War with Iraq

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, October 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

On Saturday night around 1:30 a.m. Sarah "Thurman sent the following e-mail:

Falwell remarks prompt Hindu-Muslim clashes, five killed. Fri Oct 11, 2:53 PM ET.

AP World Politics
Falwell remarks prompt Hindu-Muslim clashes, five killed.
Fri Oct 11, 2:53 PM ET

By RAMOLA TALWAR, Associated Press Writer

BOMBAY, India - At least five people were killed Friday in Hindu-Muslim rioting and police gunfire after riots broke out during a general strike to protest remarks by a U.S. religious leader calling the founder of Islam a terrorist. Forty-seven others were injured.

The rioters attacked each other with knives and stones during the one-day strike called to protest what the Rev. Jerry Falwell said on the U.S. television network CBS early this month. Muslim organizations called Falwell's remarks derogatory and blasphemous.

The conservative Baptist minister told the television network Islam's prophet "was a — a violent man, a man of war."

"Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses," Falwell said. "I think Muhammad set an opposite example."

Two Muslims and one Hindu were killed by police gunfire and one Muslim and one Hindu died of stab wounds in Sholapur, 360 kilometers (225 miles) south of Bombay, the capital of western Maharashtra state, said Kirpa Shankar, the state's junior home minister.

The trouble started when a group of Muslims took to the streets and were challenged by Hindus. Some rioters targeted shops, homes and vehicles, police said.

Reinforcements of paramilitary soldiers brought the rioting under control, Shankar said.

Falwell's remarks had triggered street protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir (news - web sites), a Muslim-dominated state, on Monday.

Clashes between Hindus and Muslims are frequent in India.

At least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, have been killed in western Gujarat state since Muslims burned a train coach earlier this year carrying Hindu hardliners from a religious site claimed by both groups.

Last month, two suspected Islamic militants killed at least 32 Hindus in an attack at the popular Swaminarayan Temple in Gujarat.