KABUL: Fresh protests erupted in the Afghan capital Kabul on Tuesday over the burning of a copy of the Quran by a US pastor, taking angry and violent demonstrations into a fifth day, an AFP photographer said.
Several hundred people gathered at Kabul University chanting “death to America” and “we want the burner of the Quran to be tried” in the wake of previous protests which have left 24 people dead, including seven UN staff.
“A protest has started by Kabul University students in front of the university. It is peaceful and under control at the moment,” interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.
The protesters were contained within the university campus by heavy police deployments and all roads leading in and out of the university were blocked, the AFP photographer said.
Angry protests over the burning of a Quran by evangelical preacher Wayne Sapp in a Florida church began in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, where the UN office was ransacked and seven of its employees killed.
Five Afghan protesters were also killed in clashes with police.
A dozen others died in two days of violent protests in the southern city of Kandahar.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation of the protests.
Religion is a highly sensitive issue in ultra-conservative Afghanistan, where international troops, the bulk of which are from the United States, are fighting a bloody Taliban insurgency.
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