Iran Condemns Burning of Ancient Church in Occupied Quds (Jerusalem)
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday condemned the arson attack by extremist Jewish settlers on an old church in the Western sector of the occupied Quds.
10-31-10
“The Islamic Republic of Iran believes that the Zionists’ provocative and sacrilegious act against a historical church in the occupied Quds is another instance of the Zionist regime’s disrespect for divine faiths and religious sanctities,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said in a statement on Sunday.
The statement also reminded the previous insults to the sacred and holy places of Muslims and Christians by the Zionist regime of Israel, specially Zionists’ measures against Muslims’ the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and reiterated that all these examples prove the regime does not at all feel any respect for divine religions and their believers.
Mehman-Parast further called on the international community to condemn the recent insult to Christians’ ancient church on the occupied territories and adopt immediate measures to stop such desecrations.
A Group of extremist Jewish settlers set a one hundred year old Christian church on fire in the occupied Quds (Jerusalem) on Friday causing substantial damage to its first floor.
Zakaria Al-Mashriqi, a leader in the church, denounced in a press release the “sinful crime” that targets destabilizing relations among heavenly religions and inciting strife in addition to expelling Palestinians from the holy city through such repeated attacks on citizens and their property.
He added that the church was built in al-Quds (Jerusalem) in 1897, and housed the Palestinian Bible College until 1948, when parishioners were pushed out by Jewish armed gangs during the violence accompanying the creation of the state of Israel.
He said that right-wing Israeli settlers broke a number of windows of the two-storey church and hurled Molotov cocktails inside it completely burning the first floor.
Article Source: Fars News Agency
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