BELGRADE'S MUFTI DEMANDS OF SERBIAN GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT ISLAMIC FAITHFUL

BELGRADE, March 18 (Hina) - After protestors devastated the Belgrade mosque and entirely demolished the mosque in Nis, Belgrade's Mufti Hamdija Jusufspahic on Thursday requested the authorities in Serbia to protect the Islamic faithful.#L# The mufti told reporters outside the demolished Bajrakli Mosque in Belgrade that those who failed to prevent the incidents were responsible for them and that apart from Metropolitan Amfilohije, who tried to prevent the incidents, nobody else from the Serb Orthodox Church had spoken to him. The incidents were condemned by the Serbian government and Vojvodina's Executive Council, which also condemned the political abuse of dissatisfaction with the conflicts in Kosovo and "the vandal attacks on religious buildings and legal institutions of authority, as well as on members of religious and national minorities, which occurred in some Serbian towns". The head of the Serb Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle, conducted a service in Belgrade for the victims of the Serb-Albanian clashes in Kosovo and said: "One must refrain from retaliation, which is being committed by some unreasonable people in Nis and Belgrade. We must bear in mind that we are defending ourselves from evil and criminals, but not in an inhumane way, not the way the criminals do". (Hina) it sb