anti-war and other demonstration groups

[jerseydevil]

Okay this is very sick.... What is ironic and sad is that this is being done in the name of God or Allah.

KADUNA, Nigeria -- Dozens have been killed in northern Nigeria in rioting that erupted after a newspaper suggested the Prophet Mohammad would have approved of the Miss World beauty contest.

The death toll in the town of Kaduna was an estimated 105 with a further 521 injured taken to hospital, aid workers said on Friday.

Angry mobs in the mainly-Muslim city 600 kilometres (375 miles) northwest of Lagos burnt Christian churches and rampaged through the streets stabbing, bludgeoning and burning bystanders to death...

Shehu Sani of the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress told The Associated Press he watched a crowd stab a young man, force a petrol-filled tyre around his neck and burn him alive. Sani said he saw three other bodies elsewhere in the city.

Alsa Hassan, founder of another human rights group, Alsa Care, told AP he saw a commuter being dragged out of his car and beaten to death by protesters.

Schools and shops hurriedly closed as hordes of young men, shouting "Allahu Akhbar," or "God is great," ignited makeshift street barricades made of tires and garbage, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city. Others were heard chanting, "Down with beauty" and "Miss World is sin."

Islamic fundamentalist groups had for months warned of protests against the Miss World pageant.

The fundamentalist Nigerian Muslim Umma, an umbrella group of Islamic clerics and scholars, has declared a "serious religious emergency" and issued a statement calling on the government to stop the pageant, Reuters reported.

Organisers have postponed the finale until after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The contest is due to start in Nigeria on December 7 in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

'Hugely popular'
The pageant has also drawn protests from other parts of the world.

Contestants from five countries -- Costa Rica, Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa and Panama -- are boycotting the event because Islamic courts in Nigeria have sentenced several unmarried women to death by stoning for conceiving babies outside wedlock. Nigeria's government insists none of the judgments will be carried out, although it has refused to intervene directly.

Winner of Miss World in 2000, India's Priyanka Chopra, defended the contest being held in Nigeria, saying it was hugely popular in developing countries.

"People want to see their citizens on an international level," she told CNN.

She added that it was being held in Nigeria because last year's winner had been Miss Nigeria, Agbani Darego.

She said Nigerians had been "excited and elated" at the prospect.

Miss World publicist Stella Din said pageant organisers hoped calm would quickly return to Kaduna.

"We are very, very sad that it has come to this -- even if there is a loss of one life, it makes us sad. We are appealing to all to please exercise restraint," Din told AP.

This whole thing is sick. The stoning of a woman to death for having a baby out of wedlock. The riots over a newspaper article that claimed that Mohammed would have married one of the contestants. These people are acting like wild animals all in the name of God.