Iraqi Shiites protest Al-Jazeera

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

BAGHDAD - Hundreds of angry Shiites poured onto the streets of two cities south of the Iraqi capital Friday to protest what they considered insults by Al-Jazeera television against Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The protesters were angered by an Al-Jazeera talk show this week in which the presenter questioned al-Sistani's leadership credentials.

Following Friday prayers in the southern cities of Basra and Najaf, al-Sistani supporters carried banners denouncing the channel and its host nation, the Gulf Arab state of Qatar.

"Yes, yes to al-Sistani," read banners carried by some of the 1,000 protesters in Basra, Iraq's second largest city. They gathered outside the local offices of Iraq's largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, which has close links to al-Sistani.

In the holy Shiite city of Najaf, where al-Sistani lives, several hundred protesters marched in the city's old quarter in solidarity.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070504/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_al_jazeera