Demonstrations against purported French Koran Desecrations
Hundreds of workers protested Sunday before the French Gas Company after a French had desecrated Koran (the holy Muslim Book ) in Shabwa.
The correspondent of Alsahwanet said that the protesters set a helicopter, belonging to the company, on fire and destroyed the company’s facilities as well as several cars belonging to the company.
Some eyewitnesses affirmed to Alsahwanet that the security forces had intervened to calm the violence and evacuated the French engineer from the centre of the riot. They also said that the police had shot fire and that one protester was seriously injured ant taken immediately to hospital.
More: The violence began when a French employee at a natural gas liquefaction plant being constructed by Yemen LNG in the coastal city of Balhaf threw a copy of the Koran, Islam’s holy book, on the ground, a move that angered Yemeni workers at the plant site. The enraged Yemenis reacted by attacking the French employee and setting fire to a helicopter and a large number of vehicles inside the plant site, the officials said.
Related: Yemenia Promoting French Tourism
Sunday 25 March 2007
26 Septemper News
SANA’A March 25(26sep.net) Yemen Airways in French capital, Paris had organized an evaluation meeting for the French tourist market with the participation of travel and tourism agencies Yemeni market.
In the meeting which was held yesterday evening, Yemeni ambassador in France Ameer Al-Aiddarous had confirmed the importance of organizing this meeting to study French tourist market and the promotion of the features of tourist attractions in Yemen to enhance attracting the French tourists, as France has became on the tops of European countries that export tourism to Yemen.
More on the riot:
YO: riot broke out among 1,000 or so workers of the Yemeni LNG Company working in Balhalf at around 2 p.m. on Sunday, following a dispute between a French worker and a Yemeni worker. Press reports have suggested that the fights erupted after the French worker, who worked for a subcontractor involved with constructing the plant facilities, and whose name has not been released, desecrated the Holy Quran, outraging the Yemenis.
Joel Fort, the director of LNG in Yemen, said that he could not discuss any details until an investigation of the incident is complete. While he confirmed that a riot broke out, he said the press reports have wildly overstated what happened. Some 1,000 people were involved in the fights, he said, but no exact numbers are available. Other press reports have said the number of men involved was as high as 4,000, though those have not been confirmed. “Security is now back to normal,” Fort said Monday afternoon. “There is no security problem. People were calmed down yesterday, and people are coming back to work. We are now investigating the incident.”
The governor of Shabwah, Ali al-Maqdashi, told Almotamar.net website that the riots indeed resulted from an insult to the Quran. “It is not known yet the way he humiliated the Quran, whether he stepped out on it or else,” said al-Maqdashi. Police forces were quick to calm the riots, said security forces.
No deaths were reported as a result of the riot, though a security source said that some windows of the residences of French engineers were damaged when angry workers threw stones through them them.
Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Khalid Bahah said that the situation was under control, and confirmed that no human casualties have occurred. The websites al-Ishteraki and Almotamar.net reported that a helicopter affiliated with the French subcontracting company was burned and that two other trucks were burned by the outraged workers.
Al-Ishteraki also said that a number of Turkish, Egyptian and other Arabian and Muslim engineers and workers took part in the demonstration, in addition to the Yemeni workers. A security source told the Yemen Observer that the French engineers and workers with the French subcontractor AMIC SPIEI HAWK were transferred from Balhaf to Mukallah city following the riots on Sunday afternoon. A committee chaired by al-Maqdashi and made up of the police chief and the chief of the political security in Shabwa and representatives of the LNG Company was formed to investigate the incident.
At press time, the committee had not yet published any of its findings about the real causes of the incident. AMIC SPIEI HAWK is a subcontractor company that works for LNG.
Yemen LNG is currently constructing a natural gas liquefaction plant on the coast of Balhaf, Shabwa, as well as a 320-kilometer pipeline, which will connect the gas processing facilities in Block 18 in Marib to the liquefaction facilities, located at around 400 km east of Aden.
The construction currently involves around 4,000 people in Balhaf and almost another 1,000 along the pipeline.
The project was authorized by the government and shareholders in August 2005. A high-technology LNG plant will be built in Balhaf, Shabwah governorate with a total cost of US $2 billion. Gas produced in the Marib region will be piped through a 320 kilometer-long 38-inch diameter pipeline to Balhaf. Export production is expected to start in early 2009.
Al-Sahwa: Mar 27,2007-The governor of Shabwa province, Ali al-Maqdshi affirmed Tuesday that work is still going on at the Yemen Liquid Natural Gas project (YLNG),a French Company in Belhaf region, after riots events had caused a setting helicopter and several cars on fire.
He said that authorities are currently investigating riots events which happened between the Yemeni and French workers, pointing out that they are holding five Yemenis and a French engineer who is accused of desecrating Koran (Muslim holy book).
For their Part, the Joint Meeting Parties denounced what they described as a horrible incident, demanding the French Company to apologize for desecrating Koran and dismiss the French who committed the act.
