Teenager arrested for burning Qur'an

A fifteen year old teenage girl from Birmingham has been arrested for allegedly burning the Qur'an. She was charged with inciting religious hatred after posting a video of burning the Islamic holy book on the social network website Facebook. The video has since been removed.

The book burning follows similar incidents in the North East where six people were arrested for setting a copy of Qur'an alight after dousing it with fuel in a pub in Tyneside and a high profile campaign by US pastor Terry Jones to incite people to burn the Koran on the anniversary of September 11th.

Commenting on the incident, a spokesperson for West Midlands police said:

"A 15-year-old girl was arrested on Friday 19 November on suspicion of inciting religious hatred. She has been bailed pending further enquiries.

"A second 14-year-old boy was arrested on Tuesday 23 November on suspicion of making threats over Facebook. He has also been bailed pending further enquiries."

Catherine Heseltine, chief executive officer of the Muslim public affairs committee, said:

"The Qur'an is the most sacred thing to over a billion Muslims worldwide. You can see that in the way Muslims treat the Qur'an, washing before touching it, and in many Muslim homes you will find it on the top shelf above all other books, and we will never destroy the Qur'anic texts."