Beslan memorial plan angers Russian Muslim leader

I tend to agree that religion should be minimized in this memorial, but the Islamist murders should be highlighted as such. They murdered children in the name of Allah the Merciful. Why can't that be pointed out?

Reuters AlertNet - Beslan memorial plan angers Russian Muslim leader: "Plans to build a memorial to the 333 hostages killed three years ago in the Beslan school siege have sparked a row between Christians and Muslims in Russia.

The local Russian Orthodox diocese says it will build a church in the grounds of Beslan's school No. 1 to commemorate the victims -- half of them children -- killed in a clash between insurgents and Russian troops.

But one of Russia's leading Muslim clerics has accused the Orthodox church of trying to hijack a national tragedy by building a memorial that he said would exclude the more than 20 million Muslims who live in the country.

'It is not acceptable to present this tragedy as the tragedy of followers of only one religion,' Sheikh Ravil Gainutdin, chairman of the Council of Russian Muftis, said in a statement."