JOHANNESBURG: A Johannesburg court has blocked a South African businessman from burning Bibles on Saturday in response to a Florida pastor`s threat to burn the Koran, a local newspaper said.

The Johannesburg High Court issued an urgent interdict late Friday blocking Mohammed Vawda from holding a "Burn the Bible Day", reported the Saturday Star.

Vawda had planned to burn Bibles at a square in central Johannesburg, in response to pastor Terry Jones` plans to mark Saturday`s anniversary of the September 11 attacks by setting alight a pile of Korans.

"Pastor Jones` actions were inciteful," Vawda, 38, told the newspaper.
"He angered me and outraged me. My actions were aimed against him. I wanted to stop him somehow. He didn`t listen to his own president."

Jones, a pastor at a small church in Gainesville, Florida, drew worldwide attention with his threatened Koran-burning, but seemed to have abandoned the plan by Friday after pleas from President Barack Obama and several other world leaders.

Vawda`s planned retaliation was stopped by an Islamic intellectual organisation called Scholars of the Truth that sought a court interdict Friday.

The group`s attorney, Zehir Omar, said the court had ruled it illegal to burn any text considered sacred in religiously diverse South Africa.

"The court accepted my submission that it is unlawful for someone to burn any holy scripture considered sacred by any member of South Africa`s community," Omar told the Saturday Star.

Vawda said after reading court papers that quoted Koranic verses on the importance of respecting the Bible and the Jewish Torah, he was glad his plans had been blocked.

"Applicants in their papers brought to my attention verses of the Koran I was not aware of. In other words, the Koran is saying the Gospel is part of the Koran, and that if I burn the Bible, I`m also burning the Koran," he said.
"Luckily they stopped me from doing it."

Omar said the court`s ruling set a precedent that the United States could follow.

"I`m amazed Americans could not obtain an order against (Jones) so hastily -- that it allows itself to be held hostage by one person who for more than a month has threatened to burn the Koran," he said.

BDST: 1535 HRS, SEPTEMBER 11, 2010