Hundreds attend peace vigil in Nelson
8:00am Saturday 6th October 2012 in News
By Tyrone Marshall, Reporter
AROUND 500 people attended a peace vigil in Nelson town centre yesterday (Friday) afternoon.
The vigil, organised by local mosques and Councillor Mohammed Iqbal, followed a public meeting in the town held earlier this week.
There members from all faiths in the community submitted an 8,000 signature petition to Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson, calling for blasphemy laws to be introduced and greater protection to be afforded all religions.
Coun Iqbal said: “We were overwhelmed with the number of people that turned up and the support shown.
“It was aimed to register the Pendle communities protests over the attacks on Islam in this instance, and to ask for greater protection for all faiths.
“That is the message that we have been trying to portray for the last three days.”
The meeting on Wednesday and the peace vigil were arranged in response to the anti-Islam film produced in America which caused protests across the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, resulting in the deaths of dozens of people.
The petition was handed over to Andrew Stephenson, who will present it in Parliament.
Coun Iqbal said: “The meeting and the vigil was organised by the main mosques in the area and myself.
“Now we are going to wait for the MP to raise the petition and the issue in Parliament and take it from there.
“The Pendle community has really come together over this though, we are leading the way in the area with peaceful protests.”
