A meeting will be held urgently by the UN Human Rights Council on the burning of a Quran outside a mosque in Sweden following a request from Pakistan.
A UN council representative from Geneva said at a press conference on Tuesday that the discussion on the rise of religious hatred will likely take place later this week.
Last week, a man desecrated the Quran in front of Stockholm’s main mosque while participating in a protest that the police had authorised.
After a global Islamic organization called for action to prevent further desecration of the Muslim holy book, the Swedish government condemned the “Islamophobic” act.
In response to the incident, government representatives from a number of nations—including many in the Middle East—have urged Stockholm to take stronger action against religious hatred.
Morocco went beyond simply expressing condemnation by recalling its ambassador to Sweden indefinitely.
State media reported that the Moroccan foreign ministry also called on Sweden’s chargé d’affaires in Rabat to strongly condemn this attack and its rejection of this unacceptable act.
Soon after the incident, demonstrators stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, yelling, “Yes, yes to the Quran”.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey said “we will teach the arrogant Western people that it is not freedom of expression to insult the sacred values of Muslims.”
Sweden’s application to join NATO is currently being stalled by Ankara over claims that the Nordic country harbors individuals Turkey views as “terrorists”.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, who expressed his concern at a news conference in Ankara on Tuesday, that Sweden was powerless to stop provocations.
According to Fidan, in order for Sweden to be permitted to join the military alliance, the country must uphold its obligations under an agreement reached at the NATO summit in Madrid last year.
Source-Aljazeera
