The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called on the governments of European countries to take strict punitive measures against those who insult the Quran by burning copies in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
This came in a statement by the organization— which includes 57 countries – after an emergency meeting at its headquarters in Jeddah on Tuesday, Saudi Arabia, days after copies of the Quran were burned in incidents that sparked widespread condemnation from Arab and Islamic countries.
The organization in a statement said, that it held an extraordinary meeting of its executive committee in order to express the organization’s unified position regarding the burning of copies of the Holy Quran in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
During the meeting, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Hussein Taha, renewed his dissatisfaction with the provocative actions carried out by far-right activists in Europe.
He said relevant governments should take strict punitive measures, especially since such provocations have been committed time and again by right-wing extremists in their countries.
Taha added that the“intentional act of desecrating the Holy Qur’an and insulting Prophet Mohammed must not be seen as just an ordinary incident of Islamophobia.”
The Secretary-General stressed that these actions are a direct insult to all Muslims, who number about 1.6 billion people.
He also called on all concerned authorities and parties to take firm measures to prevent the recurrence of such provocations in the future.
On Friday, January 27, the leader of the far-right Hard Line party, Rasmus Paludan, burned a copy of the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, under police protection, moments after it was burned in front of a mosque.
He had previously burned a copy of the Quran on Saturday, January 21 near the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, also under strict police protection.
On Sunday, January 22, the leader of the extremist anti-Islam “Pegida” movement in the Netherlands, Edwin Wagensfeld, burned a copy of the Quran after it was torn and desecrated in The Hague, the administrative capital, about 3 months after he was arrested while he was carrying out the same provocative act.
On a large scale, this violation caused an uproar in the Arab world, and Turkey considered it a provocative act of hate crimes, and canceled Swedish Defense Minister Pal Johnson’s visit to Ankara.
