Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Pakistani counterpart Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Saturday condemned the recent desecration of the Quran in Sweden and Denmark in a phone talk.
The two ministers said such “sacrilegious” acts contradicted human dignity and rights, according to a statement published on the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s website.
Amir-Abdollahian said the recent “insults” to the Quran in Sweden and Denmark have harmed the feelings of Muslims across the world.
The Iranian top diplomat noted that he has proposed holding an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to convey a “strong message” from Islamic countries in response to such acts.
Zardari, for his part, pointed to his participation in a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council earlier in July, during which the council adopted a resolution that condemned and strongly rejected any advocacy of religious hatred, including the desecration of the holy Quran.
The Pakistani top diplomat voiced his country’s readiness for cooperation with Iran in countering such acts, stressing that Muslim states should place on the agenda criminalizing such actions and publishing the perpetrators through law enforcement.
A copy of the Quran was burned by a group called Danske Patrioter in front of Iraq’s embassy in the Danish capital of Copenhagen.
The group’s members also carried a banner with insulting slogans against Islam, before stomping on the Iraqi flag and a copy of the Quran.
They said they made the move to protest against the Iraqis’ attack on the Swedish embassy in Baghdad on Thursday.
Hundreds of angry protesters stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad on Thursday and set fire to the building in protest against the desecration of the Quran and the Iraqi flag in the Swedish capital of Stockholm. ■
