Call for UN Action Against Desecration of Quran

Following repeated desecration of the Holy Quran in Sweden, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has written to Antonio Guterres, urging the UN secretary-general to take a hard line on such acts of religious sacrilege.
The top diplomat addressed the letter to the UN chief on Thursday, hours after Salwan Momika, a Sweden-based Iraqi refugee, stomped on a copy of the Quran and kicked the Muslim holy book during a demonstration outside Stockholm’s main mosque amid strict protection provided for the rally by the Swedish police.
The act of sacrilege has opened the floodgates of protest across the world’s Muslim community, including in Iran, which has summoned the Swedish ambassador to Tehran, conveying the Islamic Republic’s vehement condemnation of the heinous act.
This was the second time Momika was disrespecting the Quran amid the approval of Sweden’s authorities. He had set a copy of the holy book on fire last month too, prompting similar raging protests across the Muslim world and causing the Iranian Foreign Ministry to summon Sweden’s chargé d'affaires.
Writing to Guterres, Amir-Abdollahian reminded that the act of sacrilege had caused “serious harm” to the sentiments of Muslims and other followers of divine religions across the world. “The shock and concern about such insulting actions is on the rise,” the foreign minister noted, IRNA reported.
Iran strongly denounces the Swedish authorities’ issuance of their approval for the provocative act, the letter said.

Promotion of Extremism

“Iran strongly warns that continuation of such actions under the cover of freedom of speech constitutes an open insult to the entirety of Muslims and serves to provoke various communities,” Amir-Abdollahian said, cautioning that such acts of sacrilege “pursue Islamophobia and promotion of extremism.”
These acts of desecration, the foreign minister warned, will have “irreparable consequences and repercussions, such as expansion of hatred, violence, and xenophobia across various communities.”
Continuation of these insulting behaviors ultimately serves to pose “serious threats to peace and peaceful coexistence among members of various divine religions,” the letter added.
Amir-Abdollahian finally urged Guterres to take the necessary measures that would prevent a repetition of such profanity, calling on the UN chief to demand the world body’s members to “seriously confront those ordering and perpetrating such [insulting] actions.”
Separately, in a tweet on Thursday evening, the minister strongly slammed the act of desecration and the Swedish government’s “irresponsible” measure to allow it to happen.
“Insulting beliefs and divine texts have no place in divine religions,” he wrote.
“Iran, along with other Islamic countries and those that revere holy books, is ready to take coordinated deterrent measures,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

“Sweden’s Envoy Summoned 
Meanwhile, Iran summoned Sweden’s ambassador to Tehran over the second incident of state-authorized desecration of the Holy Quran in the Swedish capital, conveying the Islamic Republic’s vehement protest against the heinous act of blasphemy.
The Swedish envoy was summoned by Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani on Thursday.
“We strongly condemn the repeated desecration of the Nobel Quran and Islamic sanctities in Sweden, and consider the Swedish government to be fully responsible for the fallout from provocation of the sentiments of the world’s Muslims,” Kanaani told the Swedish diplomat.
Hours before the planned desecration, hundreds of Iraqi protesters amassed outside the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, scaling its walls and setting fire to parts of it.
Baghdad expelled Sweden’s envoy and withdrew its ambassador from Stockholm.
“Continuation of disrespect against the Islamic sanctities and hatemongering in this way serves as a complete example of organized violence and is considered to be a hostile measure against the world’s two-billion-strong Muslim population, God-fearing people, and followers of divine religions,” Kanaani told the Swedish envoy.
The spokesman asked how come Sweden, which lays claim to respecting human and civil rights, had come to brook such an act of profanity against the rights of the world’s Muslim population, around one million among whom reside in Sweden.
The Iranian official reminded the envoy that the United Nations Human Rights Council had recently passed a resolution condemning the desecration of the Holy Quran, denouncing Sweden’s disregard for international ratifications that had witnessed Stockholm allowing repetition of the act of sacrilege.
Denouncing the Swedish government for its efforts to try and justify such profanity under the banner of “freedom of speech,” Kanaani said freedom of speech should not feature “violation of the dignity and religious sanctities” of other people.