Monitoring Desk
ISTANBUL: Arab nations strongly condemn a recent attack on Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an, in The Hague, Netherlands, warning that it tried to rend the peaceful social coexistence and cause deliberate offense to one of the great faiths of the world.
A Monday social media video showed Edwin Wagensveld, a far-right Dutch politician and leader of the Islamophobic group Pegida, tearing out pages from a copy of the holy book, the Qur’an, in The Hague, Netherlands. The video then showed the Islamophobic group’s burning the torn-out pages of the holy book in a pan.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry voiced the kingdom’s condemnation of the incident, calling it a “provocative step towards the religious feelings of millions of Muslims.”
The Emirati Foreign Ministry also denounced the incident, stressing “the need to respect religious sanctities and symbols and to refrain from polarization and incitement.”
Qatar Foreign Ministry in a statement also condemned the incident, saying this “heinous incident is an act of incitement and a serious religious provocation to the feelings of over 2 billion Muslims worldwide” and warning against “allowing recurrence of violations of the holy book of Qur’an under the guise of freedom of expression.”
Desecration of the holy Qur’an hurt feelings of Muslims
The Foreign Ministry of Egypt slammed the incident as “a blatant act that goes beyond the limits of the rights of freedom of expression and violates the sanctities of Muslims.” The ministry stressed that European countries witnessing the rise of Islamophobic acts are responsible for preventing any recurrence of such provocations.
The Foreign Ministry of Jordan also condemned the “extremist” incident, warning that it “fuels violence and hatred, threatens peaceful coexistence, and destabilizes stability and security,” calling for respect for religious symbols, sanctities, and an end to hatred.
The Foreign Ministry of Palestine decried the incident as “a flagrant attack on the religious feelings of millions of Muslims,” calling for global action to stop such provocations and criminalize perpetrators of these acts.
The Foreign Ministry of Oman strongly condemned the incident, stressing “the need for concerted global efforts to consolidate the values of tolerance, respect, and coexistence, and to criminalize all acts that promote the ideology of hatred and extremism and offend religions and beliefs.”
The Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) Secretary-general, Nayef Al-Hajraf, condemned the incident and warned that “such actions would provoke and inflame the religious feelings of Muslims across the world.” In a statement, OIC also strongly condemned the incident.
The provocation came close on the heels of a similar incident last Saturday in which an extremist Swedish-Danish politician, Rasmus Paludan, burned a copy of the holy Qur’an near the Turkish Embassy in the Swedish capital Stockholm, triggering outrage both in Türkiye and worldwide.
