The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Sunday said collective measures were needed to prevent acts of desecration of the Holy Quran and international law should be used to stop religious hatred after the holy book was burned in a protest in Sweden.
The statement was issued after an extraordinary meeting in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah called to discuss Wednesday’s incident of the Holy Quran’s desecration in Sweden.
“We must send constant reminders to the international community regarding the urgent application of international law, which clearly prohibits any advocacy of religious hatred,” OIC Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha said.
A man, who fled from Iraq to Sweden several years ago, tore up and burned the Holy Quran outside Stockholm’s central mosque on the first day of Eidul Azha in the country. He was charged by Swedish police with agitation against an ethnic or national group and a violation of a ban on fires that was in place in Stockholm since mid-June.
The act drew strong criticism from several countries, including Pakistan, Turkiye, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iraq and Iran.
The OIC had announced a day after the incident that it would be convening an emergency meeting of its executive committee to discuss the matter.
The intergovernmental organisation of 57 countries had said in a statement that the meeting was called by Saudi Arabia in its capacity as chair of the Islamic Summit Conference and would take place at the OIC headquarters in the Saudi city of Jeddah.
