Sweden condemns Quran burning

STOCKHOLM — Sweden's government on Sunday condemned last week's burning of a Quran outside Stockholm's main mosque, calling it an "Islamophobic" act, after an international Islamic body called for measures to prevent future burnings.

"The Swedish Government fully understands that the Islamophobic acts committed by individuals at demonstrations in Sweden can be offensive to Muslims," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"We strongly condemn these acts, which in no way reflect the views of the Swedish government."

The condemnation came in response to a call for collective measures to prevent future Quran burnings from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

The 57-member body met at its Jeddah headquarters to respond to Wednesday's incident in which a 37-year-old Iraqi citizen living in Sweden, Salwan Momika, stomped on the Islamic holy book and set several pages alight.

The OIC urged member states to "take unified and collective measures to prevent the recurrence of incidents of desecration "of copies of the Quran, according to a statement released after the extraordinary meeting.

"The burning of the Quran, or any other holy text, is an offensive and disrespectful act and a clear provocation. Expressions of racism, xenophobia and related intolerance have no place in Sweden or in Europe," the Swedish foreign ministry said.

Countries, including Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates, have summoned Swedish ambassadors in protest against the burning incident.

Saudi Arabia has summoned Sweden's ambassador to denounce the incident, the official Saudi Press Agency reported on Monday.

The foreign ministry summoned the ambassador on Sunday to urge Sweden "to stop all actions that directly contradict international efforts seeking to spread the values of tolerance, moderation and rejection of extremism, and undermine the necessary mutual respect for relations between peoples and states", the agency reported.

Swedish police had granted Momika a permit in line with free speech protections, but authorities later said they had opened an investigation over "agitation against an ethnic group".

On Sunday, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran is holding off sending its new ambassador to Sweden, Hojjatollah Faghani, following the burning.

Agencies via Xinhua