BAGHDAD: Several thousand Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad on Saturday over the burning or damaging of the Holy Quran in Sweden and Denmark.
Protesters gathered in Baghdad amid heavy security measures, with bridges leading to the Green Zone that houses many foreign embassies shut after an attempt by demonstrators to get to the Danish Embassy in the early hours of Saturday.
That attempt, repelled by Iraqi security forces who fired tear gas, came 48 hours after the Swedish Embassy was overrun and set alight in protest at a planned burning of the Quran in Stockholm.
Iraq condemned the attack on the Swedish Embassy but also expelled the Swedish ambassador in protest at the planned burning of the Quran.
On Friday in Denmark, a man set fire to a book purported to be the Quran on a square across from the Iraqi Embassy in Copenhagen. The event was live-streamed on the Facebook platform of a group that calls itself “Danish Patriots”.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen condemned it as an act of “stupidity” by a few individuals, telling national broadcaster, “It is a disgraceful act to insult the religion of others”.
“This applies to the burning of Qrans and other religious symbols. It has no other purpose than to provoke and create division,” he said. He noted however that burning religious books was not a crime in Denmark.
Iran’s foreign ministry said it had summoned the Danish ambassador to protest. Tehran urged Denmark and Sweden to take action, saying Muslims around the world expected the desecration to be stopped.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said the Danish government was responsible for preventing insults to Muslim symbols, as well as punishing offenders. Muslims awaited practical action, he added/
Iran, which has delayed the posting of a new ambassador to Sweden, also said it was reciprocally not accepting a new Swedish envoy over the attacks on the Koran.
The Iraqi presidency meanwhile called in a statement for international organisations and Western governments “to stop incitement and hate practices, whatever their pretexts”.
It also warned Iraqis against being drawn into what it described as a “plot of sedition” which it said aimed to show Iraq was unsafe for foreign missions. The protests in Baghdad over the Quran burnings have been led by supporters of influential Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr.
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