The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman on Thursday strongly condemned Sweden for permitting the burning of Quran that desecrated the Islamic holy book.
The move authorized by a Swedish court is “provocative, unwise and unacceptable,” especially during the Hajj pilgrimage and Muslim Eid al-Adha festival, Nasser Kanaani said in a statement published on the ministry’s website.
He called on the Swedish government to prevent the recurrence of such events, noting insulting holy books is an instance of inciting violence and hatemongering and contradicts the original human rights values.
In Sweden’s capital Stockholm on Wednesday, a person said to be an Iraqi national burned a copy of Quran outside the central mosque of Stockholm.
In a similar incident in January, Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the Danish far-right political party Hard Line, burned a copy of Quran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, and repeated the move in front of a mosque in Denmark’s capital Copenhagen a week later.