Today, Tuesday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation called on the governments of European countries to take strict punitive measures against those who insult the Holy Qur’an by burning copies of the Noble Qur’an in Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.
This came according to a statement by the organization - which includes 57 countries - after an emergency meeting at its headquarters in Jeddah, western Saudi Arabia, days after copies of the Holy Quran were burned in incidents that sparked widespread condemnation from Arab and Islamic countries.
And the organization stated - in a statement - that it held an extraordinary meeting of its executive committee in order to express the organization's unified position regarding the burning of copies of the Noble Qur'an in Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.
During the meeting, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Hussein Taha, renewed his dissatisfaction with the provocative actions carried out by far-right activists in Europe.
He said relevant governments should take strict punitive measures, especially since such provocations have been committed time and again by right-wing extremists in their countries.
He also called on all concerned authorities and parties to take firm measures to prevent the recurrence of such provocations in the future.
Taha stressed that these deliberate acts of burning the Qur’an and insulting the shrine of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) should not be seen as mere incidents of “Islamophobia.”
And he stressed that these actions are a direct insult to all Muslims, who number about 1.6 billion people, according to the statement.
On Friday, the leader of the far-right "Hard Line" party, Rasmus Paludan, burned a copy of the Qur'an in front of the Turkish embassy in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, under police protection, moments after it was burned in front of a mosque.
And he had previously burned a copy of the Qur’an on January 21 near the Turkish embassy in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, also under strict police protection.
And last week, the leader of the extremist anti-Islam "Pegida" movement in the Netherlands, Edwin Wagensfeld, burned a copy of the Qur'an after it was torn and desecrated in The Hague, the administrative capital, about 3 months after he was arrested while he was carrying out the same provocative act.
These abuses caused an uproar in the Islamic world, and Turkey considered it a "provocative act" of hate crimes, and canceled a visit by Swedish Defense Minister Pal Johnson to Ankara.
The parliaments of the 57 member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, in a closing statement of its 17th conference, condemned what it described as the "programmed" burning of the Qur'an in European countries, describing it as "barbaric practices."