Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday vehemently condemned the most recent incident of the desecration of the Holy Quran in Sweden and vowed to launch a campaign to end the Nordic state's sacrilege of holy books.
The prime minister pledged to ensure that the government helps create a common strategy to eliminate evil, using the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) platform.
Moreover, the PM said the OIC must play its role in representing the sentiments of the Muslim Ummah and do away with this evil. The PM pledged to launch a campaign to reverse the decision to allow the desecration of the Torah, the Bible and the Holy Quran.
The PM's remarks came after a man stomped on the Quran outside Iraq's embassy in Stockholm on Thursday but did not ignite the book, hours after protesters stormed Sweden's Baghdad embassy over a possible burning of the Muslim holy book.
Salwan Momika, 37, stomped and kicked the Quran but left the protest without burning pages of the book — as he had done less than a month earlier at a similar protest outside Stockholm's main mosque.
He said the permission to desecrate the holy books, persons, and rituals was not the freedom of expression but, rather, a way to constantly torment the world.
The sequence of events evidenced that this was not a freedom of expression but part of a political and satanic agenda, he said.
“The whole world of Islam and Christianity must collectively stop this conspiracy. Satan’s followers are blaspheming the holy book which gave human beings dignity, rights and guidance."
The prime minister said that the decision to allow the desecration of the Torah and the Gospel encouraged desecrators.
This is the promotion of hatred which is not allowed under international law and such attitudes of religious incitement, provocation to terrorism and violence were fatal to world peace.
"These behaviors are highly abhorrent and condemnable both legally and morally," the prime minister remarked.
Furthermore, Pakistan has condemned in the “strongest possible terms” yet another Islamophobic act of public desecration of the Holy Quran in Sweden.
The Foreign Office spokesperson said in a statement that permission to carry out premeditated and provocative acts of religious hatred cannot be justified under the guise of freedom of expression, opinion and protest.
The spokesperson said that international law categorically obliged states to prevent and prohibit deliberate incitement to hatred, discrimination and violence on the basis of religion or belief.
She reiterated Pakistan’s call on the international community to condemn these Islamophobic acts unequivocally.
— With additional input from Radio Pakistan and AFP
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